PARMA, _dim._ PARMŬLA, a round shield, three feet in diameter,
carried by the _velites_ in the Roman army. Though small, compared
with the CLIPEUS, it was so strongly made as to be a very effectual
protection. This was probably owing to the use of iron in its
frame-work. The parma was also worn by the cavalry. We find the term
_parma_ often applied to the target [CETRA], which was also a small
round shield, and therefore very similar to the parma.
[Illustration: Parma. (From the Columna Trajana.)]
PĂROCHI, certain people paid by the state to supply the Roman
magistrates, ambassadors, and other official persons, when
travelling, with those necessaries which they could not conveniently
carry with them. They existed on all the principal stations on the
Roman roads in Italy and the provinces, where persons were accustomed
to pass the night. Of the things which the parochi were bound to
supply, hay, fire-wood, salt, and a certain number of beds appear to
have been the most important.
PĂROPSIS (παροψίς), any food eaten with the ὅψον as the μάζα, a kind
of frumenty or soft cake, broth, or any kind of condiment or sauce.
It was, likewise, the name of the dish or plate, on which such food
was served up, and it is in this latter signification that the Roman
writers use the word.
PARRĬCĪDA, PARRĬCĪDĬUM. A parricida signified originally a murderer
generally, and is hence defined to be a person who kills another
_dolo malo_. It afterwards signified the murderer of a parent, and by
an ancient law such a parricide was sewed up in a sack (_culleus_),
and thrown into a river. A law of the dictator Sulla contained some
provisions against parricide, and probably fixed the same punishment
for the parricide, as the Lex Pompeia de Parricidiis, passed in the
time of Cn. Pompeius. This law extended the crime of parricide to the
killing of a brother, sister, uncle, aunt, and many other relations,
and enacted that he who killed a father or mother, grandfather or
grandmother, should be punished (_more majorum_) by being whipped
till he bled, sewed up in a sack with a dog, cock, viper, and ape,
and thrown into the sea. Other parricides were simply put to death.
PASSUS, a measure of length, which consisted of five Roman feet.
[PES.] The passus was not the step, or distance from heel to heel,
when the feet were at their utmost ordinary extension, but the
distance from the point which the heel leaves to that in which it is
set down. The _mille passuum_, or thousand paces, was the common name
of the Roman mile. [MILLIARE.]