His father, whose name is unknown, was distinguished for his learning
and virtue, and his grandfather, called Lamprias, was also as
conspicuous for his eloquence and the fecundity of his genius. Under
Ammonius, a reputable teacher at Delphi, Plutarch was made acquainted
with philosophy and mathematics, and so well established was his
character, that he was appointed by his countrymen, while yet very
young, to go to the Roman proconsul, in their name, upon an affair of
the most important nature. This commission he executed with honour to
himself, and with success for his country. He afterwards travelled in
quest of knowledge, and after he had visited, like a philosopher and
an historian, the territories of Egypt and Greece, he retired to Rome,
where he opened a school. His reputation made his school frequented.
The emperor Trajan admired his abilities, and honoured him with the
office of consul, and appointed him governor of Illyricum. After
the death of his imperial benefactor, Plutarch removed from Rome to
Chæronea, where he lived in the greatest tranquillity, respected by
his fellow-citizens, and raised to all the honours which his native
town could bestow. In this peaceful and solitary retreat, Plutarch
closely applied himself to study, and wrote the greatest part of
his works, and particularly his Lives. He died in an advanced age
at Chæronea, about the 140th year of the christian era. Plutarch
had five children by his wife, called Timoxena, four sons and one
daughter. Two of the sons and the daughter died when young, and those
that survived were called Plutarch and Lamprias, and the latter did
honour to his father’s memory, by giving to the world an ♦accurate
catalogue of his writings. In his private and public character,
the historian of Chæronea was the friend of discipline. He boldly
asserted the natural right of mankind, liberty; but he recommended
obedience and submissive deference to magistrates, as necessary to
preserve the peace of society. He supported that the most violent
and dangerous public factions arose too often from private disputes
and from misunderstanding. To render himself more intelligent, he
always carried a commonplace book with him, and he preserved with
the greatest care whatever judicious observations fell in the course
of conversation. The most esteemed of his works are his lives of
illustrious men, of whom he examines and delineates the different
characters with wonderful skill and impartiality. He neither
misrepresents the virtues, nor hides the foibles of his heroes. He
writes with precision and with fidelity, and though his diction is
neither pure nor elegant, yet there is energy and animation, and
in many descriptions he is inferior to no historian. In some of his
narrations, however, he is often too circumstantial, his remarks are
often injudicious; and when he compares the heroes of Greece with
those of Rome, the candid reader can easily remember which side of
the Adriatic gave the historian birth. Some have accused him of not
knowing the genealogy of his heroes, and have censured him for his
superstition; yet for all this, he is the most entertaining, the
most instructive, and interesting of all the writers of ancient
history; and were a man of true taste and judgment asked what book
he wished to save from destruction, of all the profane compositions
of antiquity, he would perhaps without hesitation reply, the Lives
of Plutarch. In his moral treatises, Plutarch appears in a different
character, and his misguided philosophy and erroneous doctrines
render some of these inferior compositions puerile and disgusting.
They, however, contain many useful lessons and curious facts,
and though they are composed without connection, compiled without
judgment, and often abound with improbable stories and false
reasonings, yet they contain much information and many useful
reflections. The best editions of Plutarch are that of Francfort,
2 vols., folio, 1599; that of Stephens, 6 vols., 8vo, 1572; the
Lives by Reiske, 12 vols., 8vo, Lipscomb. 1775; and the Moralia,
&c., by Wyttenbach. _Plutarch._――――A native of Eretria, during the
Peloponnesian war. He was defeated by the Macedonians. _Plutarch_,
_Phocion_.
♦ ‘acurate’ replaced with ‘accurate’
=Plutia=, a town of Sicily. _Cicero_, _Against Verres_.
=Pluto=, a son of Saturn and Ops, inherited his father’s kingdom with
his brothers Jupiter and Neptune. He received as his lot the kingdom
of hell, and whatever lies under the earth, and as such he became
the god of the infernal regions, of death and funerals. From his
functions, and the place he inhabited, he received different names.
