Pisus, a son of Aphareus, or, according to others, of Perieres. Apollodorus, bk. 3.—Pausanias, bk. 5.
Pisuthnes, a Persian satrap of Lydia, who revolted from Darius Nothus. His father’s name was Hystaspes. Plutarch, Artaxerxes.
Pităne, a town of Æolia in Asia Minor. The inhabitants made bricks which swam on the surface of the water. Lucan, bk. 3, li. 305.—Strabo, bk. 13.—Vitruvius, bk. 2, ch. 3.—Mela, bk. 1, ch. 18.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 7, li. 357.——A town of Laconia. Pindar, ode 6, li. 46.
Pitarātus, an Athenian archon, during whose magistracy Epicurus died. Cicero, De Fato, ch. 9.
Pithecūsa, a small island on the coast of Etruria, anciently called Ænaria and Enarina, with a town of the same name, on the top of a mountain. The frequent earthquakes to which it was subject obliged the inhabitants to leave it. There was a volcano in the middle of the island, which has given occasion to the ancients to say that the giant Typhon was buried there. Some suppose that it received its name from πιθηκοι, monkeys, into which the inhabitants were changed by Jupiter. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 14, li. 90.—Pliny, bk. 3, ch. 6.—Pindar, Pythian, poem 1.—Strabo, bk. 1.
Pitheus. See: [Pittheus].
Pitho, called also Suada, the goddess of persuasion among the Greeks and Romans supposed to be the daughter of Mercury and Venus. She was represented with a diadem on her head, to intimate her influence over the hearts of men. One of her arms appears raised, as in the attitude of an orator haranguing in a public assembly, and with the other she holds a thunderbolt, and fetters made with flowers, to signify the powers of reasoning and the attractions of eloquence. A caduceus, as a symbol of persuasion, appears at her feet, with the writings of Demosthenes and Cicero, the two most celebrated among the ancients, who understood how to command the attention of their audience, and to rouse and animate their various passions.——A Roman courtesan. She received this name on account of the allurements which her charms possessed, and of her winning expressions.
Pitholāus and Lycophron, seized upon the sovereign power of Pheræ, by killing Alexander. They were ejected by Philip of Macedonia. Diodorus, bk. 16.
Pīthŏleon, an insignificant poet of Rhodes, who mingled Greek and Latin in his compositions. He wrote some epigrams against Julius Cæsar, and drew upon himself the ridicule of Horace, on account of the inelegance of his style. Suetonius, Lives of the Rhetoricians.—Horace, bk. 1, satire 10, li. 21.—Macrobius, bk. 2, Saturnalia, ch. 2.
Pithon, one of the body-guards of Alexander, put to death by Antiochus.