Parmenio, a celebrated general in the armies of Alexander, who enjoyed the king’s confidence, and was more attached to his person as a man than as a monarch. When Darius king of Persia offered Alexander all the country which lies at the west of the Euphrates, with his daughter Statira in marriage, and 10,000 talents of gold, Parmenio took occasion to observe that he would, without hesitation, accept of these conditions, if he were Alexander. “So would I, were I Parmenio,” replied the conqueror. This friendship, so true and inviolable, was sacrificed to a moment of resentment and suspicion; and Alexander, who had too eagerly listened to a light and perhaps a false accusation, ordered Parmenio and his son to be put to death, as if guilty of treason against his person. Parmenio was in the 70th year of his age, B.C. 330. He died in the greatest popularity, and it has been judiciously observed, that Parmenio obtained many victories without Alexander, but Alexander not one without Parmenio. Curtius, bk. 7, &c.—Plutarch, Alexander.
Parnassus, a mountain of Phocis, anciently called Larnassos, from the boat of Deucalion (λαρναξ), which was carried there in the universal deluge. It received the name of Parnassus from Parnassus the son of Neptune by Cleobula, and was sacred to the Muses, and to Apollo and Bacchus. The soil was barren, but the valleys and the green woods that covered its sides, rendered it agreeable, and fit for solitude and meditation. Parnassus is one of the highest mountains of Europe, and it is easily seen from the citadel of Corinth, though at the distance of about 80 miles. According to the computation of the ancients, it is one day’s journey round. At the north of Parnassus, there is a large plain, about eight miles in circumference. The mountain, according to the poets, had only two tops, called Hyampea and Tithorea, on one of which the city of Delphi was situated, and thence it was called Biceps. Strabo, bks. 8, 9.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 1, li. 317; bk. 2, li. 221; bk. 5, li. 278.—Lucan, bk. 5, li. 71; bk. 3, li. 173.—Livy, bk. 42, ch. 16.—Silius Italicus, bk. 15, li. 311.—Mela, bk. 2, ch. 3.—Pausanias, bk. 10, ch. 6.—Propertius, bk. 2, poem 23, li. 13; bk. 3, poem 11, li. 54.——A son of Neptune, who gave his name to a mountain of Phocis.
Parnes (etis), a mountain of Africa, abounding in vines. Statius, bk. 12, Thebaid, li. 620.
Parnessus, a mountain of Asia near Bactriana. Dionysius Periegeta, li. 737.
Parni, a tribe of the Scythians, who invaded Parthia. Strabo, bk. 11.
Paron and Heraclides, two youths who killed a man who had insulted their father. Plutarch, Apophthegmata Laconica.
Paropamisus, a ridge of mountains at the north of India, called the Stony Girdle, or Indian Caucasus. Strabo, bk. 15.
Paropus, now Colisano, a town at the north of Sicily, on the shores of the Tyrrhene sea. Polybius, bk. 1, ch. 24.
Paroreia, a town of Thrace, near mount Hæmus. Livy, bk. 39, ch. 27.——A town of Peloponnesus.——A district of Phrygia Magna. Strabo, bk. 12.
Paros, a celebrated island among the Cyclades, about 7½ miles distant from Naxos, and 28 from Delos. According to Pliny, it is half as large as Naxos, that is, about 36 or 37 miles in circumference, a measure which some of the moderns have extended to 50 and even 80 miles. It has borne the different names of Pactia, Minoa, Hiria, Demetrias, Zacynthus, Cabarnis, and Hyleassa. It received the name of Paros, which it still bears, from Paros, a son of Jason, or, as some maintain, of Parrhasius. The island of Paros was rich and powerful, and well known for its famous marble, which was always used by the best statuaries. The best quarries were those of Marpesus, a mountain where still caverns of the most extraordinary depth are seen by modern travellers, and admired as the sources from whence the [♦]labyrinth of Egypt and the porticoes of Greece received their splendour. According to Pliny, the quarries were so uncommonly deep, that, in the clearest weather, the workmen were obliged to use lamps, from which circumstance the Greeks have called the marble Lychnites, worked by the light of lamps. Paros is also famous for the fine cattle which it produces, and for its partridges, and wild pigeons. The capital city was called Paros. It was first peopled by the Phœnicians, and afterwards a colony of Cretans settled in it. The Athenians made war against it, because it had assisted the Persians in the invasion of Greece, and took it, and it became a Roman province in the age of Pompey. Archilochus was born there. The Parian marbles, perhaps better known by the appellation of Arundelian, were engraved in this island in capital letters, B.C. 264, and, as a valuable chronicle, preserved the most celebrated epochas of Greece, from the year 1582 B.C. These valuable pieces of antiquity were procured originally by M. de Peirisc, a Frenchman, and afterwards purchased by the earl of Arundel, by whom they were given to the university of Oxford, where they are still to be seen. Prideaux published an account of all the inscriptions in 1676. Mela, bk. 2, ch. 7.—Strabo, bk. 5.—Cornelius Nepos, Miltiades & Alcibiades.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 1, li. 593; Georgics, bk. 3, li. 34.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 3, li. 419; bk. 7, li. 466.—Pliny, bk. 3, ch. 14; bk. 36, ch. 17.—Diodorus, bk. 5, & Thucydides, bk. 1.—Herodotus, bk. 5, &c.—Horace, bk. 1, ode 19, li. 6.