He was called _Dis_, _Hades_, or _Ades_, _Clytopolon_, _Agelastus_,
_Orcus_, &c. As the place of his residence was obscure and gloomy,
all the goddesses refused to marry him; but he determined to obtain
by force what was denied to his solicitations. As he once visited
the island of Sicily, after a violent earthquake, he saw Proserpine
the daughter of Ceres gathering flowers in the plains of Enna,
with a crowd of female attendants. He became enamoured of her, and
immediately carried her away upon his chariot drawn by four horses.
To make his retreat more unknown, he opened himself a passage through
the earth, by striking it with his trident in the lake of Cyane in
Sicily, or, according, to others, on the borders of the Cephisus
in Attica. Proserpine called upon her attendants for help, but in
vain, and she became the wife of her ravisher, and the queen of hell.
Pluto is generally represented as holding a sceptre with two teeth;
he has also keys in his hand, to intimate that whoever enters his
kingdom can never return. He is looked upon as a hard-hearted and
inexorable god, with a grim and dismal countenance, and for that
reason no temples were raised to his honour, as to the rest of the
superior gods. Black victims, and particularly a bull, were the
only sacrifices which were offered to him, and their blood was
not sprinkled on the altars, or received in vessels, as at other
sacrifices, but it was permitted to run down into the earth, as if
it were to penetrate as far as the realms of the god. The Syracusans
yearly sacrificed to him black bulls, near the fountain of Cyane,
where, according to the received traditions, he had disappeared
with Proserpine. Among plants, the cypress, the narcissus, and the
maiden-hair were sacred to him, as also everything which was deemed
inauspicious, particularly the number two. According to some of the
ancients, Pluto sat on a throne of sulphur, from which issued the
rivers Lethe, Cocytus, Phlegethon, and Acheron. The dog Cerberus
watched at his feet, the Harpies hovered round him, Proserpine
sat on his left hand, and near to the goddess stood the Eumenides,
with their heads covered with snakes. The Parcæ occupied the right,
and they each held in their hands the symbols of their office, the
distaff, the spindle, and the scissors. Pluto is called by some the
father of the Eumenides. During the war of the gods and the Titans,
the Cyclops made a helmet which rendered the bearer invisible, and
gave it to Pluto. Perseus was armed with it when he conquered the
Gorgons. _Hesiod_, _Theogony_.――_Homer_, _Iliad_.――_Apollodorus_,
bk. 1, &c.――_Hyginus_, fable 155; _Poetica Astronomica_, bk. 2.
――_Statius_, _Thebaid_, bk. 8.――_Diodorus_, bk. 5.――_Ovid_,
_Metamorphoses_, bk. 5, fable 6.――_Pausanias_, bk. 2, ch. 36.
――_Orpheus_, hymn 17, &c.――_Cicero_, _de Natura Deorum_, bk. 2,
ch. 26.――_Plato_, _The Republic_.――_Euripides_, _Medea_; _Hippolytus_.
――_Aeschylus_, _Persians_; _Prometheus Bound_.――_Varro_, _de Lingua
Latina_, bk. 4.――_Catullus_, poem 3.――_Virgil_, _Georgics_, bk. 4,
li. 502; _Æneid_, bk. 6, li. 273; bk. 8, li. 296.――_Lucan_, bk. 6,
li. 715.――_Horace_, bk. 2, odes 3 & 18.――_Seneca_, _Hercules Furens_.
=Plutonium=, a temple of Pluto in Lydia. _Cicero_, _De Divinatione_,
bk. 1, ch. 36.
=Plutus=, a son of Jasion, or Jasius, by Ceres the goddess of corn,
has been confounded by many of the mythologists with Pluto, though
plainly distinguished from him as being the god of riches. He was
brought up by the goddess of peace, and on that account, Pax was
represented at Athens as holding the god of wealth in her lap. The
Greeks spoke of him as of a fickle divinity. They represented him
as blind, because he distributed riches indiscriminately; he was
lame, because he came slow and gradually; but had wings, to intimate
that he flew away with more velocity than he approached mankind.
