A Smaller Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities

by William Smith

P

PAEAN (παιήων, παιάν, παιών), a hymn or song, which was originally sung in honour of Apollo. It was always of a joyous nature, and its tune and sounds expressed hope and confidence. It was a song of thanksgiving, when danger was passed, and also a hymn to propitiate the god. It was sung at the solemn festivals of Apollo, and especially at the Hyacinthia. The paean was also sung as a battle-song, both before an attack on the enemy and after the battle was finished. It is certain that the paean was in later times sung to the honour of other gods besides Apollo. Thus Xenophon relates that the Greek army in Asia sung a paean to Zeus.

PAEDĂGŌGUS (παιδαγωγός), a tutor. The office of tutor in a Grecian family of rank and opulence was assigned to one of the most trustworthy of the slaves. The sons of his master were committed to his care on attaining their sixth or seventh year, their previous education having been conducted by females. They remained with the tutor until they attained the age of puberty. His duty was rather to guard them from evil, both physical and moral, than to communicate instruction. He went with them to and from the school or the [Gymnasium]; he accompanied them out of doors on all occasions; he was responsible for their personal safety, and for their avoidance of bad company. In the Roman empire the name paedagogi or paedagogia was given to beautiful young slaves, who discharged in the imperial palace the duties of the modern page, which is in fact a corruption of the ancient name.

PAEDŎNŎMUS (παιδονόμος), a magistrate at Sparta, who had the general superintendence of the education of the boys.

PAENŬLA, a thick cloak, chiefly used by the Romans in travelling, instead of the toga, as a protection against the cold and rain. It appears to have had no sleeves, and only an opening for the head, as shown in the following figure.

Paenula, travelling cloak. (From Bartholini.)

PĀGĀNĀLĬA. [[Pagi].]

PĀGĀNI. [[Pagi].]

PĀGI were fortified places in the neighbourhood of Rome, to which the country-people might retreat in case of a hostile inroad. Each of the country tribes is said to have been divided by Numa into a certain number of pagi; which name was given to the country adjoining the fortified village, as well as to the village itself. There was a magistrate at the head of each pagus, who kept a register of the names and of the property of all persons in the pagus, raised the taxes, and summoned the people, when necessary, to war. Each pagus had its own sacred rites, and an annual festival called Paganalia. The pagani, or inhabitants of the pagi, had their regular meetings, at which they passed resolutions. The division of the country-people into pagi continued to the latest times of the Roman empire. The term Pagani is often used in opposition to milites, and is applied to all who were not soldiers, even though they did not live in the country. The Christian writers gave the name of pagani to those persons who adhered to the old Roman religion, because the latter continued to be generally believed by the country-people, after Christianity became the prevailing religion of the inhabitants of the towns.

PĂLAESTRA (παλαίστρα), properly means a place for wrestling (παλαίειν, πάλη), and appears to have originally formed a part of the gymnasium. At Athens, however, there was a considerable number of palaestrae, quite distinct from the gymnasia. It appears most probable that the palaestrae were chiefly appropriated to the exercises of wrestling and of the pancratium, and were principally intended for the athletae, who, it must be recollected, were persons that contended in the public games, and therefore needed special training. The Romans had originally no places corresponding to the Greek gymnasia and palaestrae; and when towards the close of the republic wealthy Romans, in imitation of the Greeks, began to build places for exercise in their villas, they called them indifferently gymnasia and palaestrae.

PĂLĪLIA, a festival celebrated at Rome every year on the 21st of April, in honour of Pales, the tutelary divinity of shepherds. The 21st of April was the day on which, according to the early traditions of Rome, Romulus had commenced the building of the city, so that the festival was at the same time solemnised as the dies natalitius of Rome. It was originally a shepherd-festival, and continued to be so among country people till the latest times, but in the city it lost its original character, and was only regarded as the dies natalitius of Rome. The first part of the solemnities was a public purification by fire and smoke. The things burnt in order to produce this purifying smoke were the blood of the October-horse, the ashes of the calves sacrificed at the festival of Ceres, and the shells of beans. The people were also sprinkled with water, they washed their hands in spring-water, and drank milk mixed with must. As regards the October-horse (equus October) it must be observed that in early times no bloody sacrifice was allowed to be offered at the palilia, and the blood of the October-horse mentioned above, was the blood which had dropped from the tail of the horse sacrificed in the month of October to Mars in the Campus Martius. This blood was preserved by the vestal virgins in the temple of Vesta for the purpose of being used at the palilia. The sacrifices consisted of cakes, millet, milk, and other kinds of eatables. The shepherds then offered a prayer to Pales. After these solemn rites were over, the cheerful part of the festival began: bonfires were made of heaps of hay and straw, and the festival was concluded by a feast in the open air, at which the people sat or lay upon benches of turf, and drank plentifully.

PALLĬUM, dim. PALLIŎLUM, poet. PALLA (ἱμάτιον, dim. ἱματίδιον; Ion. and poet. φᾶρος), an outer garment. The English cloak, though commonly adopted as the translation of these terms, conveys no accurate conception of the form, material, or use of that which they denoted. The article designated by them was always a rectangular piece of cloth, exactly, or at least nearly square. It was indeed used in the very form in which it was taken from the loom, being made entirely by the weaver, without any aid from the tailor, except to repair the injuries which it sustained by time. Whatever additional richness and beauty it received from the art of the dyer, was bestowed upon it before its materials were woven into cloth or even spun into thread. Most commonly it was used without having undergone any process of this kind. The raw material, such as wool, flax, or cotton, was manufactured in its natural state, and hence pallia were commonly white, although from the same cause brown, drab, and grey were also prevailing colours. As the pallium was the most common outer garment, we find it continually mentioned in conjunction with the tunica, which constituted the indutus. Such phrases as “coat and waistcoat,” or “shoes and stockings,” are not more common with us than the following expressions, which constantly occur in ancient authors: tunica palliumque, ἱμάτιον καὶ χιτών, τὸ ἱμάτιον καὶ ὁ χιτωνίσκος, φᾶρος ἠδὲ χιτών, &c. To wear the pallium without the underclothing indicated poverty or severity of manners, as in the case of Socrates. One of the most common modes of wearing the pallium was to fasten it with a brooch over the right shoulder, leaving the right arm at liberty, and to pass the middle of it either under the left arm so as to leave that arm at liberty also, or over the left shoulder so as to cover the left arm. The figure in the preceding cut is attired in the last-mentioned fashion.

Pallium. (Museo Pio-Clement., vol. i. tav. 48.)

PALMA. [[Pes].]

PALMĬPES, a Roman measure of length, equal to a foot and a palm.

PALMUS, properly the width of the open hand, or, more exactly, of the four fingers, was used by the Romans for two different measures of length, namely, as the translation of the Greek παλαιστή, or δῶρον in old Greek, and σπιθαμή respectively. In the former sense it is equal to 4 digits, or 3 inches, or 1-4th of a foot, or 1-6th of the cubit. The larger palm of 9 inches only occurs in later Roman writers. From this large palmus the modern Roman palmo is derived.

Paludamentum, Military Cloak. (Statue of a Roman Emperor.)

PĂLŪDĀMENTUM, the cloak worn by a Roman general commanding an army, his principal officers and personal attendants, in contradistinction to the sagum of the common soldiers, and the toga or garb of peace. It was the practice for a Roman magistrate, after he had received the imperium from the comitia curiata and offered up his vows in the Capitol, to march out of the city arrayed in the paludamentum (exire paludatus), attended by his lictors in similar attire (paludatis lictoribus), nor could he again enter the gates until he had formally divested himself of this emblem of military power. The paludamentum was open in front, reached down to the knees or a little lower, and hung loosely over the shoulders, being fastened across the chest by a clasp. The colour of the paludamentum was commonly white or purple, and hence it was marked and remembered that Crassus on the morning of the fatal battle of Carrhae went forth in a dark-coloured mantle. In the cut below, representing the head of a warrior, we see the paludamentum flying back in the charge, and the clasp nearly in front.

Paludamentum, Military Cloak. (From a Mosaic at Pompeii.)

PAMBOEŌTĬA (παμβοιώτια), a festive panegyris of all the Boeotians, like the Panathenaea of the Atticans, and the Panionia of the Ionians. The principal object of the meeting was the common worship of Athena Itonia, who had a temple in the neighbourhood of Coronea, near which the panegyris was held.

PĂNĂTHĒNAEA (παναθήναια), the greatest and most splendid of the festivals celebrated in Attica in honour of Athena, in the character of Athena Polias, or the protectress of the city. It was said to have been instituted by Erichthonius, and its original name, down to the time of Theseus, was believed to have been Athenaea; but when Theseus united all the Atticans into one body, this festival, which then became the common festival of all the Attic tribes, was called Panathenaea. There were two kinds of Panathenaea, the greater and the lesser; the former were held every fourth year (πενταετηρίς), the latter every year. The lesser Panathenaea were probably celebrated on the 17th of the month Hecatombaeon; the great Panathenaea in the third year of every Olympiad, and probably commenced on the same day as the lesser Panathenaea. The principal difference between the two festivals was, that the greater one was more solemn, and that on this occasion the peplus of Athena was carried to her temple in a most magnificent procession, which was not held at the lesser Panathenaea. The solemnities, games, and amusements of the Panathenaea were, rich sacrifices of bulls, foot, horse, and chariot races, gymnastic and musical contests, and the lampadephoria; rhapsodists recited the poems of Homer and other epic poets, philosophers disputed, cock-fights were exhibited, and the people indulged in a variety of other amusements and entertainments. The prize in these contests was a vase filled with oil from the ancient and sacred olive tree of Athena on the Acropolis. A great many of such vases, called Panathenaic vases, have in late years been found in Etruria, southern Italy, Sicily, and Greece. They represent on one side the figure of Athena, and on the other the various contests and games in which these vases were given as prizes to the victors. Of the discussions of philosophers and orators at the Panathenaea we still possess two specimens, the λόγος Παναθηναικός of Isocrates, and that of Aristeides. Herodotus is said to have recited his history to the Athenians at the Panathenaea. The management of the games and contests was entrusted to persons called Athlothetae (ἀθλοθέται), whose number was ten, one being taken from every tribe. Their office lasted from one great Panathenaic festival to the other. The chief solemnity of the great Panathenaea was the magnificent procession to the temple of Athena Polias, which probably took place on the last day of the festive season. The whole of the procession is represented in the frieze of the Parthenon, the work of Phidias and his disciples, now deposited in the British Museum. The chief object of the procession was to carry the peplus of the goddess to her temple. This peplus was a crocus-coloured garment for the goddess, and made by maidens, called ἐργαστῖναι. In it were woven Enceladus and the giants, as they were conquered by the goddess. The peplus was not carried to the temple by men, but suspended from the mast of a ship. The procession proceeded from the Ceramicus, near a monument called Leocorium, to the temple of Demeter at Eleusis, and thence along the Pelasgic wall and the temple of Apollo Pythius to the Pnyx, and thence to the Acropolis, where the statue of Minerva Polias was adorned with the peplus. In this procession nearly the whole population of Attica appears to have taken part, either on foot, on horseback, or in chariots, as may be seen in the frieze of the Parthenon. Aged men carried olive branches, and were called Thallophori (θαλλοφόροι); young men attended, at least in earlier times, in armour, and maidens who belonged to the noblest families of Athens carried baskets, containing offerings for the goddess, whence they were called Canephori (κανηφόροι). Respecting the part which aliens took in this procession, and the duties they had to perform, see [Hydriaphoria]. Men who had deserved well of the republic were rewarded with a gold crown at the great Panathenaea, and the herald had to announce the event during the gymnastic contests.

Pancratiastae. (Krause, Gymnastik und Agonistik der Hellen, tav. 21.)

PANCRĂTĬUM (παγκράτιον), is derived from πάν and κράτος, and accordingly signifies an athletic game, in which all the powers of the fighter were called into action. The pancratium was one of the games or gymnastic contests which were exhibited at all the great festivals of Greece; it consisted of boxing and wrestling (πυγμή and πάλη), and was reckoned to be one of the heavy or hard exercises (ἀγωνίσματα βαρέα or βαρύτερα), on account of the violent exertions it required, and for this reason it was not much practised in the gymnasia. In Homer we find neither the game nor the name of the pancratium mentioned, and as it was not introduced at the Olympic games until Ol. 33, we may presume that the game, though it may have existed long before in a rude state, was not brought to any degree of perfection until a short time before that event. The name of the combatants was Pancratiastae (παγκρατιασταί) or Pammachi (πάμμαχοι). They fought naked, and had their bodies anointed and covered with sand, by which they were enabled to take hold of one another. When the contest began, each of the fighters might commence by boxing or by wrestling, accordingly as he thought he should be more successful in the one than in the other. The victory was not decided until one of the parties was killed, or lifted up a finger, thereby declaring that he was unable to continue the contest either from pain or fatigue.

PĂNĒGỸRIS (πανήγυρις), signifies a meeting or assembly of a whole people for the purpose of worshipping at a common sanctuary. The word is used in three significations:—1. For a meeting of the inhabitants of one particular town and its vicinity; 2. For a meeting of the inhabitants of a whole district, a province, or of the whole body of people belonging to a particular tribe [[Delia]; [Panionia]]; and 3. For great national meetings, as the Olympic, Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean games. Although in all panegyreis which we know, the religious character forms the most prominent feature, other subjects, political discussions and resolutions, as well as a variety of amusements, were not excluded, though they were perhaps more a consequence of the presence of many persons than objects of the meeting. Every panegyris, moreover, was made by tradespeople a source of gain, and it may be presumed that such a meeting was never held without a fair, at which all sorts of things were exhibited for sale.

PĂNIŌNĬA (πανιώνια), the great national panegyris of the Ionians on mount Mycalé, where the national god Poseidon Heliconius had his sanctuary called the Panionium. One of the principal objects of this national meeting was the common worship of Poseidon, to whom splendid sacrifices were offered on the occasion. But religious worship was not the only object for which they assembled at the Panionium; on certain emergencies, especially in case of any danger threatening their country, the Ionians discussed at their meetings political questions, and passed resolutions which were binding upon all.

PĂNOPLĬA (πανοπλία), a panoply or suit of armour. The articles of which it consisted both in the Greek and in the Roman army, are enumerated under [Arma].

PANTŎMĪMUS, the name of a kind of actors peculiar to the Romans, who very nearly resembled in their mode of acting the modern dancers in the ballet. They did not speak on the stage, but merely acted by gestures, movements, and attitudes. All movements, however, were rhythmical like those in the ballet, whence the general term for them is saltatio, saltare; the whole art was called musica muta; and to represent Niobe or Leda was expressed by saltare Nioben and saltare Ledam. During the time of the republic the name pantomimus does not occur, though the art itself was known to the Romans at an early period; for the first histriones said to have been introduced from Etruria were in fact nothing but pantomimic dancers [[Histrio]], whence we find that under the empire the names histrio and pantomimus were used as synonymous. The pantomimic art, however, was not carried to any degree of perfection until the time of Augustus. The greatest pantomimes of this time were Bathyllus, a freedman and favourite of Maecenas, and Pylades and Hylas. Mythological love-stories were from the first the favourite subjects of the pantomimes, which were disgraced by the most licentious scenes. In Sicily pantomimic dances were called ballismi (βαλλισμοί), whence perhaps the modern words ball and ballet.

PĂPȲRUS. [[Liber].]

PĂRĂDĪSUS (παράδεισος), the name given by the Greeks to the parks or pleasure-grounds, which surrounded the country residences of the Persian kings and satraps. They were generally stocked with animals for the chase, were full of all kinds of trees, watered by numerous streams, and enclosed with walls.

PĂRĂGRĂPHĒ (παραγραφή). This word does not exactly correspond with any term in our language, but may without much impropriety be called a plea. It is an objection raised by the defendant to the admissibility of the plaintiff’s action. The paragraphé, like every other answer (ἀντιγραφή) made by the defendant to the plaintiff’s charge, was given in writing; as the word itself implies. If the defendant merely denied the plaintiff’s allegations, a court was at once held for the trial of the cause. If, however, he put in a paragraphé, a court was to be held to try the preliminary question, whether the cause could be brought into court or not. Upon this previous trial the defendant was considered the actor. If he succeeded, the whole cause was at an end; unless the objection was only to the form of action, or some other such technicality, in which case it might be recommenced in the proper manner. If, however, the plaintiff succeeded, the original action, which in the mean time had been suspended, was proceeded with.

PĂRĂLUS (πάραλος), and SĂLAMĪNĬA (σαλαμινία). The Athenians from very early times kept for public purposes two sacred or state vessels, the one of which was called Paralus and the other Salaminia: the crew of the one bore the name of παραλῖται or πάραλοι, and that of the other σαλαμίνιοι. The Salaminia was also called Δηλία or Θεωρίς, because it was used to convey the θεωροὶ to Delos, on which occasion the ship was adorned with garlands by the priest of Apollo. Both these vessels were quick-sailing triremes, and were used for a variety of state purposes: they conveyed theories, despatches, &c. from Athens, carried treasures from subject countries to Athens, fetched state criminals from foreign parts to Athens, and the like. In battles they were frequently used as the ships in which the admirals sailed. These vessels and their crews were always kept in readiness to act, in case of any necessity arising; and the crew, although they could not for the greater part of the year be in actual service, received their regular pay of four oboli per day all the year round. The names of the two ships seem to point to a very early period of the history of Attica, when there was no navigation except between Attica and Salamis, for which the Salaminia was used, and around the coast of Attica, for which purpose the Paralus was destined. In later times the names were retained, although the destination of the ships was principally to serve the purposes of religion, whence they are frequently called the sacred ships.

