Plotius Crispīnus, a stoic philosopher and poet, whose verses were very inelegant, and whose disposition was morose, for which he has been ridiculed by Horace, and called Aretalogus. Horace, bk. 1, satire 1, li. 4.——Gallus, a native of Lugdunum, who taught grammar at Rome, and had Cicero among his pupils. Cicero, On Oratory.——Griphus, a man made senator by Vespasian. Tacitus, Histories, bk. 3.——A centurion in Cæsar’s army. Cæsar, Gallic War, bk. 3, ch. 19.——Tucca, a friend of Horace and of Virgil, who made him his heir. He was selected by Augustus, with Varius, to review the Æneid of Virgil. Horace, bk. 1, satire 5, li. 40.——Lucius, a poet in the age of the great Marius, whose exploits he celebrated in his verses.
Plusios, a surname of Jupiter at Sparta, expressive of his power to grant riches. Pausanias, bk. 3, ch. 19.
Plutarchus, a native of Chæronea, descended of a respectable family. His father, whose name is unknown, was distinguished for his learning and virtue, and his grandfather, called Lamprias, was also as conspicuous for his eloquence and the fecundity of his genius. Under Ammonius, a reputable teacher at Delphi, Plutarch was made acquainted with philosophy and mathematics, and so well established was his character, that he was appointed by his countrymen, while yet very young, to go to the Roman proconsul, in their name, upon an affair of the most important nature. This commission he executed with honour to himself, and with success for his country. He afterwards travelled in quest of knowledge, and after he had visited, like a philosopher and an historian, the territories of Egypt and Greece, he retired to Rome, where he opened a school. His reputation made his school frequented. The emperor Trajan admired his abilities, and honoured him with the office of consul, and appointed him governor of Illyricum. After the death of his imperial benefactor, Plutarch removed from Rome to Chæronea, where he lived in the greatest tranquillity, respected by his fellow-citizens, and raised to all the honours which his native town could bestow. In this peaceful and solitary retreat, Plutarch closely applied himself to study, and wrote the greatest part of his works, and particularly his Lives. He died in an advanced age at Chæronea, about the 140th year of the christian era. Plutarch had five children by his wife, called Timoxena, four sons and one daughter. Two of the sons and the daughter died when young, and those that survived were called Plutarch and Lamprias, and the latter did honour to his father’s memory, by giving to the world an [♦]accurate catalogue of his writings. In his private and public character, the historian of Chæronea was the friend of discipline. He boldly asserted the natural right of mankind, liberty; but he recommended obedience and submissive deference to magistrates, as necessary to preserve the peace of society. He supported that the most violent and dangerous public factions arose too often from private disputes and from misunderstanding. To render himself more intelligent, he always carried a commonplace book with him, and he preserved with the greatest care whatever judicious observations fell in the course of conversation. The most esteemed of his works are his lives of illustrious men, of whom he examines and delineates the different characters with wonderful skill and impartiality. He neither misrepresents the virtues, nor hides the foibles of his heroes. He writes with precision and with fidelity, and though his diction is neither pure nor elegant, yet there is energy and animation, and in many descriptions he is inferior to no historian. In some of his narrations, however, he is often too circumstantial, his remarks are often injudicious; and when he compares the heroes of Greece with those of Rome, the candid reader can easily remember which side of the Adriatic gave the historian birth. Some have accused him of not knowing the genealogy of his heroes, and have censured him for his superstition; yet for all this, he is the most entertaining, the most instructive, and interesting of all the writers of ancient history; and were a man of true taste and judgment asked what book he wished to save from destruction, of all the profane compositions of antiquity, he would perhaps without hesitation reply, the Lives of Plutarch. In his moral treatises, Plutarch appears in a different character, and his misguided philosophy and erroneous doctrines render some of these inferior compositions puerile and disgusting. They, however, contain many useful lessons and curious facts, and though they are composed without connection, compiled without judgment, and often abound with improbable stories and false reasonings, yet they contain much information and many useful reflections. The best editions of Plutarch are that of Francfort, 2 vols., folio, 1599; that of Stephens, 6 vols., 8vo, 1572; the Lives by Reiske, 12 vols., 8vo, Lipscomb. 1775; and the Moralia, &c., by Wyttenbach. Plutarch.——A native of Eretria, during the Peloponnesian war. He was defeated by the Macedonians. Plutarch, Phocion.
[♦] ‘acurate’ replaced with ‘accurate’
Plutia, a town of Sicily. Cicero, Against Verres.