_Lucian_, _Timon_.――_Pausanias_, bk. 9, chs. 16 & 26.――_Hyginus_,
_Poetica Astronomica_.――_Aristophanes_, _Plutus_.――_Diodorus_, bk. 5.
――_Hesoid_, _Theogony_, li. 970.――_Dionysius of Halicarnassus_, bk. 1,
ch. 53.
=Pluvius=, a surname of Jupiter as god of _rain_. He was invoked by
that name among the Romans, whenever the earth was parched up with
continual heat, and was in want of refreshing showers. He had an
altar in the temple on the capitol. _Tibullus_, bk. 1, poem 7, li. 26.
=Plynteria=, a festival among the Greeks, in honour of Aglauros, or
rather of Minerva, who received from the daughter Cecrops the name
of Aglauros. The word seems to be derived from πλυνειν, _lavare_,
because, during the solemnity, they undressed the statue of the
goddess and _washed_ it. The day on which it was observed was
universally looked upon as unfortunate and inauspicious, and on
that account no person was permitted to appear in the temples, as
they were purposely surrounded with ropes. The arrival of Alcibiades
in Athens that day, was deemed very unfortunate; but, however, the
success that ever after attended him, proved it to be otherwise. It
was customary at this festival to bear in procession a cluster of
figs, which intimated the progress of civilization among the first
inhabitants of the earth, as figs served them for food after they had
found a dislike for acorns. _Pollux._
=Pnigeus=, a village of Egypt, near Phœnicia. _Strabo_, bk. 16.
=Pnyx=, a place of Athens, set apart by Solon for holding assemblies.
_Cornelius Nepos_, _Atticus_, ch. 3.――_Plutarch_, _Theseus_ &
_Themistocles_.
=Poblicius=, a lieutenant of Pompey in Spain.
=Podalirius=, a son of Æsculapius and Epione. He was one of the pupils
of the Centaur Chiron, and he made himself under him such a master
of medicine, that, during the Trojan war, the Greeks invited him to
their camp, to stop a pestilence which had baffled the skill of all
their physicians. Some, however, suppose that he went to the Trojan
war not in the capacity of a physician in the Grecian army, but as a
warrior, attended by his brother Machaon, in 30 ships, with soldiers
from Œchalia, Ithome, and Trica. At his return from the Trojan war,
Podalirius was shipwrecked on the coast of Caria, where he ♦was cured
of the falling sickness and married a daughter of Damœtas the king
of the place. He fixed his habitation there, and built two towns,
one of which he called Syrna, by the name of his wife. The Carians,
after his death, built him a temple, and paid him divine honours.
_Dictys Cretensis._――_Quintus Smyrnæus_, bks. 6 & 9.――_Ovid_ _de
Ars Amatoria_, bk. 2; _Tristia_, poem 6.――_Pausanias_, bk. 3.――――A
Rutulian engaged in the wars of Æneas and Turnus. _Virgil_, _Æneid_,
bk. 12, li. 304.
♦ omitted word ‘was’ inserted
=Podarce=, a daughter of Danaus. _Apollodorus._
=Podarces=, a son of Iphiclus of Thessaly, who went to the Trojan war.
――――The first name of Priam. When Troy was taken by Hercules, he was
redeemed from slavery by his sister Hesione, and from thence received
the name of Priam. _See:_ Priamus.
=Podares=, a general of Mantinea, in the age of Epaminondas.
_Pausanias_, bk. 8, ch. 9.
=Podarge=, one of the Harpies, mother of two of the horses of Achilles
by the Zephyrs. The word intimates the _swiftness_ of her _feet_.
=Podargus=, a charioteer of Hector. _Homer._
=Pœas=, son of Thaumacus, was among the Argonauts.――――The father of
Philoctetes. The son is often called _Pœantia proles_, on account of
his father. _Ovid_, _Metamorphoses_, bk. 13, li. 45.