PĂRĂNOIĀS GRĂPHĒ (παρανοίας γραφή). This proceeding may be compared to our commission of lunacy, or writ de lunatico inquirendo. It was a suit at Athens that might be instituted by a son or other relation against one who, by reason of madness or mental imbecility, had become incapable of managing his own affairs. If the complaint was well grounded, the court decreed that the next heir should take possession of the lunatic’s property, and probably also made some provision for his being put in confinement, or under proper care and guardianship. The celebrated tale of Iophon, the son of Sophocles, accusing his father of lunacy, is related in the life of Sophocles in the Classical Dictionary.

PĂRĂNŎMŌN GRĂPHĒ (παρανόμων γραφή), an indictment at Athens for propounding an illegal, or rather unconstitutional measure or law. In order to check rash and hasty legislation, the mover of any law or decree, though he succeeded in causing it to be passed, was still amenable to criminal justice, if his enactment was found to be inconsistent with other laws that remained in force, or with the public interest. Any person might institute against him the γραφὴ παρανόμων within a year from the passing of the law. If he was convicted, not only did the law become void, but any punishment might be inflicted on him, at the discretion of the judges before whom he was tried. A person thrice so convicted lost the right of proposing laws in future. The cognizance of the cause belonged to the Thesmothetae.

PĂRAPRESBEIA (παραπρεσβεία), signifies any corrupt conduct, misfeasance, or neglect of duty on the part of an ambassador; for which he was liable to be called to account and prosecuted on his return home. Demosthenes accused Aeschines of Parapresbeia on account of his conduct in the embassy to Philip.

PĂRĂPHERNA. [[Dos].]

PĂRĂSANGA (ὁ παρασάγγης), a Persian measure of length, frequently mentioned by the Greek writers. It is still used by the Persians, who call it ferseng. According to Herodotus the parasang was equal to 30 Greek stadia. Xenophon must also have calculated it at the same, as he says that 16,050 stadia are equal to 535 parasangs. (16,050 ÷ 535 = 30.) Other ancient writers give a different length for the parasang. Modern English travellers estimate it variously at from 3½ to 4 English miles, which nearly agrees with the calculation of Herodotus.

PĂRĂSĪTI (παράσιτοι) properly denotes persons who dine with others. In the early history of Greece the name had a very different meaning, being given to distinguished persons, who were appointed as assistants to certain priests and to the highest magistrates. Their services appear to have been rewarded with a third of the victims sacrificed to their respective gods. Such officers existed down to a late period of Greek history. Solon in his legislation called the act of giving public meals to certain magistrates and foreign ambassadors in the prytaneum παρασιτεῖν, and it may be that the parasites were connected with this institution. The class of persons whom we call parasites was very numerous in ancient Greece, and appears to have existed from early times. The characteristic features common to all parasites are importunity, love of sensual pleasures, and above all the desire of getting a good dinner without paying for it. During the time of the Roman emperors a parasite seems to have been a constant guest at the tables of the wealthy.

PĂRĔDRI (πάρεδροι). Each of the three superior archons was at liberty to have two assessors (πάρεδροι) chosen by himself, to assist him by advice and otherwise in the performance of his various duties. The assessor, like the magistrate himself, had to undergo a docimasia (δοκιμασία) in the Senate of Five Hundred and before a judicial tribunal, before he could be permitted to enter upon his labours. He was also to render an account (εὐθύνη) at the end of the year. The duties of the archons, magisterial and judicial, were so numerous, that one of the principal objects of having assessors must have been to enable them to get through their business. From the paredri of the archons we must distinguish those who assisted the euthyni in examining and auditing magistrates’ accounts.

PĂRENTĀLĬA. [[Funus].]

PĂRĬES. [[Domus].]

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.

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].]

PĂTER FĂMĬLIAE. [[Familia]; [Matrimonium].]

PĂTER PĂTRĀTUS. [[Fetiales].]

PĂTĔRA, dim. PĂTELLA (φιάλη), a round plate or dish. The paterae of the most common kind were small plates of the common red earthenware, on which an ornamental pattern was drawn, and which were sometimes entirely black. The more valuable paterae were metallic, being chiefly of bronze; but every family, raised above poverty, possessed one of silver, together with a silver salt-cellar. The accompanying cut exhibits a highly ornamented patera, made of bronze. The view of the upper surface is accompanied by a side-view, showing the form and depth of the vessel.

Patera. (From Pompeii.)

PĂTĬBŬLUM. [[Furca].]

PĂTĬNA (λεκάνη), a basin or bowl of earthenware, rarely of bronze or silver. The patina was of a form intermediate between the patera and the olla, not so flat as the former, nor so deep as the latter. The most frequent use of the patina was in cookery.

PATRES. [[Patricii].]

PĂTRĬA POTESTAS. Potestas signifies generally a power or faculty of any kind by which we do anything. “Potestas,” says Paulus, a Roman jurist, “has several significations: when applied to magistrates, it is Imperium; in the case of children, it is the patria potestas; in the case of slaves, it is Dominium.” According to Paulus then, potestas, as applied to magistrates, is equivalent to imperium. Thus we find potestas associated with the adjectives praetoria, consularis. But potestas is applied to magistrates who had not the imperium, as for instance to quaestors and tribuni plebis; and potestas and imperium are often opposed in Cicero. [[Imperium].] Thus it seems that this word potestas, like many other Roman terms, had both a wider signification and a narrower one. In its wider signification it might mean all the power that was delegated to any person by the state, whatever might be the extent of that power. In its narrower significations, it was on the one hand equivalent to imperium; and on the other, it expressed the power of those functionaries who had not the imperium. Sometimes it was used to express a magistratus, as a person; and hence in the Italian language the word podestà signifies a magistrate. Potestas is also one of the words by which is expressed the power that one private person has over another, the other two being manus and mancipium. The potestas is either dominica, that is, ownership as exhibited in the relation of master and slave [[Servus]]; or patria as exhibited in the relation of father and child. The mancipium was framed after the analogy of the potestas dominica. [[Mancipium].] Patria potestas then signifies the power which a Roman father had over the persons of his children, grandchildren, and other descendants (filii-familias, filiae-familias), and generally all the rights which he had by virtue of his paternity. The foundation of the patria potestas was a legal marriage, and the birth of a child gave it full effect. [[Matrimonium].] It does not seem that the patria potestas was ever viewed among the Romans as absolutely equivalent to the dominica potestas, or as involving ownership of the child; and yet the original notion of the patria came very near to that of the dominica potestas. Originally the father had the power of life and death over his son as a member of his familia; and he could sell him, and so bring him into the mancipii causa. He could also give his daughter in marriage, or give a wife to his son, divorce his child, give him in adoption, and emancipate him at his pleasure.

PATRĬCĬI. This word is evidently a derivative from pater, which frequently occurs in the Roman writers as equivalent to senator. Patricii therefore signifies those who belonged to the patres, but it is a mistake to suppose that the patricii were only the offspring of the patres in the sense of senators. On the contrary, the patricians were, in the early history of Rome, the whole body of Roman citizens, the populus Romanus, and there were no real citizens besides them. The other parts of the Roman population, namely clients and slaves, did not belong to the populus Romanus, and were not burghers or patricians. The senators or patres (in the narrower sense of the word) were a select body of the populus or patricians, which acted as their representatives. The burghers or patricians consisted originally of three distinct tribes, which afterwards became united into the sovereign populus. These tribes had founded settlements upon several of the hills which were subsequently included within the precincts of the city of Rome. Their names were Ramnes, Tities, and Luceres, or Ramnenses, Titienses, and Lucerenses. Each of these tribes consisted of ten curiae, and each curia of ten gentes, and of the same number of decuries, which were established for representative and military purposes. [[Senatus].] The first tribe, or the Ramnes, were a Latin colony on the Palatine hill, said to have been founded by Romulus. As long as it stood alone, it contained only one hundred gentes, and had a senate of one hundred members. When the Tities, or Sabine settlers on the Quirinal and Viminal hills, under king Tatius, became united with the Ramnes, the number of gentes, as well as that of senators, was increased to 200. These two tribes after their union continued probably for a considerable time to be the patricians of Rome, until the third tribe, the Luceres, which chiefly consisted of Etruscans, who had settled on the Caelian hill, also became united with the other two as a third tribe. The amalgamation of these three tribes did not take place at once: the union between Latins and Sabines is ascribed to the reign of Romulus, though it does not appear to have been quite perfect, since the Latins on some occasions claimed a superiority over the Sabines. The Luceres existed for a long time as a separate tribe without enjoying the same rights as the two other tribes, until Tarquinius Priscus, himself an Etruscan, caused them to be placed on a footing of equality with the others. For this reason he is said to have increased the number of senators to 300. The Luceres, however, are, notwithstanding this equalisation, sometimes distinguished from the other tribes by the name patres or patricii minorum gentium. During the time of the republic, distinguished strangers and wealthy plebeians were occasionally made Roman patricians; for instance, Appius Claudius and his gens, and Domitius Ahenobarbus. When the plebeians became a distinct class of citizens [[Plebes]], the patricians, of course, ceased to be the only class of citizens, but they still retained the exclusive possession of all the power in the state. All civil and religious offices were in their possession, and they continued as before to be the populus, the nation now consisting of the populus and the plebes. In their relation to the plebeians or the commonalty, the patricians were a real aristocracy of birth. A person born of a patrician family was and remained a patrician, whether he was rich or poor, whether he was a member of the senate, or an eques, or held any of the great offices of the state, or not: there was no power that could make a patrician a plebeian. As regards the census, he might indeed not belong to the wealthy classes, but his rank remained the same. The only way in which a patrician might become a plebeian was when of his own accord he left his gens and curia, gave up the sacra, &c. A plebeian, on the other hand, or even a stranger, might be made a patrician by a lex curiata. But this appears to have been done very seldom; and the consequence was, that in the course of a few centuries the number of patrician families became so rapidly diminished, that towards the close of the republic there were not more than fifty such families. Although the patricians throughout this whole period had the character of an aristocracy of birth, yet their political rights were not the same at all times. During the first centuries of the republic there was an almost uninterrupted struggle between patricians and plebeians, in which the former exerted every means to retain their exclusive rights, but which ended in the establishment of the political equality of the two orders. [[Plebes].] Only a few insignificant priestly offices, and the performance of certain ancient religious rites and ceremonies, remained the exclusive privilege of the patricians; of which they were the prouder, as in former days their religious power and significance were the basis of their political superiority. At the time when the struggle between patricians and plebeians ceased, a new kind of aristocracy began to arise at Rome, which was partly based upon wealth, and partly upon the great offices of the republic, and the term nobiles was given to all persons whose ancestors had held any of the curule offices. (Compare [Nobiles].) This aristocracy of nobiles threw the old patricians as a body still more into the shade, though both classes of aristocrats united as far as was possible to monopolise all the great offices of the state. In their dress and appearance the patricians were scarcely distinguished from the rest of the citizens, unless they were senators, curule magistrates, or equites, in which case they wore like others the ensigns peculiar to these classes. The only thing by which they seem to have been distinguished in their appearance from other citizens was a peculiar kind of shoe, which covered the whole foot and part of the leg, though it was not as high as the shoes of senators and curule magistrates. These shoes were fastened with four strings (corrigiae or lora patricia) and adorned with a lunula on the top.

PĂTRĪMI ET MĀTRĪMI were children born of parents, who had been married by the religious ceremony called confarreatio: they are almost always mentioned in connection with religious rites and ceremonies.

PĂTRŎNŎMI (πατρονόμοι), magistrates at Sparta, who exercised, as it were, a paternal power over the whole state. They did not exist till a late period, and they succeeded to the powers which the ephori formerly possessed.

PĂTRŌNUS. The act of manumission created a new relation between the manumissor and the slave, which was analogous to that between father and son. The manumissor became with respect to the manumitted person his patronus, and the manumitted person became the libertus of the manumissor. The word patronus (from pater) indicates the nature of the relation. If the manumissor was a woman, she became patrona. The libertus adopted the gentile name of the manumissor. Cicero’s freedman Tiro was called M. Tullius Tiro. The libertus owed respect and gratitude to his patron, and in ancient times the patron might punish him in a summary way for neglecting those duties. This obligation extended to the children of the libertus, and the duty was due to the children of the patron. It was the duty of the patron to support his freedman in case of necessity, and if he did not, he lost his patronal rights; the consequence was the same if he brought a capital charge against him. The most important of the patronal rights related to the property of liberti, as in certain cases the patronus had a right to the whole or a part of the property of a libertus.

PAUPĔRĬES, the legal term for mischief done by an animal (quadrupes) contrary to the nature of the animal, as if a man’s ox gored another man. In such cases the law of the Twelve Tables gave the injured person an action against the owner of the animal for the amount of the damage sustained. The owner was bound either to pay the full amount of damages or to give up the animal to the injured person (noxae dare).

PĂVĪMENTUM. [[Domus], [p. 144], b.]

PECTEN (κτείς), a comb. The Greeks and Romans used combs made of box-wood. The Egyptians had ivory combs, which also came into use by degrees among the Romans. The wooden combs, found in Egyptian tombs, are toothed on one side only; but the Greeks used them with teeth on both sides. The principal use of the comb was for dressing the hair, in doing which the Greeks of both sexes were remarkably careful and diligent. To go with uncombed hair was a sign of affliction.

PĔCŬLĀTUS, is properly the misappropriation or theft of public property. The person guilty of this offence was peculator. The origin of the word appears to be pecus, a term which originally denoted that kind of moveable property which was the chief sign of wealth. Originally trials for peculatus were before the populus or the senate. In the time of Cicero matters of peculatus had become one of the quaestiones perpetuae.

PĔCŪLĬUM. [[Servus].]

PĔCŪNĬA. [[Aes]; [Argentum]; [Aurum].]

PĔDĀRĬI. [[Senatus].]

PĔDĬSĔQUI, a class of slaves, whose duty was to follow their master when he went out of his house. There was a similar class of female slaves, called Pedisequae.

PĔDUM (κορώνη), a shepherd’s crook. On account of its connection with pastoral life, the crook is often seen in works of ancient art, in the hands of Pan, Satyrs, Fauns, and shepherds. It was also the usual attribute of Thalia, as the muse of pastoral poetry.

Pedum, Shepherd’s Crook. (From a Painting found at Civita Vecchia.)

PEGMA (πῆγμα), a pageant, i.e. an edifice of wood, consisting of two or more stages (tabulata), which were raised or depressed at pleasure by means of balance weights. These great machines were used in the Roman amphitheatres, the gladiators who fought upon them being called pegmares. They were supported upon wheels so as to be drawn into the circus, glittering with silver and a profusion of wealth. When Vespasian and Titus celebrated their triumph over the Jews, the procession included pageants of extraordinary magnitude and splendour, consisting of three or four stages above one another, hung with rich tapestry, and inlaid with ivory and gold. By the aid of various contrivances they represented battles and their numerous incidents, and the attack and defence of the cities of Judaea. The pegma was also used in sacrifices. A bull having been slain in one of the stages, the high priest placed himself below in a cavern, so as to receive the blood upon his person and his garments, and in this state he was produced by the flamines before the worshippers.

PĔLĂTAE (πελάται), were free labourers working for hire, like the thetes, in contra-distinction to the helots and penestae, who were bondsmen or serfs. In the later Greek writers, such as Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and Plutarch, the word is used for the Latin cliens, though the relations expressed by the two terms are by no means similar.

PELTA (πέλτη), a small shield. Iphicrates, observing that the ancient [Clipeus] was cumbrous and inconvenient, introduced among the Greeks a much smaller and lighter shield, from which those who bore it took the name of peltastae. It consisted principally of a frame of wood or wicker-work, covered with skin or leather.

PĔNESTAE (πενέσται), a class of serfs in Thessaly, who stood in nearly the same relation to their Thessalian lords as the helots of Laconia did to the Dorian Spartans, although their condition seems to have been on the whole superior. They were the descendants of the old Pelasgic or Aeolian inhabitants of Thessaly Proper. They occupied an intermediate position between freemen and purchased slaves, and they cultivated the land for their masters, paying by way of rent a portion of the produce of it. The Penestae sometimes accompanied their masters to battle, and fought on horseback as their vassals: a circumstance which need not excite surprise, as Thessaly was so famous for cavalry. There were Penestae among the Macedonians also.

PĔNĔTRĀLE. [[Templum].]

PĒNĬCILLUS. [[Pictura], [p. 295] a.]

PENTĂCOSĬŎMĔDIMNI. [[Census].]

