Pegæ, a fountain at the foot of mount Arganthus in Bithynia, into which Hylas fell. Propertius, bk. 1, poem 20, li. 33.
Pegăsĭdes, a name given to the Muses from the horse Pegasus, or from the fountain which Pegasus had raised from the ground, by striking it with his foot. Ovid, Heroides, poem 15, li. 27.
Pēgăsis, a name given to Œnone by Ovid, Heroides, poem 5, because she was daughter of the river (πηγη) Cebrenus.
Pegăsium stagnum, a lake near Ephesus, which arose from the earth when Pegasus struck it with his foot.
Pegăsus, a winged horse sprung from the blood of Medusa, when Perseus had cut off her head. He received his name from his being born, according to Hesiod, near the sources (πηγη) of the ocean. As soon as born he left the earth, and flew up into heaven, or rather, according to Ovid, he fixed his residence on mount Helicon, where, by striking the earth with his foot, he instantly raised a fountain, which has been called Hippocrene. He became the favourite of the Muses; and being afterwards tamed by Neptune or Minerva, he was given to Bellerophon to conquer the Chimæra. No sooner was this fiery monster destroyed, than Pegasus threw down his rider, because he was a mortal, or rather, according to the more received opinion, because he attempted to fly to heaven. This act of temerity in Bellerophon was punished by Jupiter, who sent an insect to torment Pegasus, which occasioned the melancholy fall of his rider. Pegasus continued his flight up to heaven, and was placed among the constellations by Jupiter. Perseus, according to Ovid, was mounted on the horse Pegasus, when he destroyed the sea monster which was going to devour Andromeda. Hesiod, Theogony, li. 282.—Horace, bk. 4, ode 11, li. 20.—Homer, Iliad, bk. 6, li. 179.—Apollodorus, bk. 2, chs. 3 & 4.—Lycophron, li. 17.—Pausanias, bk. 12, chs. 3 & 4.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 4, li. 785.—Hyginus, fable 57.
Pelăgo, a eunuch, one of Nero’s favourites, &c. Tacitus, Annals, bk. 14, ch. 59.
Pelăgon, a man killed by a wild boar. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 8, li. 360.——A son of Asopus and Metope.——A Phocian, one of whose men conducted Cadmus, and showed him where, according to the oracle, he was to build a city.
Pelagonia, one of the divisions of Macedonia at the north. Livy, bk. 26, ch. 25; bk. 31, ch. 28.
Pelarge, a daughter of Potneus, who re-established the worship of Ceres in Bœotia. She received divine honours after death. Pausanias, bk. 9, ch. 25.
Pelasgi, a people of Greece, supposed to be one of the most ancient in the world. They first inhabited Argolis in Peloponnesus, which from them received the name of Pelasgia, and about 1883 years before the christian era they passed into Æmonia, and were afterwards dispersed in several parts of Greece. Some of them fixed their habitation in Epirus, others in Crete, others in Italy, and others in Lesbos. From these different changes of situation in the Pelasgians, all the Greeks are indiscriminately called Pelasgians, and their country Pelasgia, though, more properly speaking, it should be confined to Thessaly, Epirus, and Peloponnesus, in Greece. Some of the Pelasgians, that had been driven from Attica, settled at Lemnos, where some time after they carried some Athenian women, whom they had seized in an expedition on the coast of Attica. They raised some children by these captive females, but they afterwards destroyed them with their mothers, through jealousy, because they differed in manners as well as language from them. This horrid murder was attended by a dreadful pestilence, and they were ordered, to expiate their crime, to do whatever the Athenians commanded them. This was to deliver their possessions into their hands. The Pelasgians seem to have received their name from Pelasgus, the first king and founder of their nation. Pausanias, bk. 8, ch. 1.—Strabo, bk. 5.—Herodotus, bk. 1.—Plutarch, Romulus.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 1.—Ovid, Metamorphoses.—Flaccus.—Seneca, Medea & Agamemnon.