Phædria, a village of Arcadia. Pausanias, bk. 8, ch. 35.
Phædrus, one of the disciples of Socrates. Cicero, de Natura Deorum, bk. 1.——An Epicurean philosopher.——A Thracian who became one of the freedmen of the emperor Augustus. He translated into iambic verses the fables of Æsop, in the reign of the emperor Tiberius. They are divided into five books, valuable for their precision, purity, elegance, and simplicity. They remained long buried in oblivion, till they were discovered in the library of St. Remi, at Rheims, and published by Peter Pithou, a Frenchman, at the end of the 16th century. Phædrus was for some time persecuted by Sejanus, because this corrupt minister believed that he was satirized and abused in the encomiums which the poet everywhere pays to virtue. The best editions of Phædrus are those of Burman, 4to, Leyden, 1727; Hoogstraten, 4to, Amsterdam, 1701; and Barbou, 12mo, Paris, 1754.
Phædy̆ma, a daughter of Otanes, who first discovered that Smerdis, who had ascended the throne of Persia at the death of Cambyses, was an impostor. Herodotus, bk. 3, ch. 69.
Phæmonōe, a priestess of Apollo.
Phænarēte, the mother of the philosopher Socrates. She was a midwife by profession.
Phænias, a peripatetic philosopher, disciple of Aristotle. He wrote a history of tyrants. Diogenes Laërtius.
Phænna, one of the two Graces, worshipped at Sparta, together with her sister Clita. Lacedæmon first paid them particular honour. Pausanias, bk. 9, ch. 35.
Phænnis, a famous prophetess in the age of Antiochus. Pausanias, bk. 10, ch. 15.
Phæsana, a town of Arcadia.
Phæstum, a town of Crete. Homer, Odyssey, bk. 3, li. 296.——Another of Macedonia. Livy, bk. 56, ch. 13.