Pisistrătĭdæ, the descendants of Pisistratus tyrant of Athens. See: [Pisistratus].
Pisistrătĭdes, a man sent as ambassador to the satraps of the king of Persia, by the Spartans.
Pisistrătus, an Athenian, son of Hippocrates, who early distinguished himself by his valour in the field, and by his address and eloquence at home. After he had rendered himself the favourite of the populace by his liberality, and by the intrepidity with which he had fought their battles, particularly near Salamis, he resolved to make himself master of his country. Everything seemed favourable to his views; but Solon alone, who was then at the head of affairs, and who had lately instituted his celebrated laws, opposed him, and discovered his duplicity and artful behaviour before the public assembly. Pisistratus was not disheartened by the measures of his relation Solon, but he had recourse to artifice. In returning from his country house, he cut himself in various places, and after he had exposed his mangled body to the eyes of the populace, deplored his misfortunes, and accused his enemies of attempts upon his life, because he was the friend of the people, the guardian of the poor, and the reliever of the oppressed; he claimed a chosen body of 50 men from the populace to defend his person in future from the malevolence and the cruelty of his enemies. The unsuspecting people unanimously granted his request, though Solon opposed it with all his influence; and Pisistratus had no sooner received an armed band, on whose fidelity and attachment he could rely, than he seized the citadel of Athens, and made himself absolute. The people too late perceived their credulity; yet, though the tyrant was popular, two of the citizens, Megacles and Lycurgus, conspired together against him, and by their means he was forcibly ejected from the city. His house and all his effects were exposed to sale, but there was found in Athens only one man who would buy them. The private dissensions of the friends of liberty proved favourable to the expelled tyrant, and Megacles, who was jealous of Lycurgus, secretly promised to restore Pisistratus to all his rights and privileges in Athens, if he would marry his daughter. Pisistratus consented, and, by the assistance of his father-in-law, he was soon enabled to expel Lycurgus, and to re-establish himself. By means of a woman called Phya, whose shape was tall, and whose features were noble and commanding, he imposed upon the people, and created himself adherents even among his enemies. Phya was conducted through the streets of the city, and, showing herself subservient to the artifice of Pisistratus, she was announced as Minerva, the goddess of wisdom and the patroness of Athens, who was come down from heaven to re-establish her favourite Pisistratus, in a power which was sanctioned by the will of the gods, and favoured by the affection of the people. In the midst of his triumph, however, Pisistratus felt himself unsupported, and some time after, when he repudiated the daughter of Megacles, he found that not only the citizens, but even his very troops, were alienated from him by the influence, the intrigues, and the bribery of his father-in-law. He fled from Athens, where he could no longer maintain his power, and retired to Eubœa. Eleven years after, he was drawn from his obscure retreat, by means of his son Hippias, and he was a third time received by the people of Athens as their master and sovereign. Upon this he sacrificed to his resentment the friends of Megacles, but he did not lose sight of the public good; and while he sought the aggrandizement of his family, he did not neglect the dignity and the honour of the Athenian name. He died about 527 years before the christian era, after he had enjoyed the sovereign power at Athens for 33 years, including the years of his banishment, and he was succeeded by his son Hipparchus. Pisistratus claims our admiration for his justice, his liberality, and his moderation. If he was dreaded and detested as a tyrant, the Athenians loved and respected his private virtues and his patriotism as a fellow-citizen; and the opprobrium which generally falls on his head may be attributed not to the severity of his administration, but to the republican principles of the Athenians, who hated and exclaimed against the moderation and equity of the mildest sovereign, while they flattered the pride and gratified the guilty desires of the most tyrannical of their fellow-subjects. Pisistratus often refused to punish the insolence of his enemies; and when he had one day been violently accused of murder, rather than inflict immediate punishment upon the man who had criminated him, he went to the Areopagus, and there convinced the Athenians that the accusations of his enemies were groundless, and that his life was irreproachable. It is to his labours that we are indebted for the preservation of the poems of Homer, and he was the first, according to Cicero, who introduced them at Athens, in the order in which they now stand. He also established a public library at Athens; and the valuable books which he had diligently collected, were carried into Persia when Xerxes made himself master of the capital of Attica. Hipparchus and Hippias, the sons of Pisistratus, who have received the name of Pisistratidæ, rendered themselves as illustrious as their father; but the flames of liberty were too powerful to be extinguished. The Pisistratidæ governed with great moderation, yet the name of tyrant or sovereign was insupportable to the Athenians. Two of the most respectable of the citizens, called Harmodius and Aristogiton, conspired against them, and Hipparchus was dispatched in a public assembly. This murder was not, however, attended with any advantage, and though the two leaders of the conspiracy, who have been celebrated through every age for their patriotism, were supported by the people, yet Hippias quelled the tumult by his uncommon firmness and prudence, and for a while preserved that peace in Athens which his father had often been unable to command. This was not long to continue, Hippias was at last expelled by the united efforts of the Athenians and of their allies of Peloponnesus; and he left Attica, when he found himself unable to maintain his power and independence. The rest of the family of Pisistratus followed him in his banishment, and after they had refused to accept the liberal offers of the princes of Thessaly, and the king of Macedonia, who wished them to settle in their respective territories, the Pisistratidæ retired to Sigæum, which their father had, in the summit of his power, conquered and bequeathed to his posterity. After the banishment of the Pisistratidæ, the Athenians became more than commonly jealous of their liberty, and often sacrificed the most powerful of their citizens, apprehensive of the influence which popularity and a well-directed liberality might gain among the fickle and unsettled populace. The Pisistratidæ were banished from Athens about 18 years after the death of Pisistratus, B.C. 510. Ælian, Varia Historia, bk. 13, ch. 14.—Pausanias, bk. 7, ch. 26.—Herodotus, bk. 1, ch. 59; bk. 6, ch. 103.—Cicero, On Oratory, bk. 3.—Valerius Maximus, bk. 1, ch. 2.——A son of Nestor. Apollodorus.——A king of Orchomenos, who rendered himself odious by his cruelty towards his nobles. He was put to death by them; and they carried away his body from the public assembly, by hiding each a piece of his flesh under their garments, to prevent a discovery from the people, of whom he was a great favourite. Plutarch, Parallela minora.——A Theban attached to the Roman interest while the consul Flaminius was in Greece. He assassinated the pretor of Bœotia, for which he was put to death, &c.