Pluto, a son of Saturn and Ops, inherited his father’s kingdom with his brothers Jupiter and Neptune. He received as his lot the kingdom of hell, and whatever lies under the earth, and as such he became the god of the infernal regions, of death and funerals. From his functions, and the place he inhabited, he received different names. He was called Dis, Hades, or Ades, Clytopolon, Agelastus, Orcus, &c. As the place of his residence was obscure and gloomy, all the goddesses refused to marry him; but he determined to obtain by force what was denied to his solicitations. As he once visited the island of Sicily, after a violent earthquake, he saw Proserpine the daughter of Ceres gathering flowers in the plains of Enna, with a crowd of female attendants. He became enamoured of her, and immediately carried her away upon his chariot drawn by four horses. To make his retreat more unknown, he opened himself a passage through the earth, by striking it with his trident in the lake of Cyane in Sicily, or, according, to others, on the borders of the Cephisus in Attica. Proserpine called upon her attendants for help, but in vain, and she became the wife of her ravisher, and the queen of hell. Pluto is generally represented as holding a sceptre with two teeth; he has also keys in his hand, to intimate that whoever enters his kingdom can never return. He is looked upon as a hard-hearted and inexorable god, with a grim and dismal countenance, and for that reason no temples were raised to his honour, as to the rest of the superior gods. Black victims, and particularly a bull, were the only sacrifices which were offered to him, and their blood was not sprinkled on the altars, or received in vessels, as at other sacrifices, but it was permitted to run down into the earth, as if it were to penetrate as far as the realms of the god. The Syracusans yearly sacrificed to him black bulls, near the fountain of Cyane, where, according to the received traditions, he had disappeared with Proserpine. Among plants, the cypress, the narcissus, and the maiden-hair were sacred to him, as also everything which was deemed inauspicious, particularly the number two. According to some of the ancients, Pluto sat on a throne of sulphur, from which issued the rivers Lethe, Cocytus, Phlegethon, and Acheron. The dog Cerberus watched at his feet, the Harpies hovered round him, Proserpine sat on his left hand, and near to the goddess stood the Eumenides, with their heads covered with snakes. The Parcæ occupied the right, and they each held in their hands the symbols of their office, the distaff, the spindle, and the scissors. Pluto is called by some the father of the Eumenides. During the war of the gods and the Titans, the Cyclops made a helmet which rendered the bearer invisible, and gave it to Pluto. Perseus was armed with it when he conquered the Gorgons. Hesiod, Theogony.—Homer, Iliad.—Apollodorus, bk. 1, &c.—Hyginus, fable 155; Poetica Astronomica, bk. 2.—Statius, Thebaid, bk. 8.—Diodorus, bk. 5.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 5, fable 6.—Pausanias, bk. 2, ch. 36.—Orpheus, hymn 17, &c.—Cicero, de Natura Deorum, bk. 2, ch. 26.—Plato, The Republic.—Euripides, Medea; Hippolytus.—Aeschylus, Persians; Prometheus Bound.—Varro, de Lingua Latina, bk. 4.—Catullus, poem 3.—Virgil, Georgics, bk. 4, li. 502; Æneid, bk. 6, li. 273; bk. 8, li. 296.—Lucan, bk. 6, li. 715.—Horace, bk. 2, odes 3 & 18.—Seneca, Hercules Furens.
Plutonium, a temple of Pluto in Lydia. Cicero, De Divinatione, bk. 1, ch. 36.
Plutus, a son of Jasion, or Jasius, by Ceres the goddess of corn, has been confounded by many of the mythologists with Pluto, though plainly distinguished from him as being the god of riches. He was brought up by the goddess of peace, and on that account, Pax was represented at Athens as holding the god of wealth in her lap. The Greeks spoke of him as of a fickle divinity. They represented him as blind, because he distributed riches indiscriminately; he was lame, because he came slow and gradually; but had wings, to intimate that he flew away with more velocity than he approached mankind. Lucian, Timon.—Pausanias, bk. 9, chs. 16 & 26.—Hyginus, Poetica Astronomica.—Aristophanes, Plutus.—Diodorus, bk. 5.—Hesoid, Theogony, li. 970.—Dionysius of Halicarnassus, bk. 1, ch. 53.
Pluvius, a surname of Jupiter as god of rain. He was invoked by that name among the Romans, whenever the earth was parched up with continual heat, and was in want of refreshing showers. He had an altar in the temple on the capitol. Tibullus, bk. 1, poem 7, li. 26.
Plynteria, a festival among the Greeks, in honour of Aglauros, or rather of Minerva, who received from the daughter Cecrops the name of Aglauros. The word seems to be derived from πλυνειν, lavare, because, during the solemnity, they undressed the statue of the goddess and washed it. The day on which it was observed was universally looked upon as unfortunate and inauspicious, and on that account no person was permitted to appear in the temples, as they were purposely surrounded with ropes. The arrival of Alcibiades in Athens that day, was deemed very unfortunate; but, however, the success that ever after attended him, proved it to be otherwise. It was customary at this festival to bear in procession a cluster of figs, which intimated the progress of civilization among the first inhabitants of the earth, as figs served them for food after they had found a dislike for acorns. Pollux.