Picentia, the capital of the Picentini.
Picentīni, a people of Italy between Lucania and Campania on the Tuscan sea. They are different from the Piceni or Picentes, who inhabited Picenum. Silius Italicus, bk. 8, li. 450.—Tacitus, Histories, bk. 4, ch. 62.
Picēnum, or Picēnus ager, a country of Italy near the Umbrians and Sabines, on the borders of the Adriatic. Livy, bk. 21, ch. 6; bk. 22, ch. 9; bk. 27, ch. 43.—Silius Italicus, bk. 10, li. 313.—Horace, bk. 2, satire 3, li. 272.—Martial, bk. 1, ltr. 44.
Picra, a lake of Africa, which Alexander crossed when he went to consult the oracle of Ammon. Diodorus.
Pictæ, or Picti, a people of Scythia, called also Agathyrsæ. They received this name from their painting their bodies with different colours, to appear more terrible in the eyes of their enemies. A colony of these, according to Servius, Virgil’s commentator, emigrated to the northern parts of Britain, where they still preserved their name and their savage manners, but they are mentioned only by later writers. Marcellinus, bk. 27, ch. 18.—Claudian, de Consulatu Honorii, li. 54.—Pliny, bk. 4, ch. 12.—Mela, bk. 2, ch. 1.
Pictāvi, or Pictŏnes, a people of Gaul in the modern country of Poictou. Cæsar, bk. 7, Gallic War, ch. 4.
Pictăvium, a town of Gaul.
Fabius Pictor, a consul under whom silver was first coined at Rome, A.U.C. 485.
Picumnus and Pilumnus, two deities at Rome, who presided over the auspices that were required before the celebration of nuptials. Pilumnus was supposed to patronize children, as his name seems, in some manner, to indicate, quod pellat mala infantiæ. The manuring of lands was first invented by Picumnus, from which reason he is called Sterquilinius. Pilumnus is also invoked as the god of bakers and millers, as he is said to have first invented how to grind corn. Turnus boasted of being one of his lineal descendants. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 9, li. 4.—Varro.
Picus, a king of Latium, son of Saturn, who married Venilia, who is also called Canens, by whom he had Faunus. He was tenderly loved by the goddess Pomona, and he returned a mutual affection. As he was one day hunting in the woods, he was met by Circe, who became deeply enamoured of him, and who changed him into a woodpecker, called by the name of picus among the Latins. His wife Venilia was so disconsolate when she was informed of his death, that she pined away. Some suppose that Picus was the son of Pilumnus, and that he gave out prophecies to his subjects, by means of a favourite woodpecker, from which circumstance originated the fable of his being metamorphosed into a bird. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 7, lis. 48, 171, &c.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 14, li. 320, &c.