Persĕpŏlis, a celebrated city, the capital of the Persian empire. It was laid in ruins by Alexander after the conquest of Darius. The reason of this is unknown. Diodorus says that the sight of about 800 Greeks, whom the Persians had shamefully mutilated, so irritated Alexander, that he resolved to punish the barbarity of the inhabitants of Persepolis, and of the neighbouring country, by permitting his soldiers to plunder their capital. Others suppose that Alexander set it on fire at the instigation of Thias, one of his courtesans, when he had passed the day in drinking and in riot and debauchery. The ruins of Persepolis, now Estakar, or Tehel-Minar, still astonish the modern traveller by their grandeur and magnificence. Curtius, bk. 5, ch. 7.—Diodorus, bk. 17, &c.—Arrian.—Plutarch, Alexander.—Justin, bk. 11, ch. 14.
Perses, a son of Perseus and Andromeda. From him the Persians, who were originally called Cephenes, received their name. Herodotus, bk. 7, ch. 61.——A king of Macedonia. See: [Perseus].
Perseus, a son of Jupiter and Danae, the daughter of Acrisius. As Acrisius had confined his daughter in a brazen tower to prevent her becoming a mother, because he was to perish, according to the words of an oracle, by the hands of his daughter’s son, Perseus was no sooner born [See: [Danae]] than he was thrown into the sea with his mother Danae. The hopes of Acrisius were frustrated; the slender boat which carried Danae and her son was driven by the winds on the coasts of the island of Seriphos, one of the Cyclades, where they were found by a fisherman called Dictys, and carried to Polydectes the king of the place. They were treated with great humanity, and Perseus was entrusted to the care of the priests of Minerva’s temple. His rising genius and manly courage, however, soon displeased Polydectes, and the monarch, who wished to offer violence to Danae, feared the resentment of her son. Yet Polydectes resolved to remove every obstacle. He invited all his friends to a sumptuous entertainment, and it was requisite that all such as came should present the monarch with a beautiful horse. Perseus was in the number of the invited, and the more particularly so, as Polydectes knew that he could not receive from him the present which he expected from all the rest. Nevertheless, Perseus, who wished not to appear inferior to the others in magnificence, told the king that as he could not give him a horse, he would bring him the head of Medusa, the only one of the Gorgons who was subject to mortality. The offer was doubly agreeable to Polydectes, as it would remove Perseus from Seriphos, and on account of its seeming impossibility, the attempt might perhaps end in his ruin. But the innocence of Perseus was patronized by the gods. Pluto lent him his helmet, which had the wonderful power of making its bearer invisible; Minerva gave him her buckler, which was as resplendent as glass; and he received from Mercury wings and the talaria, with a short dagger, made of diamonds, and called herpe. According to some it was from Vulcan, and not from Mercury, that he received the herpe, which was in form like a scythe. With these arms Perseus began his expedition, and traversed the air, conducted by the goddess Minerva. He went to the Graiæ, the sisters of the Gorgons, who, according to the poets, had wings like the Gorgons, but only one eye and one tooth between them all, of which they made use, each in her turn. They were three in number, according to Æschylus and Apollodorus; or only two, according to Ovid and Hesiod. With Pluto’s helmet, which rendered him invisible, Perseus was enabled to steal their eye and their tooth while they were asleep, and he returned them only when they had informed him where their sisters the Gorgons resided. When he had received every necessary information, Perseus flew to the habitation of the Gorgons, which was situate beyond the western ocean, according to Hesiod and Apollodorus; or in Libya, according to Ovid and Lucan; or in the deserts of Asiatic Scythia, according to Æschylus. He found these monsters asleep; and as he knew that if he fixed his eyes upon them, he should be instantly changed into a stone, he continually looked on his shield, which reflected all the objects as clearly as the best of glasses. He approached them, and with a courage which the goddess Minerva supported, he cut off Medusa’s head with one blow. The noise awoke the two immortal sisters, but Pluto’s helmet rendered Perseus invisible, and the attempts of the Gorgons to revenge Medusa’s death proved fruitless; the conqueror made his way through the air, and from the blood which dropped from Medusa’s head sprang all those innumerable serpents which have ever since infested the sandy deserts of Libya. Chrysaor also, with the golden sword, sprung from these drops of blood, as well as the horse Pegasus, which immediately flew through the air, and stopped on mount Helicon, where he became the favourite of the Muses. Meantime Perseus had continued his journey across the deserts of Libya; but the approach of night obliged him to alight in the territories of Atlas king of Mauritania. He went to the monarch’s palace, where he hoped to find a kind reception by announcing himself as the son of Jupiter, but in this he was disappointed. Atlas recollected that, according to an ancient oracle, his gardens were to be robbed of their fruit by one of the sons of Jupiter, and therefore he not only refused Perseus the hospitality which he demanded, but he even offered violence to his person. Perseus, finding himself inferior to his powerful enemy, showed him Medusa’s head, and instantly Atlas was changed into a large mountain which bore the same name in the deserts of Africa. On the morrow Perseus continued his flight, and as he passed across