PENTATHLON (πένταθλον, quinquertium), was next to the pancratium the most beautiful of all athletic performances. The persons engaged in it were called Pentathli (πένταθλοι). The pentathlon consisted of five distinct kinds of games, viz. leaping (ἅλμα), the foot-race (δρόμος), the throwing of the discus (δίσκος), the throwing of the spear (σίγυννος or ἀκόντιον), and wrestling (πάλη), which were all performed in one day and in a certain order, one after the other, by the same athletae. The pentathlon was introduced in the Olympic games in Ol. 18.

PENTĒCOSTĒ (πεντηκοστή), a duty of two per cent, levied upon all exports and imports at Athens. The money was collected by persons called πεντηκοστολόγοι. The merchant who paid the duty was said πεντηκοντεύεσθαι. All the customs appear to have been let to farm, and probably from year to year. They were let to the highest bidders by the ten Poletae, acting under the authority of the senate. The farmers were called τελῶναι, and were said ὠνεῖσθαι τὴν πεντηκοστήν.

PEPLUM or PEPLUS (πέπλος), an outer garment or shawl, strictly worn by females, and thus corresponding to the himation or pallium, the outer garment worn by men. Like all other pieces of cloth used for the [Amictus], it was often fastened by means of a brooch. It was, however, frequently worn without a brooch. The shawl was also often worn so as to cover the head while it enveloped the body, and more especially on occasion of a funeral or of a marriage, when a very splendid shawl (παστός) was worn by the bride. The following woodcut may be supposed to represent the moment when the bride, so veiled, is delivered to her husband at the door of the nuptial chamber. He wears the [Pallium] only; she has a long shift beneath her shawl, and is supported by the pronuba. Of all the productions of the loom, pepli were those on which the greatest skill and labour were bestowed. So various and tasteful were the subjects which they represented, that poets delighted to describe them. The art of weaving them was entirely oriental; and those of the most splendid dyes and curious workmanship were imported from Tyre and Sidon. They often constituted a very important part of the treasures of a temple, having been presented to the divinity by suppliants and devotees.

Peplum. (Bartoli, ‘Admir. Rom. Ant.,’ pl. 57.)

PĒRA (πήρα), a wallet, made of leather, worn suspended at the side by rustics and by travellers to carry their provisions, and adopted in imitation of them by the Cynic philosophers.

PERDŬELLĬO was in the ancient times of the republic nearly the same as the Majestas of the later times. [[Majestas].] Perduellis originally signified hostis, and thus the offence was equivalent to making war on the Roman state. Offenders were tried by two judges called Perduellionis Duumviri. In the time of the kings the duumviri perduellionis and the quaestores parricidii appear to have been the same persons; but after the establishment of the republic, the offices were distinct, for the quaestores were appointed regularly every year, whereas the duumviri were appointed very rarely, as had been the case during the kingly period. Livy represents the duumviri perduellionis as being appointed by the kings, but they were really proposed by the king and appointed by the populus. During the early part of the republic they were appointed by the comitia curiata, and afterwards by the comitia centuriata, on the proposal of the consuls. In the case of Rabirius (B.C. 63), however, this custom was violated, as the duumviri were appointed by the praetor instead of by the comitia centuriata. The punishment for those who were found guilty of perduellio was death; they were either hanged on the arbor infelix, or thrown from the Tarpeian rock. But when the duumviri found a person guilty, he might appeal to the people (in early times the populus, afterwards the comitia centuriata), as was done in the first case which is on record, that of Horatius, and in the last, which is that of Rabirius, whom Cicero defended before the people in the oration still extant.

PĔRĔGRĪNUS, a stranger or foreigner. In ancient times the word peregrinus was used as synonymous with hostis; but in the times of which we have historical records, a peregrinus was any person who was not a Roman citizen. In B.C. 247, a second praetor (praetor peregrinus) was appointed for the purpose of administering justice in matters between Romans and peregrini, and in matters between such peregrini as had taken up their abode at Rome. [[Praetor].] The number of peregrini who lived in the city of Rome appears to have had an injurious influence upon the poorer classes of Roman citizens, whence on some occasions they were driven out of the city. The first example of this kind was set in B.C. 127, by the tribune M. Junius Pennus. They were expelled a second time by the tribune C. Papius, in B.C. 66. During the last period of the republic and the first centuries of the empire, all the free inhabitants of the Roman world were, in regard to their political rights, either Roman citizens, or Latins, or peregrini, and the latter had, as before, neither commercium nor connubium with the Romans. They were either free provincials, or citizens who had forfeited their civitas, and were degraded to the rank of peregrini, or a certain class of freedmen, called peregrini dediticii.

PĔRĬOECI (περίοικοι). This word properly denotes the inhabitants of a district lying around some particular locality, but is generally used to describe a dependent population, living without the walls or in the country provinces of a dominant city, and although personally free, deprived of the enjoyment of citizenship, and the political rights conferred by it. A political condition such as that of the perioeci of Greece, and like the vassalage of the Germanic nations, could hardly have originated in anything else than foreign conquest, and the perioeci of Laconia furnish a striking illustration of this. Their origin dates from the Dorian conquest of the Peloponnesus, when the old inhabitants of the country, the Achaeans, submitted to their conquerors on certain conditions, by which they were left in possession of their private rights of citizenship. They suffered indeed a partial deprivation of their lands, and were obliged to submit to a king of foreign race, but still they remained equal in law to their conquerors, and were eligible to all offices of state except the sovereignty. But this state of things did not last long: in the next generation after the conquest the relation between the two parties was changed. The Achaeans were reduced from citizens to vassals; they were made tributary to Sparta; their lands were subjected to a tax; and they lost their rights of citizenship, the right of voting in the general assembly, and their eligibility to important offices in the state, such as that of a senator, &c. It does not, however, appear that the perioeci were generally an oppressed people, though kept in a state of political inferiority to their conquerors. On the contrary, the most distinguished among them were admitted to offices of trust, and they sometimes served as heavy-armed soldiers; as, for instance, at the battle of Plataea. The Norman conquest of England presents a striking parallel to the Dorian conquest of Laconia, both in its achievement and consequences. The Saxons, like the old Achaeans, were deprived of their lands, excluded from all offices of trust and dignity, and reduced, though personally free, to a state of political slavery. The Normans, on the contrary, of whatever rank in their own country, were all nobles and warriors, compared with the conquered Saxons, and for a long time enjoyed exclusively the civil and ecclesiastical administration of the land.

PĔRISCĔLIS (περισκελίς), an anklet or bangle, worn by the Orientals, the Greeks, and the Roman ladies also. It decorated the leg in the same manner as the bracelet adorns the wrist and the necklace the throat. The word, however, is sometimes used in the same sense as the Latin feminalia, that is, drawers reaching from the navel to the knees.

Periscelis, Anklet, worn by a Nereid. (Museo Borbonico, vol. VI. tav. 34.)

PĔRISTRŌMA, a coverlet large enough to hang round the sides of the bed or couch.

PĔRISTȲLĬUM. [[Domus].]

PĒRO (ἀρβύλη), a low boot of untanned hide worn by ploughmen (peronatus arator), shepherds, and others employed in rural occupations. The term ἀρβύλη is applied to an appendage to the Greek chariot. It seems to have been a shoe fastened to the bottom of the chariot, into which the driver inserted his foot, to assist him in driving, and to prevent him from being thrown out.

Masks. (From a Tomb at Sidyma in Lycia.)

PERSŌNA (larva, πρόσωπον or προσωπεῖον), a mask. Masks were worn by Greek and Roman actors in nearly all dramatic representations. This custom arose undoubtedly from the practice of smearing the face with certain juices and colours, and of appearing in disguise, at the festivals of Dionysus. [[Dionysia].] Now, as the Greek drama arose out of these festivals, it is highly probable that some mode of disguising the face was as old as the drama itself. Choerilus of Samos, however, (about B.C. 500) is said to have been the first who introduced regular masks. Other writers attribute the invention of masks to Thespis or Aeschylus, though the latter had probably only the merit of perfecting and completing the whole theatrical apparatus and costume. Some masks covered, like the masks of modern times, only the face, but they appear more generally to have covered the whole head down to the shoulders, for we always find the hair belonging to a mask described as being a part of it; and this must have been the case in tragedy more especially, as it was necessary to make the head correspond to the stature of an actor, which was heightened by the cothurnus.

Comic Mask. (Statue of Davus in British Museum.)

PES (ποῦς), a foot, the standard measure of length among the Greeks and Romans, as well as among nearly all other nations, both ancient and modern. The Romans applied the uncial division [[As]] to the foot, which thus contained 12 unciae, whence our inches; and many of the words used to express certain numbers of unciae are applied to the parts of the foot. It was also divided into 16 digiti (finger-breadths): this mode of division was used especially by architects and land-surveyors, and is found on all the foot-measures that have come down to us. From the analogy of the as, we have also dupondium for 2 feet, and pes sestertius for 2½ feet. The probable value of the Roman foot is 11.6496 inches English. (See [Tables] at the end.)

PESSI. [[Latrunculi].]

PESSŬLUS. [[Janua].]

PĔTĂLISMUS. [[Exsilium].]

PĔTĂSUS. [[Pileus].]

PĔTĪTOR. [[Actor].]

PĔTAURISTAE. [[Petaurum].]

PĔTAURUM (πέταυρον, πέτευρον), used in the Roman games, seems to have been a board moving up and down, with a person at each end, and supported in the middle, something like our see-saw; only it appears to have been much longer, and consequently went to a greater height than is common amongst us. The persons who took part in this game, were called Petauristae or Petauristarii.

PĔTORRĬTUM, a four-wheeled carriage, which, like the [Essedum], was adopted by the Romans in imitation of the Gauls. It differed from the [Harmamaxa] in being uncovered. Its name is compounded of petor, four, and rit, a wheel.

PHĂLANX. [[Exercitus].]

PHĂLĂRĬCA. [[Hasta].]

PHĂLĔRAE (φάλαρον), a boss, disc, or crescent of metal, in many cases of gold, and beautifully wrought so as to be highly prized. They were usually worn in pairs; and we most commonly read of them as ornaments attached to the harness of horses, especially about the head, and often worn as pendants (pensilia), so as to produce a terrific effect when shaken by the rapid motions of the horse. These ornaments were often bestowed upon horsemen by the Roman generals, in the same manner as the [Armilla], the [Torques], the hasta pura [[Hasta]], and the crown of gold [[Corona]], in order to make a public and permanent acknowledgment of bravery and merit.

PHĂRETRA (φαρέτρα), a quiver, was principally made of hide or leather, and was adorned with gold, painting, and braiding. It had a lid (πῶμα), and was suspended from the right shoulder by a belt passing over the breast and behind the back. Its most common position was on the left hip, and is so seen in the annexed figures, the right-hand one representing an Amazon, and the left-hand an Asiatic archer.

Pharetrae, Quivers. (Left-hand figure from the Aeginetan Marbles;
right-hand figure from a Greek Vase.)

PHARMĂCŌN GRĂPHĒ (φαρμάκων or φαρμακείας γραφή), an indictment at Athens against one who caused the death of another by poison, whether given with intent to kill or to obtain undue influence. It was tried by the court of Areiopagus.

PHĂROS or PHĂRUS (φάρος), a light-house. The most celebrated light-house of antiquity was that situated at the entrance to the port of Alexandria, on an island which bore the name of Pharos. It contained many stories, and the upper stories had windows looking seawards, and torches or fires were kept burning in them by night in order to guide vessels into the harbour. The name of Pharos was given to other light-houses, in allusion to that at Alexandria, which was the model for their construction.

PHĂSĒLUS (φάσηλος), a vessel rather long and narrow, apparently so called from its resemblance to the shape of a phaselus or kidney-bean. It was chiefly used by the Egyptians, and was of various sizes, from a mere boat to a vessel adapted for long voyages. The phaselus was built for speed, to which more attention seems to have been paid than to its strength: whence the epithet fragilis is given to it by Horace. These vessels were sometimes made of clay, to which the epithet of Horace may perhaps also refer.

PHASIS (φάσις, from φαίνω), one of the various methods by which public offenders at Athens might be prosecuted; but the word is often used to denote any kind of information; and we do not know in what respects the Phasis was distinguished from other methods of prosecution. The word sycophantes (συκοφάντης) is derived from the practice of laying information against those who exported figs. [[Sycophantes].]

PHORMINX. [[Lyra].]

PHRATRĬA. [[Tribus].]

PHỸLARCHI (φύλαρχοι) were at Athens after the age of Cleisthenes ten officers, one for each of the tribes, and were specially charged with the command and superintendence of the cavalry. There can be but little doubt that each of the phylarchs commanded the cavalry of his own tribe, and they were themselves collectively and individually under the control of the two hipparchs, just as the taxiarchs were subject to the two strategi. Herodotus informs us that when Cleisthenes increased the number of the tribes from four to ten, he also made ten phylarchs instead of four. It has been thought, however, that the historian should have said ten phylarchs in the place of the old phylobasileis, who were four in number, one for each of the old tribes.

PHỸLŎBĂSĬLEIS (φυλοβασιλεῖς) were four in number, representing each one of the four ancient Athenian tribes, and probably elected (but not for life) from and by them. They were nominated from the Eupatridae, and during the continuance of royalty at Athens these “kings of the tribes” were the constant assessors of the sovereign, and rather as his colleagues than counsellors. Though they were originally connected with the four ancient tribes, still they were not abolished by Cleisthenes when he increased the number of tribes, probably because their duties were mainly of a religious character. They appear to have existed even after his time, and acted as judges, but in unimportant or merely formal matters.