=Pœcĭle=, a celebrated portico at Athens, which received its name from
the _variety_ (ποικιλος) of paintings which it contained. It was
there that Zeno kept his school, and the stoics also received their
lessons there, whence their name (_à_ στοα, _a porch_). The Pœcile
was adorned with pictures of gods and benefactors, and among many
others were those of the siege and sacking of Troy, the battle of
Theseus against the Amazons, the fight between the Lacedæmonians and
Athenians at Œnoe in Argolis, and of Atticus the great friend of
Athens. The only reward which Miltiades obtained after the battle of
Marathon, was to have his picture drawn more conspicuous than that of
the rest of the officers that fought with him, in the representation
which was made of the engagement, which was hung up in the Pœcile,
in commemoration of that celebrated victory. _Cornelius Nepos_,
_Miltiades_ & _Atticus_, ch. 3.――_Pausanias_, bk. 1.――_Pliny_, bk. 35.
=Pœni=, a name given to the Carthaginians. It seems to be a corruption
of the word _Phœni_ or _Phœnices_, as the Carthaginians were of
Phœnician origin. _Servius_, _on Virgil_, bk. 1, li. 302.
=Pœon.= _See:_ Pæon.
=Pœonia=, a part of Macedonia. _See:_ Pæonia.
=Pœus=, a part of mount Pindus.
=Pogon=, a harbour of the Trœzenians on the coast of the Peloponnesus.
It received this name on account of its appearing to come forward
before the town of Trœzene, as the _beard_ (πωγων) does from the chin.
_Strabo_, bk. 1.――_Mela_, bk. 2.
=Pola=, a city of Istria, founded by the Colchians, and afterwards
made a Roman colony, and called _Pietas Julia_. _Pliny_, bk. 3, ch. 9.
――_Mela_, bk. 2, ch. 3.――_Strabo_, bks. 1 & 5.
=Polemarchus.= _See:_ Archon.――――The assassin of Polydorus king of
Sparta. _Pausanias_, bk. 3, ch. 3.
=Polemocratia=, a queen of Thrace, who fled to Brutus after the murder
of Cæsar. She retired from her kingdom because her subjects had
lately murdered her husband.
=Pŏlĕmon=, a youth of Athens, son of Philostratus. He was much given
to debauchery and extravagance, and spent the greatest part of his
life in riot and drunkenness. He once, when intoxicated, entered the
school of Xenocrates, while the philosopher was giving his pupils a
lecture upon the effects of intemperance, and he was so struck with
the eloquence of the academician, and the force of his arguments,
that from that moment he renounced the dissipated life he had led,
and applied himself totally to the study of philosophy. He was
then in the 30th year of his age, and from that time he never drank
any other liquor but water; and after the death of Xenocrates he
succeeded in the school where his reformation had been affected. He
died about 270 years before Christ, in an extreme old age. _Diogenes
Laërtius_, _Lives_.――_Horace_, bk. 2, satire 3, li. 254.――_Valerius
Maximus_, bk. 6, ch. 9.――――A son of Zeno the rhetorician, made king
of Pontus by Antony. He attended his patron in his expedition against
Parthia. After the battle of Actium, he was received into favour by
Augustus, though he had fought in the cause of Antony. He was killed
some time after by the barbarians near the Palus Mæotis, against
whom he had made war. _Strabo._――_Dionysius of Halicarnassus._――――His
son, of the same name, was confirmed on his father’s throne by Roman
emperors, and the province of Cilicia was also added to his kingdom
by Claudius.――――An officer in the army of Alexander, intimate with
Philotas, &c. _Curtius_, bk. 7, ch. 1, &c.――――A rhetorician at Rome,
who wrote a poem on weights and measures still extant. He was master
to Perseus the celebrated satirist, and died in the age of Nero.――――A
sophist of Laodice in Asia Minor, in the reign of Adrian. He was
often sent to the emperor with an embassy by his countrymen, which he
executed with great success. He was greatly favoured by Adrian, from
whom he extracted much money. In the 56th year of his age he buried
himself alive, as he laboured with the gout. He wrote declamations in
Greek.
=Polemonium=, now _Vatija_, a town of Pontus, at the east of the mouth
of the ♦Thermodon.
♦ ‘Theomodon’ replaced with ‘Thermodon’
=Polias=, a surname of Minerva, as protectress of cities.