the territories of Libya, he discovered, on the coasts of Æthiopia, the naked Andromeda, exposed to a sea monster. He was struck at the sight, and offered her father Cepheus to deliver her from instant death, if he obtained her in marriage as a reward of his labours. Cepheus consented, and immediately Perseus raised himself in the air, flew towards the monster, which was advancing to devour Andromeda, and he plunged his dagger in [♦]its right shoulder, and destroyed it. This happy event was attended with the greatest rejoicings. Perseus raised three altars to Mercury, Jupiter, and Pallas, and after he had offered the sacrifice of a calf, a bullock, and a heifer, the nuptials were celebrated with the greatest festivity. The universal joy, however, was soon disturbed. Phineus, Andromeda’s uncle, entered the palace with a number of armed men, and attempted to carry away the bride, whom he had courted and admired long before the arrival of Perseus. The father and mother of Andromeda interfered, but in vain; a bloody battle ensued, and Perseus must have fallen a victim to the rage of Phineus, had not he defended himself at last with the same arms which proved fatal to Atlas. He showed the Gorgon’s head to his adversaries, and they were instantly turned to stone, each in the posture and attitude in which he then stood. The friends of Cepheus, and such as supported Perseus, shared not the fate of Phineus, as the hero had previously warned them of the power of Medusa’s head, and of the services which he received from it. Soon after this memorable adventure Perseus retired to Seriphos, at the very moment that his mother Danae fled to the altar of Minerva, to avoid the pursuit of Polydectes, who attempted to offer her violence. Dictys, who had saved her from the sea, and who, as some say, was the brother of Polydectes, defended her against the attempts of her enemies, and therefore Perseus, sensible of his merit, and of his humanity, placed him on the throne of Seriphos, after he had with Medusa’s head turned into stones the wicked Polydectes, and the officers who were the associates of his guilt. He afterwards restored to Mercury his talaria and his wings, to Pluto his helmet, to Vulcan his sword, and to Minerva her shield; but as he was more particularly indebted to the goddess of wisdom for her assistance and protection, he placed the Gorgon’s head on her shield, or rather, according to the more received opinion, on her ægis. After he had finished these celebrated exploits, Perseus expressed a wish to return to his native country; and accordingly he embarked for the Peloponnesus, with his mother and Andromeda. When he reached the Peloponnesian coasts he was informed that Teutamias king of Larissa was then celebrating funeral games in honour of his father. This intelligence drew him to Larissa to signalize himself in throwing the quoit, of which, according to some, he was the inventor. But here he was attended by an evil fate, and had the misfortune to kill a man with a quoit which he had thrown in the air. This was no other than his grandfather Acrisius, who, on the first intelligence that his grandson had reached the Peloponnesus, fled from his kingdom of Argos to the court of his friend and ally Teutamias, to prevent the fulfilling of the oracle which had obliged him to treat his daughter with so much barbarity. Some suppose, with Pausanias, that Acrisius had gone to Larissa to be reconciled to his grandson, whose fame had been spread in every city of Greece; and Ovid maintains that the grandfather was under the strongest obligations to his son-in-law, as through him he had received his kingdom, from which he had been forcibly driven by the sons of his brother Prœtus. This unfortunate murder greatly depressed the spirits of Perseus: by the death of Acrisius he was entitled to the throne of Argos, but he refused to reign there; and to remove himself from a place which reminded him of the parricide which he had unfortunately committed, he exchanged his kingdom for that of Tirynthus, and the maritime coast of Argolis, where Megapenthes the son of Prœtus then reigned. When he had finally settled in this part of the Peloponnesus, he determined to lay the foundations of a new city, which he made the capital of his dominions, and which he called Mycenæ, because the pommel of his sword, called by the Greeks myces, had fallen there. The time of his death is unknown, yet it is universally agreed that he received divine honours like the rest of the ancient heroes. He had statues at Mycenæ, and in the island of Seriphos, and the Athenians raised him a temple, in which they consecrated an altar in honour of Dictys, who had treated Danae and her infant son with so much paternal tenderness. The Egyptians also paid particular honour to his memory, and asserted that he often appeared among them wearing shoes two cubits long, which was always interpreted as a sign of fertility. Perseus had by Andromeda, Alceus, Sthenelus, Nestor, Electryon, and Gorgophone, and after death, according to some mythologists, he became a constellation in the heavens. Herodotus, bk. 2, ch. 91.—Apollodorus, bk. 2, ch. 4, &c.—Pausanias, bk. 2, chs. 16 & 18; bk. 3, ch. 17, &c.—Apollonius, Argonautica, bk. 4, li. 1509.—Silius Italicus, bk. 9, li. 442.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 4, fable 16; bk. 5, fable 1, &c.—Lucan, bk. 9, li. 668.—Hyginus, fable 64.—Hesiod, Theogony, li. 270, & Shield of Heracles.—Pindar, Pythian, li. 7, & Olympian, bk. 3.—Silius Italicus, bk. 9.—Propertius, bk. 2.—Athenæus, bk. 13.—Homer, Iliad, bk. 14.—Tzetzes, on Lycophron, ch. 17.——A son of Nestor and Anaxibia. Apollodorus, bk. 1, ch. 9.——A writer who published a treatise on the republic of Sparta.——A philosopher, disciple to Zeno. See: [Persæus].