PICTŪRA (γραφή, γραφική, ζωγραφία), painting. I. History of the Art. It is singular that the poems of Homer do not contain any mention of painting as an imitative art. This is the more remarkable, since Homer speaks of rich and elaborate embroidery as a thing not uncommon. This embroidery is actual painting in principle, and is a species of painting in practice, and it was considered such by the Romans, who termed it “pictura textilis.” The various allusions also to other arts, similar in nature to painting, are sufficient to prove that painting must have existed in some degree in Homer’s time, although the only kind of painting he notices is the “red-cheeked” and “purple-cheeked ships,” and an ivory ornament for the faces of horses, which a Maeonian or Carian woman colours with purple. Painting seems to have made considerable progress in Asia Minor while it was still in its infancy in Greece, for Candaules, king of Lydia (B.C. 716), is said to have purchased at a high price a painting of Bularchus, which represented a battle of the Magnetes. The old Ionic painting probably flourished at the same time with the Ionian architecture, and continued as an independent school until the sixth century B.C., when the Ionians lost their liberty, and with their liberty their art. Herodotus (i. 164) mentions that when Harpagus besieged the town of Phocaea (B.C. 544), the inhabitants collected all their valuables, their statues and votive offerings from the temples, leaving only their paintings, and such works in metal or of stone as could not easily be removed, and fled with them to the island of Chios; from which we may conclude that paintings were not only valued by the Phocaeans, but also common among them. Herodotus (iv. 88) also informs us that Mandrocles of Samos, who constructed for Darius Hystaspis the bridge of boats across the Bosporus (B.C. 508), had a picture painted, representing the passage of Darius’s army, and the king seated on a throne reviewing the troops as they passed, which he dedicated in the temple of Hera at Samos. After the conquest of Ionia, Samos became the seat of the arts. The Heraeum at Samos, in which the picture of Mandrocles was placed, was a general depository for works of art, and in the time of Strabo appears to have been particularly rich in paintings, for he terms it a “picture-gallery” (πινακοθήκη). The first painter in Greece itself, whose name is recorded, is Cimon of Cleonae. His exact period is uncertain, but he was probably a contemporary of Solon, and lived at least a century before Polygnotus. It was with Polygnotus of Thasos that painting reached its full development (about B.C. 463). Previous to this time the only cities that had paid any considerable attention to painting were Aegina, Sicyon, Corinth, and Athens. Sicyon and Corinth had long been famous for their paintings upon vases and upon articles of furniture; the school of Athens had attained no celebrity whatever until the arrival of Polygnotus from Thasos raised it to that pre-eminence which it continued to maintain for more than two centuries, although very few of the great painters of Greece were natives of Athens. The principal contemporaries of Polygnotus were Dionysius of Colophon, Plistaenetus and Panaenus of Athens, brothers (or the latter perhaps a nephew) of Phidias, and Micon, also of Athens. The works of Polygnotus and his contemporaries were conspicuous for expression, character, and design; the more minute discriminations of tone and local colour, united with dramatic composition and effect, were accomplished in the succeeding generation, about 420 B.C., through the efforts of Apollodorus of Athens and Zeuxis of Heraclea. The contemporaries of Apollodorus and Zeuxis, and those who carried out their principles, were Parrhasius of Ephesus, Eupompus of Sicyon, and Timanthes of Cythnus, all painters of the greatest fame. Athens and Sicyon were the principal seats of the art at this period. Eupompus of Sicyon was the founder of the celebrated Sicyonian school of painting which was afterwards established by Pamphilus. The Alexandrian period was the last of progression or acquisition; but it only added variety of effect to the tones it could not improve, and was principally characterised by the diversity of the styles of so many contemporary artists. The most eminent painters of this period were Protogenes, Pamphilus, Melanthius, Antiphilus, Theon of Samos, Apelles, Euphranor, Pausias, Nicias, Nicomachus, and his brother Aristides. Of all these Apelles was the greatest. The quality in which he surpassed all other painters will scarcely bear a definition; it has been termed grace, elegance, beauty, χάρις, venustas. His greatest work was perhaps his Venus Anadyomene, Venus rising out of the waters. He excelled in portrait, and indeed all his works appear to have been portraits in an extended sense; for his pictures, both historical and allegorical, consisted nearly all of single figures. He enjoyed the exclusive privilege of painting the portraits of Alexander.—The works of Greek art brought from Sicily by Marcellus were the first to inspire the Romans with the desire of adorning their public edifices with statues and paintings, which taste was converted into a passion when they became acquainted with the great treasures and almost inexhaustible resources of Greece, and their rapacity knew no bounds. Mummius, after the destruction of Corinth, B.C. 146, carried off or destroyed more works of art than all his predecessors put together. Scaurus, in his aedileship, B.C. 58, had all the public pictures still remaining in Sicyon transported to Rome, on account of the debts of the former city, and he adorned the great temporary theatre which he erected upon that occasion with 3000 bronze statues. Verres ransacked Asia and Achaia, and plundered almost every temple and public edifice in Sicily of whatever was valuable in it. Amongst the numerous robberies of Verres, Cicero mentions particularly twenty-seven beautiful pictures taken from the temple of Minerva at Syracuse, consisting of portraits of the kings and tyrants of Sicily. Yet Rome was, about the end of the republic, full of painters, who appear, however, to have been chiefly occupied in portrait, or decorative and arabesque painting. Among the Romans the earliest painter mentioned is a member of the noble house of the Fabii, who received the surname of Pictor through some paintings which he executed in the temple of Salus at Rome, B.C. 304, which lasted till the time of the emperor Claudius, when they were destroyed by the fire that consumed that temple. Pacuvius also, the tragic poet, and nephew of Ennius, distinguished himself by some paintings in the temple of Hercules in the Forum Boarium, about 180 B.C. But generally speaking the artists at Rome were Greeks. Julius Caesar, Agrippa, and Augustus were among the earliest great patrons of artists. Caesar expended great sums in the purchase of pictures by the old masters. He gave as much as 80 talents for two pictures by his contemporary Timomachus of Byzantium, one an Ajax, and the other a Medea meditating the murder of her children. These pictures, which were painted in encaustic, were very celebrated works; they are alluded to by Ovid (Trist. ii. 525), and are mentioned by many other ancient writers.—There are three distinct periods observable in the history of painting in Rome. The first or great period of Graeco-Roman art may be dated from the conquest of Greece until the time of Augustus, when the artists were chiefly Greeks. The second, from the time of Augustus to the so-called Thirty Tyrants and Diocletian, or from the beginning of the Christian era until about the latter end of the third century, during which time the great majority of Roman works of art were produced. The third comprehends the state of the arts during the exarchate, when Rome, in consequence of the foundation of Constantinople, and the changes it involved, suffered similar spoliations to those which it had previously inflicted upon Greece. This was the period of the total decay of the imitative arts amongst the ancients. About the beginning of the second period is the earliest age in which we have any notice of portrait painters (imaginum pictores) as a distinct class. Portraits must have been exceedingly numerous amongst the Romans; Varro made a collection of the portraits of 700 eminent men. The portraits or statues of men who had performed any public service were placed in the temples and other public places; and several edicts were passed by the emperors of Rome respecting the placing of them. The portraits of authors also were placed in the public libraries; they were apparently fixed above the cases which contained their writings, below which chairs were placed for the convenience of readers. They were painted also at the beginning of manuscripts. Several of the most celebrated ancient artists were both sculptors and painters; Phidias and Euphranor were both; Zeuxis and Protogenes were both modellers; Polygnotus devoted some attention to statuary; and Lysippus consulted Eupompus upon style in sculpture. Moreover scene-painting shows that the Greeks were acquainted with perspective at a very early period; for when Aeschylus was exhibiting tragedies at Athens, Agatharchus made a scene, and left a treatise upon it.—II. Methods of Painting. There were two distinct classes of painting practised by the ancients—in water colours, and in wax, both of which were practised in various ways. Of the former the principal were fresco, al fresco; and the various kinds of distemper (a tempera), with glue, with the white of egg, or with gums (a guazzo); and with wax or resins when these were rendered by any means vehicles that could be worked with water. Of the latter the principal was through fire (διὰ πυρὸς), termed encaustic (ἐγκαυστική, encaustica). The painting in wax (κηρογραφία), or ship painting (inceramenta navium), was distinct from encaustic. It does not appear that the Greeks or Romans ever painted in oil; the only mention of oil in ancient writers in connection with painting is the small quantity which entered into the composition of encaustic varnish to temper it. They painted upon wood, clay, plaster, stone, parchment, and canvas. The use of canvas must have been of late introduction, as there is no mention of it having been employed by the Greek painters of the best periods. They generally painted upon panels or tablets (πίνακες, πινόκια, tabulae, tabellae), which when finished were fixed into frames of various descriptions and materials, and encased in walls. The style or cestrum used in drawing, and for spreading the wax colours, pointed at one end and broad and flat at the other, was termed γραφίς by the Greeks and cestrum by the Romans; it was generally made of metal. The hair pencil (penicillus, penicillum) was termed ὑπογραφίς, and apparently also ῥαβδίον. The ancients used also a palette very similar to that used by the moderns. Encaustic was a method very frequently practised by the Roman and later Greek painters; but it was in very little use by the earlier painters, and was not generally adopted until after the time of Alexander. Pliny defines the term thus: “ceris pingere ac picturam inurere,” to paint with wax or wax colours, and to burn in the picture afterwards with the cauterium; it appears therefore to have been the simple addition of the process of burning in to the ordinary method of painting with wax colours. Cerae (waxes) was the ordinary term for painters’ colours amongst the Romans, but more especially encaustic colours, and they kept them in partitioned boxes, as painters do at present.—III. Polychromy. Ancient statues were often painted, and what is now termed polychrome sculpture was very common in Greece. The practice of colouring statues is undoubtedly as ancient as the art of statuary itself; although they were perhaps originally coloured more from a love of colour than from any design of improving the resemblance of the representation. The Jupiter of the Capitol, placed by Tarquinius Priscus, was coloured with minium. In later times the custom seems to have been reduced to a system, and was practised with more reserve. The practice also of colouring architecture seems to have been universal amongst the Greeks, and very general amongst the Romans.—IV. Vase Painting. The fictile-vase painting of the Greeks was an art of itself, and was practised by a distinct class of artists. The designs upon these vases (which the Greeks termed λήκυθοι) have been variously interpreted, but they have been generally considered to be in some way connected with the initiation into the Eleusinian and other mysteries. They were given as prizes to the victors at the Panathenaea and other games, and seem to have been always buried with their owners at their death, for they have been discovered only in tombs. Even in the time of the Roman empire painted vases were termed “operis antiqui,” and were then sought for in the ancient tombs of Campania and other parts of Magna Graecia. We may form some idea of their immense value from the statement of Pliny, that they were more valuable than the Murrhine vases. [[Murrhina Vasa].] The paintings on the vases, considered as works of art, vary exceedingly in the detail of the execution, although in style of design they may be arranged in two principal classes, the black and the yellow; for those which do not come strictly under either of these heads are either too few or vary too slightly to require a distinct classification. The black are the most ancient, the yellow the most common.—V. Mosaic, or pictura de musivo, opus musivum, was very general in Rome in the time of the early emperors. It was also common in Greece and Asia Minor at an earlier period, but at the time of the Roman empire it began to a great extent even to supersede painting. It was used chiefly for floors, but walls and also ceilings were sometimes ornamented in the same way. There are still many great mosaics of the ancients extant. The most valuable is the one discovered in Pompeii a few years ago, which is supposed to represent the battle of Issus. The composition is simple, forcible, and beautiful, and the design exhibits in many respects merits of the highest order.

PĪLA (σφαῖρα), a ball. The game at ball (σφαιριστική) was one of the most favourite gymnastic exercises of the Greeks and Romans, from the earliest times to the fall of the Roman empire. It is mentioned in the Odyssey, where it is played by the Phaeacian damsels to the sound of music, and also by two celebrated performers at the court of Alcinous in a most artistic manner accompanied with dancing. The various movements of the body required in the game of ball gave elasticity and grace to the figure; whence it was highly esteemed by the Greeks. The Athenians set so high a value on it, that they conferred upon Aristonicus of Carystus the right of citizenship on account of his skill in this game. It was equally esteemed by the other states of Greece; the young Spartans, when they were leaving the condition of ephebi, were called σφαιρεῖς, probably because their chief exercise was the game at ball. Every complete gymnasium had a room (σφαιριστήριον, σφαίριστρα) devoted to this exercise [[Gymnasium]], where a special teacher (σφαιριστικός) gave instruction in the art. Among the Romans the game at ball was generally played at by persons before taking the bath, in a room (sphaeristerium) attached to the baths for the purpose. Pila was used in a general sense for any kind of ball: but the balls among the Romans seem to have been of three kinds; the pila in its narrower sense, a small ball; the follis, a great ball filled with air; and the paganica, of which we know scarcely anything, but which appears to have been smaller than the follis and larger than the pila. The Harpastum (from ἁρπάζω) seems to have been the name of a ball, which was thrown among the players, each of whom endeavoured to catch it.

Pila, Game at Ball. (From the Baths of Titus.)

PĪLĀNI. [[Exercitus], [p. 168] b.]

PĪLENTUM, a splendid four-wheeled carriage, furnished with soft cushions, which conveyed the Roman matrons in sacred processions and in going to the Circensian and other games. The pilentum was probably very like the [Harmamaxa] and [Carpentum], but open at the sides, so that those who sat in it might both see and be seen.

PĪLĔUS or PĪLĔUM (πϊλος, πίλημα, πιλωτόν), any piece of felt; more especially a skull-cap of felt, a hat. There seems no reason to doubt that felting is a more ancient invention than weaving [[Tela]], nor that both of these arts came into Europe from Asia. From the Greeks, who were acquainted with this article as early as the age of Homer, the use of felt passed together with its name to the Romans. Its principal use was to make coverings of the head for the male sex, and the most common one was a simple skull-cap.—Among the Romans the cap of felt was the emblem of liberty. When a slave obtained his freedom he had his head shaven, and wore instead of his hair an undyed pileus. This change of attire took place in the temple of Feronia, who was the goddess of freedmen. Hence the phrase servos ad pileum vocare is a summons to liberty, by which slaves were frequently called upon to take up arms with a promise of liberty. The figure of Liberty on some of the coins of Antoninus Pius, struck A.D. 145, holds this cap in the right hand. The Petasus (πέτασος) differed from the pileus or simple skull-cap in having a wide brim: the etymology of the word, from πετάννυμι, expresses the distinctive shape of these hats. It was preferred to the skull-cap as a protection from the sun.

Petasus, Cap, worn by a Greek Soldier. (From a Greek Vase.)

PĪLUM. [[Hasta].]

PISCĪNA. [[Balneum].]

PISTOR (ἀρτοποιός), a baker, from pinsere, to pound, since corn was pounded in mortars before the invention of mills. At Rome bread was originally made at home by the women of the house; and there were no persons at Rome who made baking a trade, or any slaves specially kept for this purpose in private houses, till B.C. 173. The name was also given to pastry-cooks and confectioners, in which case they were usually called pistores dulciarii or candidarii. Bread was often baked in moulds called artoptae, and the loaves thus baked were termed artopticii. Bread was not generally made at home at Athens, but was sold in the market-place, chiefly by women, called ἀρτοπώλιδες. These women seem to have been what the fish-women of London are at present; they excelled in abuse.

PLĂGĬĀRĬUS. [[Plagium].]

PLĂGĬUM, the offence of kidnapping, concealing, and selling freemen and other persons’ slaves was the subject of a Fabia Lex (B.C. 183). The penalty of the lex was pecuniary; but this fell into disuse, and persons who offended against the lex were punished according to the nature of their offence; under the empire they were generally condemned to the mines. The word Plagium is said to come from the Greek πλάγιος, oblique, indirect, dolosus. He who committed plagium was plagiarius, a word which Martial applies to a person who falsely gave himself out as the author of a book; and in this sense the word has come into common use in our language.

PLAUSTRUM or PLOSTRUM (ἅμαξα), a cart or waggon. It had commonly two wheels, but sometimes four, and it was then called the plaustrum majus. Besides the wheels and axle the plaustrum consisted of a strong pole (temo), to the hinder part of which was fastened a table of wooden planks. The blocks of stone, or other things to be carried, were either laid upon this table without any other support, or an additional security was obtained by the use either of boards at the sides, or of a large wicker basket tied upon the cart. The annexed cut exhibits a cart, the body of which is supplied by a basket. The commonest kind of cart-wheel was that called tympanum, “the drum,” from its resemblance to the musical instrument of the same name. It was nearly a foot in thickness, and was made either by sawing the trunk of a tree across in a horizontal direction, or by nailing together boards of the requisite shape and size. (See the cut.) These wheels advanced slowly, and made a loud creaking, which was heard to a great distance.

Plaustrum, Waggon. (From a Bas-Relief at Rome.)