Piso, a celebrated family at Rome, which was a branch of the Calpurnians, descended from Calpus the son of Numa. Before the death of Augustus, 11 of this family had obtained the consulship, and many had been honoured with triumphs, on account of their victories in the different provinces of the Roman empire. Of this family the most famous were——Lucius Calpurnius, who was tribune of the people about 149 years before Christ, and afterwards consul. His frugality procured him the surname of Frugi, and he gained the greatest honours as an orator, a lawyer, a statesman, and an historian. He made a successful campaign in Sicily, and rewarded his son, who had behaved with great valour during the war, with a crown of gold, which weighed 20 pounds. He composed some annals and harangues, which were lost in the age of Cicero. His style was obscure and inelegant.——Caius, a Roman consul, A.U.C. 687 who supported the consular dignity against the tumults of the tribunes, and the clamours of the people. He made a law to restrain the cabals which generally prevailed at the election of the chief magistrates.——Cneus, another consul under Augustus. He was one of the favourites of Tiberius, by whom he was appointed governor of Syria, where he rendered himself odious by his cruelty. He was accused of having poisoned Germanicus; and when he saw that he was shunned and despised by his friends, he destroyed himself, A.D. 20.——Lucius, a governor of Spain, who was assassinated by a peasant, as he was travelling through the country; the murderer was seized and tortured, but he refused to confess the causes of the murder.——Lucius, a private man accused of having uttered seditious words against the emperor Tiberius. He was condemned, but a natural death saved him from the hands of the executioner.——Lucius, a governor of Rome for 20 years, an office which he discharged with the greatest justice and credit. He was greatly honoured by the friendship of Augustus, as well as of his successor, a distinction he deserved, both as a faithful citizen and a man of learning. Some, however, say that Tiberius made him governor of Rome, because he had continued drinking with him a night and two days, or two days and two nights, according to Pliny. Horace dedicated his poem, De Arte Poeticâ, to his two sons, whose partiality for literature had distinguished them among the rest of the Romans, and who were fond of cultivating [♦]poetry in their leisure hours. Plutarch, Cæsar.—Pliny, bk. 18, ch. 3.——Cneus, a factious and turbulent youth, who conspired against his country with Catiline. He was among the friends of Julius Cæsar.——Caius, a Roman who was at the head of a celebrated conspiracy against the emperor Nero. He had rendered himself a favourite of the people by his private as well as public virtues, by the generosity of his behaviour, his fondness of pleasure with the voluptuous, and his austerity with the grave and the reserved. He had been marked by some as a proper person to succeed the emperor; but the discovery of the plot by a freed man who was among the conspirators, soon cut him off, with all his partisans. He refused to court the affections of the people and of the army, when the whole had been made public; and instead of taking proper measures for his preservation, either by proclaiming himself emperor, as his friends advised, or by seeking a retreat in the distant provinces of the empire, he retired to his own house, where he opened the veins of both his arms, and bled to death.——Lucius, a senator who followed the emperor Valerian into Persia. He proclaimed himself emperor after the death of Valerian, but he was defeated and put to death a few weeks after, A.D. 261, by Valens, &c.——Licimanus, a senator adopted by the emperor Galba. He was put to death by Otho’s orders.——A son-in-law of Cicero.——A patrician, whose daughter married Julius Cæsar. Horace.—Tacitus, Annals & Histories.—Valerius Maximus.—Livy.—Suetonius.—Cicero, de Officiis, &c.—Plutarch, Cæsar, &c.——One of the 30 tyrants appointed over Athens by Lysander.
[♦] ‘poety’ replaced with ‘poetry’
Pĭsōnis villa, a place near Baiæ in Campania, which the emperor Nero often frequented. Tacitus, Annals, bk. 1.
Pissirus, a town of Thrace, near the river Nestus. Herodius, bk. 7, ch. 109.
Pistor, a surname given to Jupiter by the Romans, signifying baker, because when their city was taken by the Gauls, the god persuaded them to throw down loaves from the Tarpeian hill where they were besieged, that the enemy might from thence suppose that they were not in want of provisions, though in reality they were near surrendering through famine. This deceived the Gauls, and they soon after raised the siege. Ovid, Fasti, bk. 6, lis. 350, 394, &c.
Pistoria, now Pistoja, a town of Etruria, at the foot of the Apennines, near Florence, where [♦]Catiline was defeated. Sallust, Catilinæ Coniuratio, ch. 47.—Pliny, bk. 3, ch. 4.
[♦] ‘Cataline’ replaced with ‘Catiline’