[♦] ‘his’ replaced with ‘its’
Perseus, or Perses, a son of Philip king of Macedonia. He distinguished himself, like his father, by his enmity to the Romans, and when he had made sufficient preparations, he declared war against them. His operations, however, were slow and injudicious; he wanted courage and resolution, and though he at first obtained some advantage over the Roman armies, yet his avarice and his timidity proved destructive to his cause. When Paulus was appointed to the command of the Roman armies in Macedonia, Perseus showed his inferiority by his imprudent encampments, and when he had at last yielded to the advice of his officers, who recommended a general engagement, and drawn up his forces near the walls of Pydna, B.C. 168, he was the first who ruined his own cause, and, by flying as soon as the battle was begun, he left the enemy masters of the field. From [♦]Pydna, Perseus fled to Samothrace, but he was soon discovered in his obscure retreat, and brought into the presence of the Roman conqueror, where the meanness of his behaviour exposed him to ridicule, and not to mercy. He was carried to Rome, and dragged along the streets of the city to adorn the triumph of the conqueror. His family was also exposed to the sight of the Roman populace, who shed tears on viewing in their streets, dragged like a slave, a monarch who had once defeated their armies, and spread alarm all over Italy, by the greatness of his military preparations, and by his bold undertakings. Perseus died in prison, or, according to some, he was put to a shameful death the first year of his captivity. He had two sons, Philip and Alexander, and one daughter, whose name is not known. Alexander, the younger of these, was hired to a Roman carpenter, and led the greatest part of his life in obscurity, till his ingenuity raised him to notice. He was afterwards made secretary to the senate. Livy, bk. 40, &c.—Justin, bk. 33, ch. 1, &c.—Plutarch, Æmilius Paulus.—Florus, bk. 2, ch. 12.—Propertius, bk. 4, poem 12, li. 39.
[♦] ‘Pydua’ replaced with ‘Pydna’
Persia, a celebrated kingdom of Asia, which, in its ancient state, extended from the Hellespont to the Indus, above 2800 miles, and from Pontus to the shores of Arabia, above 2000 miles. As a province, Persia was but small, and according to the description of Ptolemy, it was bounded on the north by Media, west by Susiana, south by the Persian gulf, and east by Carmania. The empire of Persia, or the Persian monarchy, was first founded by Cyrus the Great, about 559 years before the christian era, and under the succeeding monarchs it became one of the most considerable and powerful kingdoms of the earth. The kings of Persia began to reign in the following order: Cyrus, B.C. 559; Cambyses 529; and, after the usurpation of Smerdis for seven months, Darius, 521; Xerxes the Great, 485; Artabanus seven months, and Artaxerxes Longimanus, 464; Xerxes II., 425; Sogdianus seven months, 424; Darius II., or Nothus, 423; Artaxerxes II., or Memnon, 404; Artaxerxes III., or Ochus, 358; Arses, or Arogus, 337; and Darius III., or Codomanus, 335, who was conquered by Alexander the Great, 331. The destruction of the Persian monarchy by the Macedonians was easily effected, and from that time Persia became tributary to the Greeks. After the death of Alexander, when the Macedonian empire was divided among the officers of the deceased conqueror, Seleucus Nicanor made himself master of the Persian provinces, till the revolt of the Parthians introduced new revolutions in the east. Persia was partly reconquered from the Greeks, and remained tributary to the Parthians for near 500 years. After this the sovereignty was again placed into the hands of the Persians, by the revolt of Artaxerxes, a common soldier, A.D. 229, who became the founder of the second Persian monarchy, which proved so inimical to the power of the Roman emperors. In their national character, the Persians were warlike, they were early taught to ride, and to handle the bow, and by the manly exercises of hunting, they were inured to bear the toils and fatigues of a military life. Their national valour, however, soon degenerated, and their want of employment at home soon rendered them unfit for war. In the reign of Xerxes, when the empire of Persia was in its most flourishing state, a small number of Greeks were enabled repeatedly to repel for three successive days an almost innumerable army. This celebrated action, which happened at Thermopylæ, shows in a strong light the superiority of the Grecian soldiers over the Persians, and the battles that before, and a short time after, were fought between the two nations at Marathon, Salamis, Platæa, and Mycale, are