PLĒBES or PLEBS. PLĒBĒII. This word contains the same root as im-pleo, com-pleo, &c., and is therefore etymologically connected with πλῆθος, a term which was applied to the plebeians by the more correct Greek writers on Roman history, while others wrongly called them δῆμος or οἱ δημοτικοί. The plebeians were the body of commons or the commonalty of Rome, and thus constituted one of the two great elements of which the Roman nation consisted, and which has given to the earlier periods of Roman history its peculiar character and interest. The time when the plebeians first appear as a distinct class of Roman citizens in contradistinction to the patricians, is in the reign of Tullus Hostilius. Alba, the head of the Latin confederacy, was in his reign taken by the Romans and razed to the ground. The most distinguished of its inhabitants were transplanted to Rome and received among the patricians; but the great bulk of Alban citizens, who were likewise transferred to Rome, received settlements on the Caelian hill, and were kept in a state of submission to the populus Romanus or the patricians. This new population of Rome, which in number is said to have been equal to the old inhabitants of the city or the patricians, were the plebeians. They were Latins, and consequently of the same blood as the Ramnes, the noblest of the three patrician tribes. After the conquest of Alba, Rome, in the reign of Ancus Martius, acquired possession of a considerable extent of country, containing a number of dependent Latin towns, as Medullia, Fidenae, Politorium, Tellenae, and Ficana. Great numbers of the inhabitants of these towns were again transplanted to Rome, and incorporated with the plebeians already settled there, and the Aventine was assigned to them as their habitation. Some portions of the land which these new citizens had possessed were given back to them by the Romans, so that they remained free land-owners as much as the conquerors themselves, and thus were distinct from the clients.—The plebeians were citizens, but not optimo jure; they were perfectly distinct from the patricians, and were neither contained in the three tribes, nor in the curiae, nor in the patrician gentes. The only point of contact between the two estates was the army. The plebeians were obliged to fight and shed their blood in the defence of their new fellow-citizens, without being allowed to share any of their rights or privileges, and without even the right of intermarriage (connubium). In all judicial matters they were entirely at the mercy of the patricians, and had no right of appeal against any unjust sentence, though they were not, like the clients, bound to have a patronus. They continued to have their own sacra, which they had had before the conquest, but these were regulated by the patrician pontiffs. Lastly, they were free land-owners, and had their own gentes.—The population of the Roman state thus consisted of two opposite elements; a ruling class or an aristocracy, and the commonalty, which, though of the same stock as the noblest among the rulers, and exceeding them in numbers, yet enjoyed none of the rights which might enable them to take a part in the management of public affairs, religious or civil. Their citizenship resembled the relation of aliens to a state, in which they are merely tolerated on condition of performing certain services, and they are, in fact, sometimes called peregrini. That such a state of things could not last, is a truth which must have been felt by every one who was not blinded by his own selfishness and love of dominion. Tarquinius Priscus was the first who conceived the idea of placing the plebeians on a footing of equality with the old burghers, by dividing them into three tribes, which he intended to call after his own name and those of his friends. But this noble plan was frustrated by the opposition of the augur Attus Navius, who probably acted the part of a representative of the patricians. All that Tarquinius could do was to effect the admission of the noblest plebeian families into the three old tribes, who were distinguished from the old patrician families by the names of Ramnes, Tities, and Luceres secundi, and their gentes are sometimes distinguished by the epithet minores, as they entered into the same relation in which the Luceres had been to the first two tribes, before the time of Tarquinius. It was reserved to his successor, Servius Tullius, to give to the commonalty a regular internal organisation, and to determine their relations to the patricians. He first divided the city into four, and then the subject country around, which was inhabited by plebeians, into twenty-six regions or local tribes, and in these regions he assigned lots of land to those plebeians who were yet without landed property. [[Tribus].] Each tribe had its praefect, called tribunus. The tribes had also their own sacra, festivals, and meetings (comitia tributa), which were convoked by their tribunes. This division into tribes with tribunes at their heads was no more than an internal organisation of the plebeians, analogous to the division of the patricians into thirty curiae, without conferring upon them the right to interfere in any way in the management of public affairs, or in the elections, which were left entirely to the senate and the curiae. These rights, however, they obtained by another regulation of Servius Tullius, which was made wholly independent of the thirty tribes. For this purpose he instituted a census, and divided the whole body of Roman citizens, plebeians as well as patricians, into five classes, according to the amount of their property. Taxation and the military duties were arranged according to these classes in such a manner, that the heavier burdens fell upon the wealthier classes. The whole body of citizens thus divided was formed into a great national assembly called comitiatus maximus, or comitia centuriata. [[Comitia].] In this assembly the plebeians now met the patricians apparently on a footing of equality, but the votes were distributed in such a way that it was always in the power of the wealthiest classes, to which the patricians naturally belonged, to decide a question before it was put to the vote of the poorer classes. A great number of such noble plebeian families, as after the subjugation of the Latin towns had not been admitted into the curies by Tarquinius Priscus, were now constituted by Servius into a number of equites, with twelve suffragia in the comitia centuriata. [[Equites].] In this constitution, the plebeians, as such, did not obtain admission to the senate, nor to the highest magistracy, nor to any of the priestly offices. To all these offices the patricians alone thought themselves entitled by divine right. The plebeians also continued to be excluded from occupying any portion of the public land, which as yet was possessed only by the patricians, and they were only allowed to keep their cattle upon the common pasture.—In the early times of the republic there was a constant struggle between the two orders, the history of which belongs to a history of Rome, and cannot be given here. Eventually the plebeians gained access to all the civil and religious offices, until at last the two hostile elements became united into one great body of Roman citizens with equal rights, and a state of things arose, totally different from what had existed before. After the first secession, in B.C. 494, the plebeians gained several great advantages. First, a law was passed to prevent the patricians from taking usurious interest of money, which they frequently lent to impoverished plebeians; secondly, tribunes were appointed for the protection of the plebeians [[Tribuni]]; and lastly, plebeian aediles were appointed. [[Aediles].] Shortly after, they gained the right to summon before their own comitia tributa any one who had violated the rights of their order, and to make decrees (plebiscita), which, however, did not become binding upon the whole nation, free from the control of the curies, until the year B.C. 286. In B.C. 445, the tribune Canuleius established, by his rogations, the connubium between patricians and plebeians. He also attempted to divide the consulship between the two orders, but the patricians frustrated the realisation of this plan by the appointment of six military tribunes, who were to be elected from both orders. [[Tribuni].] But that the plebeians might have no share in the censorial power, with which the consuls had been invested, the military tribunes did not obtain that power, and a new curule dignity, the censorship, was established, with which patricians alone were to be invested. [[Censor].] In B.C. 421 the plebeians were admitted to the quaestorship, which opened to them the way into the senate, where henceforth their number continued to increase. [[Quaestor]; [Senatus].] In B.C. 367 the tribunes L. Licinius Stolo and L. Sextius placed themselves at the head of the commonalty, and resumed the contest against the patricians. After a fierce struggle, which lasted for several years, they at length carried a rogation, according to which decemvirs were to be appointed for keeping the Sibylline books instead of duumvirs, of whom half were to be plebeians. The next great step was the restoration of the consulship, on condition that one consul should always be a plebeian. A third rogation of Licinius, which was only intended to afford momentary relief to the poor plebeians, regulated the rate of interest. From this time forward the plebeians also appear in the possession of the right to occupy parts of the ager publicus. In B.C. 366, L. Sextius Lateranus was the first plebeian consul. The patricians, however, who always contrived to yield no more than what it was absolutely impossible for them to retain, stripped the consulship of a considerable part of its power, and transferred it to two new curule offices, viz. that of praetor and of curule aedile. [[Aediles]; [Praetor].] But after such great advantages had been once gained by the plebeians, it was impossible to stop them in their progress towards a perfect equality of political rights with the patricians. In B.C. 356, C. Marcius Rutilus was the first plebeian dictator; in B.C. 351 the censorship was thrown open to the plebeians, and in B.C. 336 the praetorship. The Ogulnian law, in B.C. 300, also opened to them the offices of pontifex and augur. These advantages were, as might be supposed, not gained without the fiercest opposition of the patricians, and even after they were gained and sanctioned by law, the patricians exerted every means to obstruct the operation of the law. Such fraudulent attempts led, in B.C. 286, to the last secession of the plebeians, after which, however, the dictator Q. Hortensius successfully and permanently reconciled the two orders, secured to the plebeians all the rights they had acquired until then, and procured for their plebiscita the full power of leges binding upon the whole nation. After the passing of the Hortensian law, the political distinction between patricians and plebeians ceased, and, with a few unimportant exceptions, both orders were placed on a footing of perfect equality. Henceforth the name populus is sometimes applied to the plebeians alone, and sometimes to the whole body of Roman citizens, as assembled in the comitia centuriata or tributa. The term plebs or plebecula, on the other hand, was applied, in a loose manner of speaking, to the multitude or populace, in opposition to the nobiles or the senatorial party.—A person who was born a plebeian could only be raised to the rank of a patrician by a lex curiata, as was sometimes done during the kingly period, and in the early times of the republic. It frequently occurs in the history of Rome that one and the same gens contains plebeian as well as patrician families. In the gens Cornelia, for instance, we find the plebeian families of the Balbi, Mammulae, Merulae, &c., along with the patrician Scipiones, Sullae, Lentuli, &c. The occurrence of this phenomenon may be accounted for in different ways. It may have been, that one branch of a plebeian family was made patrician while the others remained plebeians. It may also have happened that two families had the same nomen gentilicium without being actual members of the same gens. Again, a patrician family might go over to the plebeians, and as such a family continued to bear the name of its patrician gens, this gens apparently contained a plebeian family. When a peregrinus obtained the civitas through the influence of a patrician, or when a slave was emancipated by his patrician master, they generally adopted the nomen gentilicium of their benefactor, and thus appear to belong to the same gens with him.

PLĒBISCĪTUM, a name properly applied to a law passed at the comitia tributa on the rogation of a tribune. Originally, a plebiscitum required confirmation by the comitia curiata and the senate; but a Lex Hortensia was passed B.C. 286, to the effect that plebiscita should bind all the populus (universus populus), and this lex rendered confirmation unnecessary. The Lex Hortensia is always referred to as the lex which put plebiscita as to their binding force exactly on the same footing as leges. The principal plebiscita are mentioned under the article [Lex].

PLECTRUM. [[Lyra].]

PLETHRON (πλέθρον), the fundamental land measure in the Greek system, being the square of 100 feet, that is, 10,000 square feet. The later Greek writers use it as the translation of the Roman jugerum, probably because the latter was the standard land measure in the Roman system; but, in size, the plethron answered more nearly to the Roman actus, or half-jugerum, which was the older unit of land measures. As frequently happened with the ancient land measures, the side of the plethron was taken as a measure of length, with the same name. This plethron was equal to 100 feet (or about 101 English feet) = 66⅔ πήχεις = 10 ἄκαιναι or κάλαμοι. It was also introduced into the system of itinerary measures, being 1-6th of the stadium.

PLŬTĔUS, was applied in military affairs to two different objects. (1) A kind of shed made of hurdles, and covered with raw hides, which could be moved forward by small wheels attached to it, and under which the besiegers of a town made their approaches. (2) Boards or planks placed on the vallum of a camp, on moveable towers or other military engines, as a kind of roof or covering for the protection of the soldiers.

PLYNTĒRĬA (πλυντήρια, from πλύνειν, to wash), a festival celebrated at Athens every year, on the 25th of Thargelion, in honour of Athena, surnamed Aglauros, whose temple stood on the Acropolis. The day of this festival was at Athens among the ἀποφράδες or dies nefasti; for the temple of the goddess was surrounded by a rope to preclude all communication with it; her statue was stripped of its garments and ornaments for the purpose of cleaning them, and was in the meanwhile covered over, to conceal it from the sight of man. The city was therefore, so to speak, on this day without its protecting divinity, and any undertaking commenced on it was believed to be necessarily unsuccessful.

PNYX. [[Ecclesia].]

PŌCŬLUM, any kind of drinking-cup, to be distinguished from the Crater or vessel in which the wine was mixed [[Crater]], and from the Cyathus, a kind of ladle or small cup, used to convey the wine from the Crater to the Poculum or drinking-cup.

PŎDĬUM. [[Amphitheatrum].]

POENA (ποινή), a general name for any punishment of any offence. Multa is the penalty of a particular offence. A Poena was only inflicted when it was imposed by some lex or some other legal authority (quo alio jure). When no poena was imposed, then a multa or penalty might be inflicted.

PŎLĔMARCHUS (πολέμαρχος). Respecting the polemarchus at Athens, see [Archon]. We read also of polemarchs at Sparta, and in various cities of Boeotia. As their name denotes, they were originally and properly connected with military affairs, being entrusted either with the command of armies abroad, or the superintendence of the war department at home; sometimes with both. The polemarchs of Sparta appear to have ranked next to the king, when on actual service abroad, and were generally of the royal kindred or house (γένος). They commanded single morae, so that they would appear to have been six in number, and sometimes whole armies. They also formed part of the king’s council in war, and of the royal escort called damosia. At Thebes there appear to have been two polemarchs, perhaps elected, annually; and in times of peace they seem to have been invested with the chief executive power of the state, and the command of the city, having its military force under their orders. They are not, however, to be confounded with the Boeotarchs.

PŌLĒTAE (πωλῆται), a board of ten officers, or magistrates, whose duty it was to grant leases of the public lands and mines, and also to let the revenues arising from the customs, taxes, confiscations, and forfeitures. Of such letting the word πωλεῖν (not μισθοῦν) was generally used, and also the correlative words ὠνεῖσθαι and πρίασθαι. One was chosen from each tribe. In the letting of the revenue they were assisted by the managers of the theoric fund (τὸ θεωρικόν), and they acted under the authority of the senate of Five Hundred, who exercised a general control over the financial department of the administration. Resident aliens, who did not pay their residence tax (μετοίκιον), were summoned before them, and, if found to have committed default, were sold.

POLLINCTŌRES. [[Funus].]

PŌMOĒRĬUM. This word is compounded of post and moerium (murus), in the same manner as pomeridiem of post and meridiem, and thus signifies a line running by the walls of a town (pone or post muros). But the walls of a town here spoken of are not its actual walls or fortifications, but symbolical walls, and the course of the pomoerium itself was marked by stone pillars, erected at certain intervals. The sacred line of the Roman pomoerium did not prevent the inhabitants from building upon or taking into use any place beyond it, but it was necessary to leave a certain space on each side of it unoccupied, so as not to unhallow it by profane use. Thus we find that the Aventine, although inhabited from early times, was for many centuries not included within the pomoerium. The pomoerium was not the same at all times; as the city increased the pomoerium also was extended; but this extension could, according to ancient usage, only be made by such men as had by their victories over foreign nations increased the boundaries of the empire, and neither could a pomoerium be formed nor altered without the augurs previously consulting the will of the gods by augury: hence the jus pomoerii of the augurs.

POMPA (πομπή), a solemn procession, as on the occasion of a funeral, triumph, &c. It is, however, more particularly applied to the grand procession with which the games of the circus commenced (Pompa Circensis). [[Circus].]

PONS (γέφυρα), a bridge. As the rivers of Greece were small, and the use of the arch known to them only to a limited extent, it is probable that the Greek bridges were built entirely of wood, or, at best, were nothing more than a wooden platform supported upon stone piers at each extremity. Pliny mentions a bridge over the Acheron 1000 feet in length; we also know that the island Euboea was joined to Boeotia by a bridge; but the only existing specimen of a Greek bridge is the one over a tributary of the Eurotas. The Romans regularly applied the arch to the construction of bridges, by which they were enabled to erect structures of great beauty and solidity, as well as utility. The width of the passage-way in a Roman bridge was commonly narrow, as compared with modern structures of the same kind, and corresponded with the road (via) leading to and from it. It was divided into three parts. The centre one, for horses and carriages, was denominated agger or iter; and the raised footpaths on each side decursoria, which were enclosed by parapet walls similar in use and appearance to the pluteus in the basilica. There were eight bridges across the Tiber. I. Of these the most celebrated, as well as the most ancient, was the Pons Sublicius, so called because it was built of wood; sublices, in the language of the Formiani, meaning wooden beams. It was built by Ancus Martius, when he united the Janiculum to the city, and was situated at the foot of the Aventine.—II. Pons Palatinus formed the communication between the Palatine and its vicinities and the Janiculum.—III. IV. Pons Fabricius and Pons Cestius were the two which connected the Insula Tiberina with the opposite sides of the river; the first with the city, and the latter with the Janiculum.

Pons Cestius, and Pons Fabricius, at Rome, with the buildings between restored.

Both are still remaining. They are represented in the preceding woodcut: that on the right hand is the pons Fabricius, and that on the left the pons Cestius.—V. Pons Janiculensis, which led direct to the Janiculum.—VI. Pons Vaticanus, so called because it formed the communication between the Campus Martius and Campus Vaticanus.—

Pons Aelius at Rome.

VII. Pons Aelius, built by Hadrian, which led from the city to the mausoleum of that emperor, now the bridge and castle of St. Angelo.—VIII. Pons Milvius, on the Via Flaminia, now Ponte Molle, was built by Aemilius Scaurus the censor.—The Roman bridges without the city were too many to be enumerated here.

Bridge at Arimmum.

They formed one of the chief embellishments in all the public roads; and their frequent and stupendous remains, still existing in Italy, Portugal, and Spain, attest, even to the present day, the scale of grandeur with which the Roman works of national utility were always carried on.—When the comitia were held, the voters, in order to reach the enclosure called septum and ovile, passed over a wooden platform, elevated above the ground, which was called pons suffragiorum, in order that they might be able to give their votes without confusion or collusion. [[Comitia].] Pons is also used to signify the platform (ἐπιβάθρα, ἀποβάθρα), used for embarking in, or disembarking from, a ship.