=Polichna=, a town of Troas on Ida. _Herodotus_, bk. 6, ch. 28.
――――Another of Crete. _Thucydides_, bk. 2, ch. 85.
=Polieia=, a festival at Thebes in honour of Apollo, who was
represented there with _grey hair_ (πολιος), contrary to the practice
of all other places. The victim was a bull, but when it happened
once that no bull could be found, an ox was taken from the cart and
sacrificed. From that time the sacrifice of labouring oxen was deemed
lawful, though before it was looked upon as a capital crime.
=Poliorcētes= (_destroyer of cities_), a surname given to Demetrius son
of Antigonus. _Plutarch_, _Demetrius_.
=Polisma=, a town of Troas, on the Simois. _Strabo_, bk. 13.
=Polistrătus=, an Epicurean philosopher born the same day as
Hippoclides, with whom he always lived in the greatest intimacy. They
both died at the same hour. _Diogenes Laërtius._――_Valerius Maximus_,
bk. 1.
=Polītes=, a son of Priam and Hecuba, killed by Pyrrhus in his father’s
presence. _Virgil_, _Æneid_, bk. 2, li. 526, &c. His son, who bore
the same name, followed Æneas into Italy, and was one of the friends
of young Ascanius. _Virgil_, _Æneid_, bk. 5, li. 564.
=Politorium=, a city of the Latins destroyed by the Romans, before
Christ 639. _Livy_, bk. 1, ch. 33.
=Pollinea=, a prostitute, &c. _Juvenal_, satire 2, li. 68.
=Polla Argentaria=, the wife of the poet Lucan. She assisted her
husband in correcting the three first books of his Pharsalia.
_Statius_, _Sylvæ_, bks. 1 & 2.
=Pollentia=, now _Polenza_, a town of Liguria in Italy, famous for wool.
There was a celebrated battle fought there between the Romans and
Alaric king of the Huns, about the 403rd year of the christian era,
in which the former, according to some, obtained the victory. _Mela_,
bk. 2, ch. 7.――_Pliny_, bk. 8, ch. 48.――_Suetonius_, _Tiberius_, ch.
37.――_Silius Italicus_, bk. 8, li. 598.――_Cicero_, bk. 11, _Letters
to his Friends_, ltr. 13.――――A town of Majorca. _Pliny_ & _Mela_.
――――Of Picenum. _Livy_, bk. 39, ch. 44; bk. 41, ch. 27.
=Polles=, a Greek poet whose writings were so obscure and unintelligible
that his name became proverbial. _Suidas._
=Pollio Caius Asinius=, a Roman consul under the reign of Augustus,
who distinguished himself as much by his eloquence and writings as by
his exploits in the field. He defeated the Dalmatians, and favoured
the cause of Antony against Augustus. He patronized, with great
liberality, the poets Virgil and Horace, who have immortalized him
in their writings. He was the first who raised a public library at
Rome, and indeed his example was afterwards followed by many of the
emperors. In his library were placed the statues of all the learned
men of every age, and Varro was the only person who was honoured
there during his lifetime. He was with Julius Cæsar when he crossed
the Rubicon. He was greatly esteemed by Augustus, when he had become
one of his adherents, after the ruin of Antony. Pollio wrote some
tragedies, orations, and a history, which was divided into 17 books.
All those compositions are lost, and nothing remains of his writings
except a few letters to Cicero. He died in the 80th year of his age,
A.D. 4. He is the person in whose honour Virgil has inscribed his
fourth eclogue, _Pollio_, as a reconciliation was effected between
Augustus and Antony during his consulship. The poet, it is supposed
by some, makes mention of a son of the consul born about this time,
and is lavish in his excursions into futurity, and his predictions
of approaching prosperity. _Paterculus_, bk. 2, ch. 86.――_Horace_,
bk. 2, ode 1; satire 10, bk. 1.――_Virgil_, _Eclogues_, poems 3 & 4.