again an incontestible proof that these Asiatics had more reliance upon their numbers and upon the splendour and richness of their arms, than upon the valour and the discipline of their troops. Their custom, too prevalent among the eastern nations, of introducing luxury into the camp, proved also in some measure destructive to their military reputation, and the view which the ancients give us of the army of Xerxes, of his cooks, stage-dancers, concubines, musicians, and perfumers, is no very favourable sign of the sagacity of a monarch, who, by his nod, could command millions of men to flock to his standard. In their religion the Persians were very superstitious; they paid the greatest veneration to the sun, the moon, and the stars, and they offered sacrifices to fire, but the supreme Deity was never represented by statues among them. They permitted polygamy, and it was no incest among them to marry a sister or a mother. In their punishments they were extremely severe, even to barbarity. The monarch always appeared with the greatest pomp and dignity; his person was attended by a guard of 15,000 men, and he had besides a body of 10,000 chosen horsemen, called immortal. He styled himself, like the rest of the eastern monarchs, the king of kings, as expressive of his greatness and his power. The Persians were formerly called Cephenes, Achæmenians, and Artæi, and they are often confounded with the Parthians by the ancient poets. They received the name of Persians from Perses the son of Perseus and Andromeda, who is supposed to have settled among them. Persepolis was the capital of the country. Curtius, bk. 4, ch. 14; bk. 5, ch. 3.—Plutarch, Artaxerxes, Alexander, &c.—Mela, bk. 1, &c.—Strabo, bk. 2, ch. 15.—Xenophon, Cyropædia.—Herodotus, bk. 1, ch. 125, &c.—Apollodorus, bk. 2.—Marcellinus, ch. 23.
Persĭcum mare, or Persicus sinus, a part of the Indian ocean on the coast of Persia and Arabia, now called the gulf of Balgora.
Persis, a province of Persia, bounded by Media, Carmania, Susiana, and the Persian gulf. It is often taken for Persia itself.
Aulus Persius Flaccus, a Latin poet of Volaterræ. He was of an equestrian family, and he made himself known by his intimacy with the most illustrious Romans of the age. The early part of his life was spent in his native town, and at the age of 16 he was removed to Rome, where he studied philosophy under Cornutus the celebrated stoic. He also received the instructions of Palemon the grammarian, and Virginius the rhetorician. Naturally of a mild disposition, his character was unimpeached, his modesty remarkable, and his benevolence universally admired. He distinguished himself by his satirical humour, and made the faults of the orators and poets of his age, the subject of his poems. He did not even spare Nero, and the more effectually to expose the emperor to ridicule, he introduced into his satires some of his verses. The torva mimalloneis implerunt cornua bombis, with the three following verses, are Nero’s, according to some. But though he was so severe upon the vicious and ignorant, he did not forget his friendship for Cornutus, and he showed his regard for his character and abilities by making mention of his name with great propriety in his satires. It was by the advice of his learned preceptor that he corrected one of his poems in which he had compared Nero to Midas, and at his representation he altered the words Auriculas asini Mida rex habet, into Auriculas asini quis non habet? Persius died in the 30th year of his age, A.D. 62, and left all his books, which consisted of 700 volumes, and a large sum of money, to his preceptor; but Cornutus only accepted the books, and returned the money to the sisters and friends of the deceased. The satires of Persius are six in number, blamed by some for obscurity of style and of language. But though they may appear almost unintelligible to some, it ought to be remembered that they were read with pleasure and with avidity by his contemporaries, and that the only difficulties which now appear to the moderns, arise from their not knowing the various characters which they described, the vices which they lashed, and the errors which they censured. The satires of Persius are generally printed with those of Juvenal, the best editions of which will be found to be by Hennin, 4to, Leiden, 1695, and by Hawkey, 12mo, Dublin, 1746. The best edition of Persius, separate, is that of Meric Casaubon, 12mo, London, 1647. Martial.—Quintilian, bk. 10, ch. 1.—Augustine, de Magistro, ch. 9.—Lactantius.——A man whose quarrel with Rupilius is mentioned in a ridiculous manner by Horace, satire 7. He is called Hybrida, as being son of a Greek by a Roman woman.