PONTĬFEX (ἱεροδιδάσκαλος, ἱερονόμος, ἱεροφύλαξ, ἱεροφάντης). The origin of this word is explained in various ways; but it is probably formed from pons and facere (in the signification of the Greek ῥέζειν, to perform a sacrifice), and consequently signifies the priests who offered sacrifices upon the bridge. The ancient sacrifice to which the name thus alludes, is that of the Argei on the sacred or sublician bridge. [[Argei].] The Roman pontiffs formed the most illustrious among the great colleges of priests. Their institution, like that of all important matters of religion, was ascribed to Numa. The number of pontiffs appointed by this king was four, and at their head was the pontifex maximus, who is generally not included when the number of pontiffs is mentioned. It is probable that the original number of four pontiffs (not including the pontifex maximus) had reference to the two earliest tribes of the Romans, the Ramnes and Tities, so that each tribe was represented by two pontiffs. In the year B.C. 300 the Ogulnian law raised the number of pontiffs to eight, or, including the pontifex maximus, to nine, and four of them were to be plebeians. The pontifex maximus, however, continued to be a patrician down to the year B.C. 254, when Tib. Coruncanius was the first plebeian who was invested with this dignity. This number of pontiffs remained for a long time unaltered, until in B.C. 81 the dictator Sulla increased it to fifteen, and J. Caesar to sixteen. In both these changes the pontifex maximus is included in the number. During the empire the number varied, though on the whole fifteen appears to have been the regular number. The mode of appointing the pontiffs was also different at different times. It appears that after their institution by Numa, the college had the right of co-optation, that is, if a member of the college died (for all the pontiffs held their office for life), the members met and elected a successor, who, after his election, was inaugurated by the augurs. This election was sometimes called captio. In B.C. 104 a Lex Domitia was passed, which transferred the right of electing the members of the great colleges of priests to the people (probably in the comitia tributa); that is, the people elected a candidate, who was then made a member of the college by the co-optatio of the priests themselves, so that the co-optatio, although still necessary, became a mere matter of form. The Lex Domitia was repealed by Sulla in a Lex Cornelia de Sacerdotiis (B.C. 81), which restored to the great priestly colleges their full right of co-optatio. In B.C. 63 the law of Sulla was abolished, and the Domitian law was restored, but not in its full extent; for it was now determined, that in case of a vacancy the college itself should nominate two candidates, and the people elect one of them. M. Antonius again restored the right of co-optatio to the college. The college of pontiffs had the supreme superintendence of all matters of religion, and of things and persons connected with public as well as private worship. They had the judicial decision in all matters of religion, whether private persons, magistrates, or priests were concerned, and in cases where the existing laws or customs were found defective or insufficient, they made new laws and regulations (decreta pontificum), in which they always followed their own judgment as to what was consistent with the existing customs and usages. The details of these duties and functions were contained in books called libri pontificii or pontificales, commentarii sacrorum or sacrorum pontificalium, which they were said to have received from Numa, and which were sanctioned by Ancus Martius. As to the rights and duties of the pontiffs, it must first of all be borne in mind, that the pontiffs were not priests of any particular divinity, but a college which stood above all other priests, and superintended the whole external worship of the gods. One of their principal duties was the regulation of the sacra, both publica and privata, and to watch that they were observed at the proper times (for which purpose the pontiffs had the whole regulation of the calendar, see [Calendarium]), and in their proper form. In the management of the sacra publica they were in later times assisted in certain duties by the Triumviri Epulones. [[Epulones].] The pontiffs convoked the assembly of the curies (comitia calata or curiata) in cases where priests were to be appointed, and flamines or a rex sacrorum were to be inaugurated; also when wills were to be received, and when a detestatio sacrorum and adoption by adrogatio took place. [[Adoptio].] In most cases the sentence of the pontiffs only inflicted a fine upon the offenders; but the person fined had the right of appealing to the people, who might release him from the fine. In regard to the vestal virgins, and the persons who committed incest with them, the pontiffs had criminal jurisdiction, and might pronounce sentence of death. A man who had violated a vestal virgin was, according to an ancient law, scourged to death by the pontifex maximus in the comitium, and it appears that originally neither the vestal virgins nor the male offenders in such a case had any right of appeal. In later times we find that, even when the pontiffs had passed sentence upon vestal virgins, a tribune interfered, and induced the people to appoint a quaestor for the purpose of making a fresh inquiry into the case; and it sometimes happened that after this new trial the sentence of the pontiffs was modified or annulled. Such cases, however, seem to have been mere irregularities, founded upon an abuse of the tribunitian power. In the early times the pontiffs were in the exclusive possession of the civil as well as religious law, until the former was made public by Cn. Flavius. The regulations which served as a guide to the pontiffs in their judicial proceedings, formed a large collection of laws, which was called the jus pontificium, and formed part of the Libri Pontificii. The meetings of the college of pontiffs, to which in some instances the famines and the rex sacrorum were summoned, were held in the curia regia on the Via Sacra, to which was attached the residence of the pontifex maximus and of the rex sacrorum. As the chief pontiff was obliged to live in a domus publica, Augustus, when he assumed this dignity, changed part of his own house into a domus publica. All the pontiffs were in their appearance distinguished by the conic cap, called tutulus or galerus, with an apex upon it, and the toga praetexta. The pontifex maximus was the president of the college, and acted in its name, whence he alone is frequently mentioned in cases in which he must be considered only as the organ of the college. He was generally chosen from among the most distinguished persons, and such as had held a curule magistracy, or were already members of the college. Two of his especial duties were to appoint (capere) the vestal virgins and the flamines [[Vestales]; [Flamen]], and to be present at every marriage by confarreatio. When festive games were vowed, or a dedication made, the chief pontiff had to repeat over, before the persons who made the vow or the dedication, the formula in which it was to be performed (praeire verba). During the period of the republic, when the people exercised sovereign power in every respect, we find that if the pontiff, on constitutional or religious grounds, refused to perform this solemnity, he might be compelled by the people. The pontifex maximus wrote down what occurred in his year on tablets, which were hung up in his dwelling for the information of the people, and called Annales Maximi. A pontifex might, like all the members of the great priestly colleges, hold any other military, civil, or priestly office, provided the different offices did not interfere with one another. Thus we find one and the same person being pontiff, augur, and decemvir sacrorum; instances of a pontifex maximus being at the same time consul are very numerous. But whatever might be the civil or military office which a pontifex maximus held beside his pontificate, he was not allowed originally to leave Italy. The college of pontiffs continued to exist until the overthrow of paganism. The emperors themselves were always chief pontiffs, and as such the presidents of the college; hence the title of pontifex maximus (P. M. or PON. M.) appears on several coins of the emperors. If there were several emperors at a time, only one bore the title of pontifex maximus; but in the year A.D. 238 we find that each of the two emperors Maximus and Balbinus assumed this dignity. From the time of Theodosius the emperors no longer appear with the dignity of pontiff; but at last the title was assumed by the Christian bishop of Rome.—There were other pontiffs at Rome, who were distinguished by the epithet Minores. They appear to have been originally only the secretaries of the pontiffs; and when the real pontiffs began to neglect their duties, and to leave the principal business to be done by their secretaries, it became customary to designate these scribes by the name of Pontifices Minores. The number of these secretaries is uncertain.

PŎPA. [[Sacrificium].]

PŎPĪNA. [[Caupona].]

POPŬLĀRĬA. [[Amphitheatrum].]

PŎPŬLUS. [[Patricii].]

PŎPŬLĬFŬGĬA or POPLĬFŬGĬA, the day of the people’s flight, was celebrated on the nones of July, according to an ancient tradition, in commemoration of the flight of the people, when the inhabitants of Ficulae, Fidenae, and other places round about, appeared in arms against Rome shortly after the departure of the Gauls, and produced such a panic that the Romans suddenly fled before them. Other writers say that the Populifugia was celebrated in commemoration of the flight of the people before the Tuscans; while others again refer its origin to the flight of the people on the death of Romulus.

PŎRISTAE (πορισταί), magistrates at Athens, who probably levied the extraordinary supplies.

PORTA (πύλη, dim. πυλίς), the gate of a city, citadel, or other open space inclosed by a wall, in contradistinction to [Janua], which was the door of a house or any covered edifice. The terms porta and πύλη are often found in the plural, even when applied to a single gate, because it consisted of two leaves. The gates of a city were of course various in their number and position. Thus Megara had 5 gates; Thebes, in Boeotia, had 7; Athens had 8; and Rome 20, or perhaps even more. The jambs of the gate were surmounted, 1. by a lintel, which was large and strong in proportion to the width of the gate. 2. By an arch, as we see exemplified at Pompeii, Paestum, Sepianum, Volterra, Suza, Autun, Besançon, and Treves. 3. At Arpinum, one of the gates now remaining is arched, whilst another is constructed with the stones projecting one beyond another. Gates sometimes had two passages close together, the one designed for carriages entering, and the other for carriages leaving the city. In other instances we find only one gate for carriages, but a smaller one on each side of it (παραπυλίς) for foot-passengers. When there were no sideways, one of the valves of the large gate sometimes contained a wicket (portula, πυλίς: ῥινοπύλη), large enough to admit a single person. The gateway had commonly a chamber (called πυλών) either on one side or on both, which served as the residence of the porter or guard. Statues of the gods were often placed near the gate, or even within it in the barbican, so as to be ready to receive the adoration of those who entered the city.

PORTĬCUS (στοά), a walk covered with a roof, and supported by columns, at least on one side. Such shaded walks and places of resort are almost indispensable in the southern countries of Europe, where people live much in the open air, as a protection from the heat of the sun and from rain. The porticoes attached to the temples were either constructed only in front of them, or went round the whole building, as is the case in the so-called Temple of Theseus at Athens. They were originally intended as places for those persons to assemble and converse in who visited the temple for various purposes. As such temple-porticoes, however, were found too small, or not suited for the various purposes of private and public life, most Grecian towns had independent porticoes, some of which were very extensive; and in most of these stoae, seats (exedrae) were placed, that those who were tired might sit down. They were frequented not only by idle loungers, but also by philosophers, rhetoricians, and other persons fond of intellectual conversation. The Stoic school of philosophy derived its name from the circumstance, that the founder of it used to converse with his disciples in a stoa. The Romans derived their great fondness for such covered walks from the Greeks; and as luxuries among them were carried in everything to a greater extent than in Greece, wealthy Romans had their private porticoes, sometimes in the city itself, and sometimes in their country-seats. In the public porticoes of Rome, which were exceedingly numerous and very extensive (as those around the Forum and the Campus Martius), a variety of business was occasionally transacted: we find that law-suits were conducted here, meetings of the senate held, goods exhibited for sale, &c.

PORTISCŬLUS (κελευστής), an officer in a ship, who gave the signal to the rowers, that they might keep time in rowing. This officer is sometimes called Hortator or Pausarius.

PORTĬTŌRES. [[Publicani].]

PORTŌRĬUM, a branch of the regular revenues of the Roman state, consisting of the duties paid on imported and exported goods. A portorium, or duty upon imported goods, appears to have been paid at a very early period, for it is said that Valerius Publicola exempted the plebes from the portoria at the time when the republic was threatened with an invasion by Porsena. The time of its introduction is uncertain; but the abolition of it, ascribed to Publicola, can only have been a temporary measure; and as the expenditure of the republic increased, new portoria must have been introduced. In conquered places, and in the provinces, the import and export duties, which had been paid there before, were generally not only retained, but increased, and appropriated to the aerarium. Sicily, and above all, Asia, furnished to the Roman treasury large sums, which were raised as portoria. In B.C. 60 all the portoria in the ports of Italy were done away with by a Lex Caecilia, but were restored by Julius Caesar and the subsequent emperors. Respecting the amount of the import or export duties we have but little information. In the time of Cicero the portorium in the ports of Sicily was one-twentieth (vicesima) of the value of taxable articles; and it is probable that this was the average sum raised in all the other provinces. In the times of the emperors the ordinary rate of the portorium appears to have been the fortieth part (quadragesima) of the value of imported goods; and at a later period the exorbitant sum of one-eighth (octava) is mentioned. The portorium was, like all other vectigalia, farmed out by the censors to the publicani, who collected it through the portitores. [[Vectigalia]; [Publicani].]

POSSESSĬO. [[Ager Publicus].]

POSTĪCUM. [[Janua].]

POSTLĪMĬNĬUM, POSTLĪMĬNII JUS. If a Roman citizen during war came into the possession of an enemy, he sustained a diminutio capitis maxima [[Caput]], and all his civil rights were in abeyance. Being captured by the enemy, he became a slave; but his rights over his children, if he had any, were not destroyed, but were said to be in abeyance (pendere) by virtue of the Jus Postliminii: when he returned, his children were again in his power; and if he died in captivity, they became sui juris. Sometimes by an act of the state a man was given up bound to an enemy, and if the enemy would not receive him, it was a question whether he had the Jus Postliminii. This was the case with Sp. Postumius, who was given up to the Samnites, and with C. Hostilius Mancinus, who was given up to the Numantines; but the better opinion was, that they had no Jus Postliminii, and Mancinus was restored to his civic rights by a lex. It appears that the Jus Postliminii was founded on the fiction of the captive having never been absent from home; a fiction which was of easy application, for, as the captive during his absence could not do any legal act, the interval of captivity was a period of legal non-activity, which was terminated by his showing himself again.

PŎTESTAS. [[Patria Potestas].]

PRACTŎRES (πράκτορες), subordinate officers at Athens, who collected the fines and penalties (ἐπιβολάς and τιμήματα) imposed by magistrates and courts of justice, and payable to the state.

PRAECINCTĬO. [[Amphitheatrum].]

PRAECŌNES, criers, were employed for various purposes: 1. In sales by auction, they frequently advertised the time, place, and conditions of sale: they seem also to have acted the part of the modern auctioneer, so far as calling out the biddings and amusing the company, though the property was knocked down by the magister auctionis. [[Auctio].] 2. In all public assemblies they ordered silence. 3. In the comitia they called the centuries one by one to give their votes, pronounced the vote of each century, and called out the names of those who were elected. They also recited the laws that were to be passed. 4. In trials, they summoned the accuser and the accused, the plaintiff and defendant. 5. In the public games, they invited the people to attend, and proclaimed the victors. 6. In solemn funerals they also invited people to attend by a certain form; hence these funerals were called funera indictiva. 7. When things were lost, they cried them and searched for them. 8. In the infliction of capital punishment, they sometimes conveyed the commands of the magistrates to the lictors. Their office, called Praeconium, appears to have been regarded as rather disreputable: in the time of Cicero a law was passed preventing all persons who had been praecones from becoming decuriones in the municipia. Under the early emperors, however, it became very profitable, which was no doubt partly owing to fees, to which they were entitled in the courts of justice, and partly to the bribes which they received from the suitors, &c.

PRAEDA signifies moveable things taken by an enemy in war. Such things were either distributed by the Imperator among the soldiers or sold by the quaestors, and the produce was brought into the Aerarium. The difference between Praeda and Manubiae is this:—Praeda is the things themselves that are taken in war, and Manubiae is the money realized by their sale. It was the practice to set up a spear at such sales, which was afterwards used at all sales of things by a magistrates in the name of the people. [[Sectio].]

PRAEFECTŪRA. [[Colonia].]

PRAEFECTUS AERĀRĬI. [[Aerarium].]

PRAEFECTUS ANNŌNAE, the praefect of the provisions, especially of the corn-market, was not a regular magistrate under the republic, but was only appointed in cases of extraordinary scarcity, when he seems to have regulated the prices at which corn was to be sold. Augustus created an officer under the title of Praefectus Annonae, who had jurisdiction over all matters appertaining to the corn-market, and, like the Praefectus Vigilum, was chosen from the equites, and was not reckoned among the ordinary magistrates.

PRAEFECTUS ĂQUĀRUM. [[Aquae Ductus].]

PRAEFECTUS CASTRŌRUM, praefect of the camp, is first mentioned in the reign of Augustus. There was one to each legion.

PRAEFECTUS CLASSIS, the commander of a fleet. This title was frequently given in the times of the republic to the commander of a fleet; but Augustus appointed two permanent officers with this title, one of whom was stationed at Ravenna on the Adriatic, and the other at Misenum on the Tuscan sea, each having the command of a fleet.

PRAEFECTUS FABRUM. [[Fabri].]

PRAEFECTUS JŪRI DĪCUNDO. [[Colonia].]

PRAEFECTUS LĔGĬŌNIS. [[Exercitus].]

PRAEFECTUS PRAETŌRĬO, was the commander of the troops who guarded the emperor’s person. [[Praetoriani].] This office was instituted by Augustus, and was at first only military, and had comparatively small power attached to it; but under Tiberius, who made Sejanus commander of the praetorian troops, it became of much greater importance, till at length the power of these praefects became only second to that of the emperors. From the reign of Severus to that of Diocletian, the praefects, like the vizirs of the east, had the superintendence of all departments of the state, the palace, the army, the finances, and the law: they also had a court in which they decided cases. The office of praefect of the praetorium was not confined to military officers; it was filled by Ulpian and Papinian, and other distinguished jurists. Originally there were two praefects; afterwards sometimes one and sometimes two; from the time of Commodus sometimes three, and even four. They were, as a regular rule, chosen only from the equites; but from the time of Alexander Severus the dignity of senator was always joined with their office.

PRAEFECTUS VĬGĬLUM. [[Exercitus], [p. 171], a.]

PRAEFECTUS URBI, praefect or warden of the city, was originally called Custos Urbis. The name praefectus urbi does not seem to have been used till after the time of the decemvirs. The dignity of custos urbis, being combined with that of princeps senatus, was conferred by the king, as he had to appoint one of the decem primi as princeps senatus. The functions of the custos urbis, however, were not exercised except in the absence of the king from Rome; and then he acted as the representative of the king: he convoked the senate, held the comitia, if necessary, and on any emergency, might take such measures as he thought proper; in short, he had the imperium in the city. During the kingly period, the office of custos urbis was probably for life. Under the republic, the office, and its name of custos urbis, remained unaltered; but in B.C. 487 it was elevated into a magistracy, to be bestowed by election. The custos urbis was, in all probability, elected by the curiae. Persons of consular rank were alone eligible. In the early period of the republic the custos urbis exercised within the city all the powers of the consuls, if they were absent: he convoked the senate, held the comitia, and, in times of war, even levied civic legions, which were commanded by him. When the office of praetor urbanus was instituted, the wardenship of the city was swallowed up in it; but as the Romans were at all times averse to dropping altogether any of their old institutions, a praefectus urbi, though a mere shadow of the former office, was henceforth appointed every year, only for the time that the consuls were absent from Rome for the purpose of celebrating the Feriae Latinae. This praefectus had neither the power of convoking the senate nor the right of speaking in it; in most cases he was a person below the senatorial age, and was not appointed by the people, but by the consuls. An office very different from this, though bearing the same name, was instituted by Augustus on the suggestion of Maecenas. This new praefectus urbi was a regular and permanent magistrate, whom Augustus invested with all the powers necessary to maintain peace and order in the city. He had the superintendence of butchers, bankers, guardians, theatres, &c.; and to enable him to exercise his power, he had distributed throughout the city a number of milites stationarii, whom we may compare to a modern police. His jurisdiction, however, became gradually extended; and as the powers of the ancient republican praefectus urbi had been swallowed up by the office of the praetor urbanus, so now the power of the praetor urbanus was gradually absorbed by that of the praefectus urbi; and at last there was no appeal from his sentence, except to the person of the princeps himself, while any body might appeal from the sentence of any other city magistrate, and, at a later period, even from that of a governor of a province, to the tribunal of the praefectus urbi.

PRAEFĬCAE. [[Funus].]

PRAEJŪDĬCĬUM is used both in the sense of a precedent, in which case it is rather exemplum than praejudicium (res ex paribus causis judicatae); and also in the sense of a preliminary inquiry and determination about something which belongs to the matter in dispute (judiciis ad ipsam causam pertinentibus), from whence also comes the name Praejudicium.

PRAELŪSĬO. [[Gladiatores].]

PRAENŌMEN. [[Nomen].]

PRAERŎGĀTĪVA TRIBUS. [[Comitia], [p. 109].]