――_Valerius Maximus_, bk. 8, ch. 13.――_Quintilian_, bk. 10.――――Annius,
a man accused of sedition before Tiberius, and acquitted. He
afterwards conspired against Nero, &c. _Tacitus_, ♦_Annals_, bk. 6,
ch. 9; bk. 15, ch. 56.――――Vedius, one of the friends of Augustus, who
used to feed his fishes with human flesh. This cruelty was discovered
when one of his servants broke a glass in the presence of Augustus,
who had been invited to a feast. The master ordered the servant to be
seized; but he threw himself at the feet of the emperor, and begged
him to interfere, and not to suffer him to be devoured by fishes.
Upon this the causes of his apprehension were examined, and Augustus,
astonished at the barbarity of his favourite, caused his servant to
be dismissed, all the fish-ponds to be filled up, and the crystal
glasses of Pollio to be broken to pieces.――――A man who poisoned
Britannicus, at the instigation of Nero.――――An historian in the age
of Constantine the Great.――――A sophist in the age of Pompey the Great.
――――A friend of the emperor Vespasian.
♦ Book title omitted in text
=Pollis=, a commander of the Lacedæmonian fleet defeated at Naxos, B.C.
377. _Diodorus._
=Pollius Felix=, a friend of the poet Statius, to whom he dedicated his
second Sylva.
=Pollupex=, now _Final_, a town of Genoa.
=Pollutia=, a daughter of Lucius Vetus, put to death after her husband
Rubellius Plautus, by order of Nero, &c. _Tacitus_, bk. 16, _Annals_,
chs. 10 & 11.
=Pollux=, a son of Jupiter by Leda the wife of Tyndarus. He was brother
to Castor. _See:_ Castor.――――A Greek writer, who flourished A.D. 186,
in the reign of Commodus, and died in the 58th year of his age. He
was born at Naucratis, and taught rhetoric at Athens, and wrote a
useful work called _Onomasticon_, of which the best edition is that
of Hemsterhusius, 2 vols., folio, Amsterdam, 1706.
=Poltis=, a king of Thrace, in the time of the Trojan war.
=Polus=, a celebrated Grecian actor.――――A sophist of Agrigentum.
=Polusca=, a town of Latium, formerly the capital of the Volsci. The
inhabitants were called _Pollustini_. _Livy_, bk. 2, ch. 39.
=Polyænus=, a native of Macedonia, who wrote eight books in Greek of
stratagems, which he dedicated to the emperors Antoninus and Verus,
while they were making war against the Parthians. He wrote also
other books which have been lost, among which was a history, with
a description of the city of Thebes. The best editions of his
stratagems are those of Masvicius, 8vo, Leiden, 1690, and of Mursinna,
12mo, Berlin, 1756.――――A friend of Philopœmen.――――An orator in the
age of Julius Cæsar. He wrote in three books an account of Antony’s
expedition in Parthia, and likewise published orations.――――A
mathematician, who afterwards followed the tenets of Epicurus,
and disregarded geometry as a false and useless study. _Cicero_,
_Academicæ Quæstiones_, bk. 4.
=Polyānus=, a mountain of Macedonia, near Pindus. _Strabo._
=Polyarchus=, the brother of a queen of Cyrene, &c. _Polyænus_, bk. 8.
=Polybidas=, a general after the death of Agesipolis the Lacedæmonian.
He reduced Olynthus.
=Polybius=, or =Poly̆bus=, a king of Corinth, who married Peribœa, whom
some have called Merope. He was son of Mercury by Chthonophyle, the
daughter of Sicyon king of Sicyon. He permitted his wife, who had no
children, to adopt and educate as her own son, Œdipus, who had been
found by his shepherds exposed in the woods. He had a daughter called
Lysianassa, whom he gave in marriage to Talaus son of Bias king of
Argos. As he had no male child, he left his kingdom to Adrastus,
who had been banished from his throne, and who had fled to Corinth
for protection. _Hyginus_, fable 66.――_Pausanias_, bk. 2, ch. 6.
――_Apollodorus_, bk. 3, ch. 5.――_Seneca_, _Œdipus_, li. 812.