Parætonium, a town of Egypt at the west of Alexandria, where Isis was worshipped. The word Parætonius is used to signify Egyptian, and is sometimes applied to Alexandria, which was situate in the neighbourhood. Strabo, bk. 17.—Florus, bk. 4, ch. 11.—Lucan, bk. 3, li. 295; bk. 10, li. 9.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 9, li. 712; Amores, bk. 2, poem 13, li. 7.
Parăli, a division of the inhabitants of Attica. They received this name from their being near the sea coast, παρα and ἁλς.
Parălus, a friend of Dion, by whose assistance he expelled Dionysius.——A son of Pericles. His premature death was greatly lamented by his father. Plutarch.
Parasia, a country at the east of Media.
Parasius, a son of Philonomia by a shepherd. He was exposed on Erymanthus by his mother, with his twin brother Lycastus. Their lives were preserved.
Parcæ, powerful goddesses, who presided over the birth and the life of mankind. They were three in number, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, daughters of Nox and Erebus, according to Hesiod, or of Jupiter and Themis, according to the same poet in another poem. Some make them daughters of the sea. Clotho, the youngest of the sisters, presided over the moment in which we are born, and held a distaff in her hand; Lachesis spun out all the events and actions of our life; and Atropos, the eldest of the three, cut the thread of human life with a pair of scissors. Their different functions are well expressed in this ancient verse:
Clotho colum retinet, Lachesis net, et Atropos occat.
The name of the Parcæ, according to Varro, is derived a partu or parturiendo, because they presided over the birth of men; and by corruption the word parca is formed from parta or partus: but, according to Servius, they are called so by antiphrasis, quod nemini parcant. The power of the Parcæ was great and extensive. Some suppose that they were subjected to none of the gods but Jupiter, while others support that even Jupiter himself was obedient to their commands; and, indeed, we see the father of the gods, in Homer’s Iliad, unwilling to see Patroclus perish, yet obliged, by the superior power of the Fates, to abandon him to his destiny. According to the more received opinion, they were the arbiters of the life and death of mankind, and whatever good or evil befalls us in the world, immediately proceeds from the Fates or Parcæ. Some make them ministers of the king of hell, and represent them as sitting at the foot of his throne; others represent them as placed on radiant thrones, amidst the celestial spheres, clothed in robes spangled with stars, and wearing crowns on their heads. According to Pausanias, the names of the Parcæ were different from those already mentioned. The most ancient of all, as the geographer observes, was Venus Urania, who presided over the birth of men; the second was Fortune; Ilythia was the third. To these some add a fourth, Proserpina, who often disputes with Atropos the right of cutting the thread of human life. The worship of the Parcæ was well established in some cities of Greece, and though mankind were well convinced that they were inexorable, and that it was impossible to mitigate them, yet they were eager to show a proper respect to their divinity, by raising them temples and statues. They received the same worship as the Furies, and their votaries yearly sacrificed to them black sheep, during which solemnity the priests were obliged to wear garlands of flowers. The Parcæ were generally represented as three old women with chaplets made with wool, and interwoven with the flowers of the narcissus. They were covered with a white robe, and fillet of the same colour, bound with chaplets. One of them held a distaff, another the spindle, and the third was armed with scissors, with which she cut the thread which her sisters had spun. Their dress is differently represented by some authors. Clotho appears in a variegated robe, and on her head is a crown of seven stars. She holds a distaff in her hand, reaching from heaven to earth. The robe which Lachesis wore was variegated with a great number of stars, and near her were placed a variety of spindles. Atropos was clothed in black; she held scissors in her hand, with clues of thread of different sizes, according to the length and shortness of the lives, whose destinies they seemed to contain. Hyginus attributes to them the invention of these Greek letters, α, β, η, τ, υ, and others call them the secretaries of heaven, and the keepers of the archives of eternity. The Greeks call the Parcæ by the different names of μοιρα, αἰσα, κηρ, εἰμαρμενη, which are expressive of their power and of their inexorable decrees. Hesiod, Theogony & Shield of Heracles.—Pausanias, bk. 1, ch. 40; bk. 3, ch. 11; bk. 5, ch. 15.—Homer, Iliad, bk. 20; Odyssey, bk. 7.—Theocritus.—Callimachus, Hymn to Artemis.—Ælian, De Natura Animalium, bk. 10.—Pindar, Olympian, poem 10; Nemean, poem 7.—Euripides, Iphigeneia.—Plutarch, de Faciæ Quæ in Orbe Lunæ Apparet.—Hyginus, in preface to fables & fable 277.—Varro.—Orpheus, hymn 58.—Apollonius, bk. 1, &c.—Claudian, de Raptu Proserpinæ.—Lycophron & Tzetzes, &c.—Horace, bk. 2, ode 6, &c.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 5, li. 533.—Lucan, bk. 3.—Virgil, Eclogues, poem 4; Æneid, bk. 3, &c.—Seneca, Hercules Furens.—Statius, Thebaid, bk. 6.
Parentalia, a festival annually observed at Rome in honour of the dead. The friends and relations of the deceased assembled on the occasion, when sacrifices were offered, and banquets provided. Æneas first established it. Ovid, Fasti, bk. 2, li. 544.
Parentium, a port and town of Istria. Pliny, bk. 3, ch. 19.