PRAES, is a surety for one who buys of the state. The goods of a Praes were called Praedia. The Praediator was a person who bought a praedium, that is, a thing given to the state as a security by a praes.

PRAESCRIPTĬO, or rather TEMPŎRIS PRAESCRIPTĬO, signifies the Exceptio or answer which a defendant has to the demand of a plaintiff, founded on the circumstance of the lapse of time. The word has properly no reference to the plaintiff’s loss of right, but to the defendant’s acquisition of a right by which he excludes the plaintiff from prosecuting his suit. This right of a defendant did not exist in the old Roman law.

PRAESES. [[Provincia].]

PRAESUL. [[Salii].]

PRAETEXTA. [[Toga].]

PRAETOR (στρατηγός), was originally a title which designated the consuls as the leaders of the armies of the state. The period and office of the command of the consuls might appropriately be called Praetorium. Praetor was also a title of office among the Latins. The first praetor specially so called was appointed in B.C. 366, and he was chosen only from the patricians, who had this new office created as a kind of indemnification to themselves for being compelled to share the consulship with the plebeians. No plebeian praetor was appointed till the year B.C. 337. The praetor was called collega consulibus, and was elected with the same auspices at the comitia centuriata. The praetorship was originally a kind of third consulship, and the chief functions of the praetor (jus in urbe dicere, jura reddere) were a portion of the functions of the consuls. The praetor sometimes commanded the armies of the state; and while the consuls were absent with the armies, he exercised their functions within the city. He was a magistratus curulis, and he had the imperium, and consequently was one of the magistratus majores: but he owed respect and obedience to the consuls. His insignia of office were six lictors; but at a later period he had only two lictors in Rome. The praetorship was at first given to a consul of the preceding year.—In B.C. 246 another praetor was appointed, whose business was to administer justice in matters in dispute between peregrini, or peregrini and Roman citizens; and accordingly he was called praetor peregrinus. The other praetor was then called praetor urbanus, qui jus inter cives dicit, and sometimes simply praetor urbanus and praetor urbis. The two praetors determined by lot which functions they should respectively exercise. If either of them was at the head of the army, the other performed all the duties of both within the city. Sometimes the military imperium of a praetor was prolonged for a second year. When the territories of the state were extended beyond the limits of Italy, new praetors were made. Thus, two praetors were created B.C. 227, for the administration of Sicily and Sardinia, and two more were added when the two Spanish provinces were formed, B.C. 197. When there were six praetors, two stayed in the city, and the other four went abroad. The senate determined their provinces, which were distributed among them by lot. After the discharge of his judicial functions in the city, a praetor often had the administration of a province, with the title of propraetor. Sulla increased the number of praetors to eight, which Julius Caesar raised successively to ten, twelve, fourteen, and sixteen. Augustus, after several changes, fixed the number at twelve. Under Tiberius there were sixteen. Two praetors were appointed by Claudius for matters relating to fideicommissa, when the business in this department of the law had become considerable, but Titus reduced the number to one; and Nerva added a praetor for the decision of matters between the fiscus and individuals. Thus there were eventually eighteen praetors, who administered justice in the state.—The praetor urbanus was specially named praetor, and he was the first in rank. His duties confined him to Rome, as is implied by the name, and he could only leave the city for ten days at a time. It was part of his duty to superintend the Ludi Apollinares. He was also the chief magistrate for the administration of justice; and to the edicta of the successive praetors the Roman law owes in a great degree its development and improvement. Both the praetor urbanus and the praetor peregrinus had the jus edicendi, and their functions in this respect do not appear to have been limited on the establishment of the imperial power, though it must have been gradually restricted, as the practice of imperial constitutions and rescripts became common. [[Edictum].] The chief judicial functions of the praetor in civil matters consisted in giving a judex. [[Judex].] It was only in the case of interdicts that he decided in a summary way. [[Interdictum].] Proceedings before the praetor were technically said to be in jure. The praetors also presided at trials of criminal matters. These were the quaestiones perpetuae, or the trials for repetundae, ambitus, majestas, and peculatus, which, when there were six praetors, were assigned to four out of the number. Sulla added to these quaestiones those of falsum, de sicariis et veneficis, and de parricidis, and for this purpose he added two, or, according to some accounts, four praetors. On these occasions the praetor presided, but a body of judices determined by a majority of votes the condemnation or acquittal of the accused. [[Judex].] The praetor, when he administered justice, sat on a sella curulis in a tribunal, which was that part of the court which was appropriated to the praetor and his assessors and friends, and is opposed to the subsellia, or part occupied by the judices, and others who were present.

PRAETŌRĬA CŎHORS. [[Praetoriani].]

PRAETŌRĬĀNI, sc. milites, or praetoriae cohortes, a body of troops instituted by Augustus to protect his person and his power, and called by that name in imitation of the praetoria cohors, or select troops which attended the person of the praetor or general of the Roman army. They originally consisted of nine or ten cohorts, each comprising a thousand men, horse and foot. Augustus, in accordance with his general policy of avoiding the appearance of despotism, stationed only three of these cohorts in the capital, and dispersed the remainder in the adjacent towns of Italy. Tiberius, however, under pretence of introducing a stricter discipline among them, assembled them all at Rome in a permanent camp, which was strongly fortified. Their number was increased by Vitellius to sixteen cohorts, or 16,000 men. The praetorians were distinguished by double pay and especial privileges. Their term of service was originally fixed by Augustus at twelve years, but was afterwards increased to sixteen years; and when they had served their time, each soldier received 20,000 sesterces. They soon became the most powerful body in the state, and, like the janissaries at Constantinople, frequently deposed and elevated emperors according to their pleasure. Even the most powerful of the emperors were obliged to court their favour; and they always obtained a liberal donation upon the accession of each sovereign. After the death of Pertinax (A.D. 193) they even offered the empire for sale, which was purchased by Didius Julianus; but upon the accession of Severus in the same year they were disbanded, on account of the part they had taken in the death of Pertinax, and banished from the city. The emperors, however, could not dispense with guards, and accordingly the praetorians were restored on a new model by Severus, and increased to four times their ancient number. Diocletian reduced their numbers and abolished their privileges; they were still allowed to remain at Rome, but had no longer the guard of the emperor’s person, as he never resided in the capital. Their numbers were again increased by Maxentius; but after his defeat by Constantine, A.D. 312, they were entirely suppressed by the latter, their fortified camp destroyed, and those who had not perished in the battle between Constantine and Maxentius were dispersed among the legions. The commander of the praetorians was called [Praefectus Praetorio].

PRAETŌRĬUM, the name of the general’s tent in the camp, and so called because the name of the chief Roman magistrate was originally praetor, and not consul. [[Castra].] The officers who attended on the general in the praetorium, and formed his council of war, were called by the same name. The word was also used in several other significations, which were derived from the original one. Thus the residence of a governor of a province was called the praetorium; and the same name was also given to any large house or palace. The camp of the praetorian troops at Rome, and frequently the praetorian troops themselves, were called by this name. [[Praetoriani].]

PRANDĬUM. [[Coena], [p. 96], b.]

PRĒLUM. [[Vinum].]

PRĪMĬPĪLUS. [[Centurio].]

PRINCEPS JŬVENTŪTIS. [[Equites].]

PRINCEPS SĔNĀTUS. [[Senatus].]

PRINCĬPES. [[Exercitus], [p. 168], b.]

PRINCĬPĬA, PRINCĬPĀLIS VIA. [[Castra].]

PRĪVĬLĒGĬUM. [[Lex].]

PRŎBŎLĒ (προβολή), an accusation of a criminal nature, preferred before the people of Athens in assembly, with a view to obtain their sanction for bringing the charge before a judicial tribunal. The probolé was reserved for those cases where the public had sustained an injury, or where, from the station, power, or influence of the delinquent, the prosecutor might deem it hazardous to proceed in the ordinary way without being authorised by a vote of the sovereign assembly. In this point it differed from the eisangelia, that in the latter the people were called upon either to pronounce final judgment, or to direct some peculiar method of trial; whereas, in the probolé after the judgment of the assembly, the parties proceeded to trial in the usual manner. The cases to which the probolé was applied were, complaints against magistrates for official misconduct of oppression; against those public informers and mischief-makers who were called sycophantae (συκοφάνται); against those who outraged public decency at the religious festivals; and against all such as by evil practices exhibited disaffection to the state.

PRŎBOULEUMA. [[Boule].]

PRŎBOULI (πρόβουλοι), a name applicable to any persons who are appointed to consult or take measures for the benefit of the people. Ten probouli were appointed at Athens, after the end of the Sicilian war, to act as a committee of public safety. Their authority did not last much longer than a year; for a year and a half afterwards Pisander and his colleagues established the council of Four Hundred, by which the democracy was overthrown.

PRŌCONSUL (ἀνθύπατος), an officer who acted in the place of a consul, without holding the office of consul itself. The proconsul, however, was generally one who had held the office of consul, so that the proconsulship was a continuation, though a modified one, of the consulship. The first time when the imperium of a consul was prolonged, was in B.C. 327, in the case of Q. Publilius Philo, whose return to Rome would have been followed by the loss of most of the advantages that had been gained in his campaign. The power of proconsul was conferred by a senatusconsultum and plebiscitum, and was nearly equal to that of a regular consul, for he had the imperium and jurisdictio, but it differed inasmuch as it did not extend over the city and its immediate vicinity, and was conferred, without the auspicia, by a mere decree of the senate and people, and not in the comitia for elections. When the number of Roman provinces had become great, it was customary for the consuls, who during the latter period of the republic spent the year of their consulship at Rome, to undertake at its close the conduct of a war in a province, or its peaceful administration, with the title of proconsuls. There are some extraordinary cases on record in which a man obtained a province with the title of proconsul without having held the consulship before. The first case of this kind occurred in B.C. 211, when young P. Cornelius Scipio was created proconsul of Spain in the comitia centuriata.

PRŌCŪRĀTOR, a person who has the management of any business committed to him by another. Thus it is applied to a person who maintains or defends an action on behalf of another, or, as we should say, an attorney [[Actio]]: to a steward in a family [[Calculator]]: to an officer in the provinces belonging to the Caesar, who attended to the duties discharged by the quaestor in the other provinces [[Provincia]]: to an officer engaged in the administration of the fiscus [[Fiscus]]: and to various other officers under the empire.

PRŌDĬGĬUM, in its widest acceptation, denotes any sign by which the gods indicated to men a future event, whether good or evil, and thus includes omens and auguries of every description. It is, however, generally employed in a more restricted sense, to signify some strange incident or wonderful appearance which was supposed to herald the approach of misfortune, and happened under such circumstances as to announce that the calamity was impending over a whole community or nation rather than over private individuals. The word may be considered synonymous with ostentum, monstrum, portentum. Since prodigies were viewed as direct manifestations of the wrath of heaven, it was believed that this wrath might be appeased by prayers and sacrifices duly offered to the offended powers. This being a matter which deeply concerned the public welfare, the necessary rites were in ancient times regularly performed, under the direction of the pontifices, by the consuls before they left the city, the solemnities being called procuratio prodigiorum.

PRODŎSĬA (προδοσία) included not only every species of treason, but also every such crime as (in the opinion of the Greeks) would amount to a betraying or desertion of the interest of a man’s country. The highest sort of treason was the attempt to establish a despotism (τυραννίς), or to subvert the constitution (καταλύειν τὴν πολιτείαν), and in democracies καταλύειν τὸν δῆμον or τὸ πλῆθος. Other kinds of treason were a secret correspondence with a foreign enemy; a betraying of an important trust, such, as a fleet, army, or fortress, a desertion of post, a disobedience of orders, or any other act of treachery, or breach of duty in the public service. But not only would overt acts of disobedience or treachery amount to the crime of προδοσία, but also the neglect to perform those active duties which the Greeks in general expected of every good citizen. Cowardice in battle (δειλία) would be an instance of this kind; so would any breach of the oath taken by the ἔφηβοι at Athens; or any line of conduct for which a charge of disaffection to the people (μισοδημία) might be successfully maintained. The regular punishment appointed by the law for most kinds of treason appears to have been death, which, no doubt, might be mitigated by decree of the people, as in the case of Miltiades and many others. The goods of traitors, who suffered death, were confiscated, and their houses razed to the ground; nor were they permitted to be buried in the country, but had their bodies cast out in some place on the confines of Attica and Megara. Therefore it was that the bones of Themistocles, who had been condemned for treason, were brought over and buried secretly by his friends. The posterity of a traitor became ἄτιμοι, and those of a tyrant were liable to share the fate of their ancestor.

PRŎĔDRI. [[Boule].]

PRŌFESTI DĬES. [[Dies].]

PRŌLĒTĀRĬI. [[Caput].]

PRŎMĒTHEIA (προμήθεια), a festival celebrated at Athens in honour of Prometheus. It was one of the five Attic festivals, which were held with a torch-race in the Ceramicus [comp. [Lampadephoria]], for which the gymnasiarchs had to supply the youths from the gymnasia. Prometheus himself was believed to have instituted this torch-race, whence he was called the torch-bearer.

PRŌMULSIS. [[Coena], [p. 96], b.]

PRŌNŬBAE, PRŌNŬBI. [[Matrimonium].]

PROPRAETOR. [[Praetor].]

PRŎPỸLAEA (προπύλαια), the entrance to a temple, or sacred enclosure, consisted of a gateway flanked by buildings, whence the plural form of the word. The Egyptian temples generally had magnificent propylaea, consisting of a pair of oblong truncated pyramids of solid masonry, the faces of which were sculptured with hieroglyphics. In Greek, except when the Egyptian temples are spoken of, the word is generally used to signify the entrance to the Acropolis of Athens, which was executed under the administration of Pericles.

PRŌQUAESTOR. [[Quaestor].]

PRŌRA. [[Navis], [p. 263].]

PRŌSCĒNĬUM. [[Theatrum].]

PRŌSCRIPTĬO. The verb proscribere properly signifies to exhibit a thing for sale by means of a bill or advertisement. But in the time of Sulla it assumed a very different meaning, for he applied it to a measure of his own invention (B.C. 82), namely, the sale of the property of those who were put to death at his command, and who were themselves called proscripti. After this example of a proscription had once been set, it was readily adopted by those in power during the civil commotions of subsequent years. In the proscription of Antonius, Caesar, and Lepidus (B.C. 43), Cicero and some of the most distinguished Romans were put to death.

PRŎSTĂTĒS (προστάτης). [[Libertus].]

PRŎSTĂTĒS TOU DĒMOU (προστάτης τοῦ δήμου), a leader of the people, denoted at Athens and in other democratical states, a person who by his character and eloquence placed himself at the head of the people, and whose opinion had the greatest sway amongst them: such was Pericles. It appears, however, that προστάτης τοῦ δήμου was also the title of a public officer in those Dorian states in which the government was democratical.

PRŎTHESMĬA (προθεσμία), the term limited for bringing actions and prosecutions at Athens. The Athenian expression προθεσμίας νόμος corresponds to our statute of limitations. The time for commencing actions to recover debts, or compensation for injuries, appears to have been limited to five years at Athens.

