Philodēmus, a poet in the age of Cicero, who rendered himself known by his lascivious and indelicate verses. Cicero, de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, bk. 2.—Horace, bk. 1, satire 2, li. 121.——A comic poet, ridiculed by Aristophanes.
Philodĭce, a daughter of Inachus, who married Leucippus.
Philolāus, a son of Minos by the nymph Paria, from whom the island of Paros received its name. Hercules put him to death, because he had killed two of his companions. Apollodorus, bk. 3, ch. 1.——A Pythagorean philosopher of Crotona, B.C. 374, who first supported the diurnal motion of the earth round its axis, and its annual motion round the sun. Cicero, Academica, bk. 4, ch. 39, has ascribed this opinion to the Syracusan philosopher Nicetas, and likewise to Plato; and from this passage some supposed that Copernicus started the idea of the system which he afterwards established. Diogenes Laërtius.—Cicero, On Oratory, bk. 3.—Plutarch.——A lawgiver of Thebes. He was a native of Corinth, and of the family of the Bacchiades, &c. Aristotle, bk. 2, Politics, final chapter.——A mechanic of Tarentum.——A surname of Æsculapius, who had a temple in Laconia, near the Asopus.
Philolŏgus, a freedman of Cicero. He betrayed his master to Antony, for which he was tortured by Pomponia the wife of Cicero’s brother, and obliged to cut off his own flesh by piece-meal, and to boil and eat it up. Plutarch, Cicero, &c.
Philomăche, the wife of Pelias king of Iolchos. According to some writers, she was daughter to Amphion king of Thebes, though she is more generally called Anaxibia daughter of Bias. Apollodorus, bk. 1.
Philombrŏtus, an archon at Athens, in whose age the state was entrusted to Solon, when torn by factions. Plutarch, Solon.
Philomēdus, a man who made himself absolute in Phocæa, by promising to assist the inhabitants. Polyænus.
Phĭlŏmēla, a daughter of Pandion king of Athens, and sister to Procne, who had married Tereus king of Thrace. Procne separated from Philomela, to whom she was particularly attached, spent her time in great melancholy till she prevailed upon her husband to go to Athens, and bring his sister to Thrace. Tereus obeyed his wife’s injunctions, but he had no sooner obtained Pandion’s permission to conduct Philomela to Thrace, than he became enamoured of her, and resolved to gratify his passion. He dismissed the guards, whom the suspicions of Pandion had appointed to watch his conduct, and he offered violence to Philomela, and afterwards cut off her tongue, that she might not be able to discover his barbarity, and the indignities which she had suffered. He confined her also in a lonely castle, and after he had taken every precaution to prevent a discovery, he returned to Thrace, and he told Procne that Philomela had died by the way, and that he had paid the last offices to her remains. Procne, at this sad intelligence, put on mourning for the loss of Philomela; but a year had scarcely elapsed before she was secretly informed that her sister was not dead. Philomela, during her captivity, described on a piece of tapestry her misfortunes and the brutality of Tereus, and privately conveyed it to Procne. She was then going to celebrate the orgies of Bacchus when she received it; she disguised her resentment, and as, during the festivals of the god of wine, she was permitted to rove about the country, she hastened to deliver her sister Philomela from her confinement, and she concerted with her on the best measures of punishing the cruelty of Tereus. She murdered her son Itylus, who was in the sixth year of his age, and served him up as food before her husband during the festival. Tereus, in the midst of his repast, called for Itylus, but Procne immediately informed him that he was then feasting on his flesh, and that instant Philomela, by throwing on the table the head of Itylus, convinced the monarch of the cruelty of the scene. He drew his sword to punish Procne and Philomela, but as he was going to stab them to the heart, he was changed into a hoopoe, Philomela into a nightingale, Procne into a swallow, and Itylus into a pheasant. This tragical scene happened at Daulis in Phocis; but Pausanias and Strabo, who mention the whole of the story, are silent about the transformation; and the former observes that Tereus, after this bloody repast, fled to Megara, where he destroyed himself. The inhabitants of the place raised a monument to his memory, where they offered yearly sacrifices, and placed small pebbles instead of barley. It was on this monument that the birds called hoopoes were first seen; hence the fable of his metamorphosis. Procne and Philomela died through excess of grief and melancholy, and as the nightingale’s and swallow’s voice is peculiarly plaintive and mournful, the poets have embellished the fable by supposing that the two unfortunate sisters were changed into birds. Apollodorus, bk. 3, ch. 14.—Pausanias, bk. 1, ch. 42; bk. 10, ch. 4.—Hyginus, fable 45.—[♦]Strabo, bk. 9.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 6, fables 9 & 10.—Virgil, Georgics, bk. 4, lis. 15 & 511.——A daughter of Actor king of the Myrmidons.
[♦] ‘Stabo’ replaced with ‘Strabo’
Philomēlum, a town of Phrygia. Cicero, Letters to Atticus, bk. 5, ltr. 20; Against Verres, bk. 3, ch. 83.