PRŌVINCĬA. This word is merely a shortened form of providentia, and was frequently used in the sense of “a duty” or “matter entrusted to a person.” But it is ordinarily employed to denote a part of the Roman dominion beyond Italy, which had a regular organisation, and was under Roman administration. Livy likewise uses the word to denote a district or enemy’s country, which was assigned to a general as the field of his operations, before the establishment of any provincial governments.—The Roman state in its complete development consisted of two parts with a distinct organisation, Italia and the Provinciae. There were no Provinciae in this sense of the word till the Romans had extended their conquests beyond Italy; and Sicily was the first country that was made a Roman province: Sardinia was made a province B.C. 235. The Roman province of Gallia Ulterior in the time of Caesar was sometimes designated simply by the term Provincia, a name which has been perpetuated in the modern Provence. A conquered country received its provincial organisation either from the Roman commander, whose acts required the approval of the senate; or the government was organised by the commander and a body of commissioners appointed by the senate out of their own number. The mode of dealing with a conquered country was not uniform. When constituted a provincia, it did not become to all purposes an integral part of the Roman state; it retained its national existence, though it lost its sovereignty. The organisation of Sicily was completed by P. Rupilius with the aid of ten legates. The island was formed into two districts, with Syracuse for the chief town of the eastern and Lilybaeum of the western district: the whole island was administered by a governor annually sent from Rome. He was assisted by two quaestors, and was accompanied by a train of praecones, scribae, haruspices, and other persons, who formed his cohors. The quaestors received from the Roman aerarium the necessary sums for the administration of the island, and they also collected the taxes, except those which were farmed by the censors at Rome. One quaestor resided at Lilybaeum, and the other with the governor or praetor at Syracuse. For the administration of justice the island was divided into Fora or Conventus, which were territorial divisions. [[Conventus].] The island was bound to furnish and maintain soldiers and sailors for the service of Rome, and to pay tributum for the carrying on of wars. The governor could take provisions for the use of himself and his cohors on condition of paying for them. The Roman state had also the portoria which were let to farm to Romans at Rome. The governor had complete jurisdictio in the island, with the imperium and potestas. He could delegate these powers to his quaestors, but there was always an appeal to him, and for this and other purposes he made circuits through the different conventus.—Such was the organisation of Sicilia as a province, which may be taken as a sample of the general character of Roman provincial government. The governor, upon entering on his duties, published an edict, which was often framed upon the Edictum Urbanum. Cicero, when proconsul of Cilicia, says that on some matters he framed an edict of his own, and that as to others he referred to the Edicta Urbana. There was one great distinction between Italy and the provinces as to the nature of property in land. Provincial land could not be an object of Quiritarian ownership, and it was accordingly appropriately called Possessio. Provincial land could be transferred without the forms required in the case of Italian land, but it was subject to the payment of a land-tax (vectigal).—The Roman provinces up to the battle of Actium are: Sicilia, Sardinia et Corsica; Hispania Citerior et Ulterior; Gallia Citerior; Gallia Narbonensis et Comata; Illyricum; Macedonia; Achaia; Asia; Cilicia; Syria; Bithynia et Pontus; Cyprus; Africa; Cyrenaica et Creta; Numidia; Mauritania. Those of a subsequent date, which were either new or arose from division, are: Rhaetia; Noricum; Pannonia; Moesia; Dacia; Britannia; Mauritania Caesariensis and Tingitana; Aegyptus; Cappadocia; Galatia; Rhodus; Lycia; Commagene; Judaea; Arabia; Mesopotamia; Armenia; Assyria.—At first praetors were appointed as governors of provinces, but afterwards they were appointed to the government of provinces, upon the expiration of their year of office at Rome, and with the title of propraetores. In the later times of the republic, the consuls also, after the expiration of their year of office, received the government of a province, with the title of proconsules: such provinces were called consulares. The provinces were generally distributed by lot, but the distribution was sometimes arranged by agreement among the persons entitled to them. By a Sempronian Lex the proconsular provinces were annually determined before the election of the consuls, the object of which was to prevent all disputes. A senatus consultum of the year 55 B.C. provided that no consul or praetor should have a province till after the expiration of five years from the time of his consulship or praetorship. A province was generally held for a year, but the time was often prolonged. When a new governor arrived in his province, his predecessor was required to leave it within thirty days. The governor of a province had originally to account at Rome (ad urbem) for his administration, from his own books and those of his quaestors; but after the passing of a Lex Julia, B.C. 61, he was bound to deposit two copies of his accounts (rationes) in the two chief cities of his province, and to forward one (totidem verbis) to the aerarium. If the governor misconducted himself in the administration of the province, the provincials applied to the Roman senate, and to the powerful Romans who were their patroni. The offences of repetundae and peculatus were the usual grounds of complaint by the provincials; and if a governor had betrayed the interests of the state, he was also liable to the penalties attached to majestas. Quaestiones were established for inquiries into these offences; yet it was not always an easy matter to bring a guilty governor to the punishment that he deserved.—With the establishment of the imperial power under Augustus, a considerable change was made in the administration of the provinces. Augustus took the charge of those provinces where a large military force was required; the rest were left to the care of the senate and the Roman people. Accordingly we find in the older jurists the division of provinciae into those which were propriae populi Romani, and those which were propriae Caesaris; and this division, with some modifications, continued to the third century. The senatorian provinces were distributed among consulares and those who had filled the office of praetor, two provinces being given to the consulares and the rest to the praetorii: these governors were called proconsules, or praesides, which latter is the usual term employed by the old jurists for a provincial governor. The praesides had the jurisdictio of the praetor urbanus and the praetor peregrinus: and their quaestors had the same jurisdiction that the curule aediles had at Rome. The imperial provinces were governed by legati Caesaris, with praetorian power, the proconsular power being in the Caesar himself, and the legati being his deputies and representatives. The legati were selected from those who had been consuls or praetors, or from the senators. They held their office and their power at the pleasure of the emperor; and he delegated to them both military command and jurisdictio, just as a proconsul in the republican period delegated these powers to his legati. These legati had also legati under them. No quaestors were sent to the provinces of the Caesar. In place of the quaestors, there were procuratores Caesaris, who were either equites or freedmen of the Caesar. Egypt was governed by an eques with the title of praefectus. The procuratores looked after the taxes, paid the troops, and generally were intrusted with the interests of the fiscus. Judaea, which was a part of the province of Syria, was governed by a procurator, who had the powers of a legatus. It appears that there were also procuratores Caesaris in the senatorian provinces, who collected certain dues of the fiscus, which were independent of what was due to the aerarium. The regular taxes, as in the republican period, were the poll-tax and land-tax. The taxation was founded on a census of persons and property, which was established by Augustus. The portoria and other dues were farmed by the publicani, as in the republican period.

PRŌVŎCĀTĬO. [[Appellatio].]

PRŌVŎCĀTŌRES. [[Gladiatores].]

PROXĔNUS (πρόξενος). [[Hospitium].]

PRỸTĂNEIUM (πρυτανεῖον), the public hall or town-hall in a Greek state. The prytaneia of the ancient Greek states and cities were to the communities living around them, what private houses were to the families which occupied them. Just as the house of each family was its home, so was the prytaneium of every state or city the common home of its members or inhabitants. This correspondence between the prytaneium or home of the city, and the private home of a man’s family, was at Athens very remarkable. A perpetual fire was kept burning on the public altar of the city in the prytaneium, just as in private houses a fire was kept up on the domestic altar in the inner court of the house. Moreover, the city of Athens exercised in its prytaneium the duties of hospitality, both to its own citizens and to strangers. Thus foreign ambassadors were entertained here, as well as Athenian envoys, on their return home from a successful or well-conducted mission. Here, too, were entertained from day to day the successive prytanes or presidents of the senate, together with those citizens who, whether from personal or ancestral services to the state, were honoured with what was called the σίτησις ἐν πρυτανείῳ, or the privilege of taking their meals there at the public cost. This was granted sometimes for a limited period, sometimes for life, in which latter case the parties enjoying it were called ἀείσιτοι. Moreover, from the ever-burning fire of the prytaneium, or home of a mother state, was carried the sacred fire which was to be kept burning in the prytaneia of her colonies; and if it happened that this was ever extinguished, the flame was rekindled from the prytaneium of the parent city. Lastly, a prytaneium was also a distinguishing mark of an independent state. The prytaneium of Athens lay under the Acropolis on its northern side (near the ἀγορά), and was, as its name denotes, originally the place of assembly of the prytanes; in the earliest times it probably stood on the Acropolis. Officers called prytanes (πρυτανεῖς) were entrusted with the chief magistracy in several states of Greece, as Corcyra, Corinth, Miletus. At Athens they were in early times probably a magistracy of the second rank in the state (next to the archon), acting as judges in various cases (perhaps in conjunction with him), and sitting in the prytaneium. That this was the case is rendered probable by the fact, that even in after-times the fees paid into court by plaintiff and defendant, before they could proceed to trial, and received by the dicasts, were called prytaneia.

PRỸTĂNES. [[Prytaneium]; [Boule].]

PSĒPHISMA. [[Boule]; [Nomothetes].]

PSĒPHUS (ψῆφος), a ball of stone, used by the Athenian dicasts in giving their verdict. [[Cadiscus].] Hence ψηφίζεσθαι and its various derivatives are used so often to signify voting, determining, &c.

PSEUDENGRĂPHĒS GRĂPHĒ (ψευδεγγραφῆς γραφή). The name of every state debtor at Athens was entered in a register by the praetores, whose duty it was to collect the debts, and erase the name of the party when he had paid it. If they made a false entry, either wilfully, or upon the suggestion of another person, the aggrieved party might institute a prosecution against them, or against the person upon whose suggestion it was made. Such prosecution was called γραφὴ ψευδεγγραφῆς. It would lie also, where a man was registered as debtor for more than was really due from him.

PSEUDŎCLĒTEIAS GRĂPHĒ (ψευδοκλητείας γραφή), a prosecution against one, who had appeared as a witness (κλητήρ or κλήτωρ) to prove that a defendant had been duly summoned, and thereby enabled the plaintiff to get a judgment by default. The false witness (κλητήρ) was liable to be criminally prosecuted, and punished at the discretion of the court. The γραφὴ ψευδοκλητείας came before the Thesmothetae, and the question at the trial simply was, whether the defendant in the former cause had been summoned or not.

PSĪLI (ψιλοί). [[Arma].]

PSYCTĒR (ψυκτήρ, dim. ψυκτηρίδιον), a wine-cooler, was sometimes made of bronze or silver. One of earthenware is preserved in the Museum of Antiquities at Copenhagen. It consists of one deep vessel for holding ice, which is fixed within another for holding wine. The wine was poured in at the top. It thus surrounded the vessel of ice and was cooled by the contact. It was drawn off so as to fill the drinking-cups by means of a cock at the bottom.

PŪBES, PŪBERTAS. [[Impubes]; [Infans].]

PUBLĬCĀNI, farmers of the public revenues of the Roman state (vectigalia). Their name is formed from publicum, which signifies all that belongs to the state, and is sometimes used by Roman writers as synonymous with vectigal. The revenues which Rome derived from conquered countries, consisting chiefly of tolls, tithes, harbour duties, the scriptura, or the tax which was paid for the use of the public pasture lands, and the duties paid for the use of mines and salt-works (salinae), were let out, or, as the Romans expressed it, were sold by the censors in Rome itself to the highest bidder. This sale generally took place in the month of Quinctilis, and was made for a lustrum. The terms on which the revenues were let, were fixed by the censors in the so-called leges censoriae. The people or the senate, however, sometimes modified the terms fixed by the censors, in order to raise the credit of the publicani; and in some cases even the tribunes of the people interfered in this branch of the administration. The tithes raised in the province of Sicily alone, with the exception of those of wine, oil, and garden produce, were not sold at Rome, but in the districts of Sicily itself, according to a practice established by Hiero. The persons who undertook the farming of the public revenue of course belonged to the wealthiest Romans, and during the latter period of the republic they belonged almost exclusively to the equestrian order. Their wealth and consequent influence may be seen from the fact, that as early as the second Punic war, after the battle of Cannae, when the aerarium was entirely exhausted, the publicani advanced large sums of money to the state, on condition of repayment after the end of the war. The words equites and publicani are sometimes used as synonymous. The publicani had to give security to the state for the sum at which they bought one or more branches of the revenue in a province; but as for this reason the property of even the wealthiest individual must have been inadequate, a number of equites generally united together, and formed a company (socii, societas, or corpus), which was recognised by the state, and by which they were enabled to carry on their undertakings upon a large scale. Such companies appear as early as the second Punic war. The shares which each partner of such a company took in the business were called partes, and if they were small, particulae. The responsible person in each company, and the one who contracted with the state, was called manceps [[Manceps]]; but there was also a magister to manage the business of each society, who resided at Rome, and kept an extensive correspondence with the agents in the provinces. He seems to have held his office only for one year; his representative in the provinces was called sub magistro, who had to travel about, and superintend the actual business of collecting the revenues. Nobody but a Roman citizen was allowed to become a member of a company of publicani; freedmen and slaves were excluded. No Roman magistrate, however, or governor of a province, was allowed to take any share whatever in a company of publicani, a regulation which was chiefly intended as a protection against the oppression of the provincials. The collection of the taxes in the provinces was performed by an inferior class of men, who were said operas publicanis dare, or esse in operis societatis. They were engaged by the publicani, and consisted of freemen as well as slaves, Romans as well as provincials. The separate branches of the public revenue in the provinces (decumae, portoria, scriptura, and the revenues from the mines and salt-works) were mostly leased to separate companies of publicani; whence they were distinguished by names derived from that particular branch which they had taken in farm; e.g. decumani, pecuarii or scripturarii, salinarii or mancipes salinarum, &c. [[Decumae]; [Portorium]; [Salinas]; [Scriptura].] The portitores were not publicani properly so called, but only their servants engaged in examining the goods imported or exported, and levying the custom-duties upon them. They belonged to the same class as the publicans of the New Testament.

PUBLĬCUM. [[Publicani].]

PŬGĬLĀTUS (πύξ, πυγμή, πυγμαχία, πυγμοσύνη), boxing, was one of the earliest athletic games among the Greeks, and is frequently mentioned in Homer. In the earliest times boxers (pugiles, πύκται) fought naked, with the exception of a girdle (ζῶμα) round their loins; but this was not used when boxing was introduced at Olympia, as the contests in wrestling and racing had been carried on there by persons entirely naked ever since Ol. 15. Respecting the leathern thongs with which pugilists surrounded their fists, see Cestus, where its various forms are illustrated by woodcuts. The Ionians, especially those of Samos, were at all times more distinguished pugilists than the Dorians, and at Sparta boxing is said to have been forbidden by the laws of Lycurgus. But the ancients generally considered boxing as a useful training for military purposes, and a part of education no less important than any other gymnastic exercise.

PŬGILLĀRES. [[Tabulae].]

PŬGĬO (μάχαιρα), a dagger; a two-edged knife, commonly of bronze, with the hand in many cases variously ornamented or enriched.

PULLĀRĬUS. [[Auspicium].]

PULPĬTUM. [[Theatrum].]

PULVĪNAR, a couch provided with cushions or pillows (pulvini), on which the Romans placed the statues of the gods at the Lectisternia. [[Epulones]; [Lectisternium].] There was also a pulvinar, on which the images of the gods were laid, in the Circus.

PŪPILLA, PŪPILLUS, the name given to every impubes not in the power of their father, but subject to a guardian. [[Impubes]; [Tutela].]

PUPPIS. [[Navis].]

PŬTĔAL, properly means the enclosure surrounding the opening of a well, to protect persons from falling into it. It was either round or square, and seems usually to have been of the height of three or four feet from the ground. It was the practice in some cases to surround a sacred place with an enclosure open at the top, and such enclosures, from the great similarity they bore to putealia, were called by this name. There were two such places in the Roman forum; one of these was called Puteal Libonis or Scribonianum, because a chapel (sacellum) in that place had been struck by lightning, and Scribonius Libo expiated it by proper ceremonies, and erected a puteal around it, open at the top, to preserve the memory of the place. The form of this puteal is preserved on several coins of the Scribonian gens. This puteal seems to have been near the atrium of Vesta, and was a common place of meeting for usurers. The other puteal was in the comitium, on the left side of the senate-house, and in it were deposited the whetstone and razor of Attus Navius.

Puteal on a Coin of the Scribonia Gens. (British Museum.)

PUTĬCŬLI. [[Funus].]

PỸANEPSIA (πυανέψια), a festival celebrated at Athens every year on the seventh of Pyanepsion, in honour of Apollo, said to have been instituted by Theseus after his return from Crete. The festival, as well as the month in which it took place, are said to have derived their names from πύαμος, another form for κύαμος, i.e. pulse or beans, which were cooked at this season and carried about.

PỸLĂGŎRAE. [[Amphictyones].]

PỸRA. [[Funus].]

PYRRHĬCA. [[Saltatio].]

PȲTHĬA (πύθια), one of the four great national festivals of the Greeks. It was celebrated in the neighbourhood of Delphi, anciently called Pytho, in honour of Apollo, Artemis, and Leto. The place of this solemnity was the Crissaean plain, which for this purpose contained a hippodromus or race-course, a stadium of 1000 feet in length, and a theatre, in which the musical contests took place. The Pythian games were, according to most legends, instituted by Apollo himself. They were originally perhaps nothing more than a religious panegyris, occasioned by the oracle of Delphi, and the sacred games are said to have been at first only a musical contest, which consisted in singing a hymn to the honour of the Pythian god, with the accompaniment of the cithara. They must, on account of the celebrity of the Delphic oracle, have become a national festival for all the Greeks at a very early period, and gradually all the various contests were introduced which occur in the Olympic games. [[Olympia].] Down to Ol. 48. the Delphians had been the agonothetae at the Pythian games; but in the third year of this Olympiad, after the Crissaean war, the Amphictyons took the management under their care, and appointed certain persons, called Epimeletae (ἐπιμεληταί), to conduct them. Some of the ancients date the institution of the Pythian games from this time. Previous to Ol. 48. the Pythian games had been an ἐνναετηρίς, that is, they had been celebrated at the end of every eighth year; but in Ol. 48. 3. they became, like the Olympia, a πενταετηρίς, i.e. they were held at the end of every fourth year; and a Pythiad, therefore, from the time that it was used as an aera, comprehended a space of four years, commencing with the third year of every Olympiad. They were in all probability held in the spring, and took place in the month of Bucatius, which corresponded to the Attic Munychion.

PȲTHĬI (πύθιοι), four persons appointed by the Spartan kings, two by each, as messengers to the temple of Delphi. Their office was highly honourable and important; they were always the messmates of the Spartan kings.

PYXIS, dim. PYXĬDŬLA (πύξις, dim. πυξίδιον), a casket; a jewel-box. The caskets in which the ladies of ancient times kept their jewels and other ornaments, were made of gold, silver, ivory, mother-of-pearl, tortoise-shell, &c. They were also much enriched with sculpture. The annexed woodcut represents a very plain jewel-box, out of which a dove is extracting a riband or fillet.

Pyxis, jewel-box. (From a Painting at Herculaneum.)