Protagŏras, a Greek philosopher of Abdera in Thrace, who was originally a porter. He became one of the disciples of Democritus, when that philosopher had seen him carrying faggots on his head, poised in a proper equilibrium. He soon rendered himself ridiculous by his doctrines, and in a book which he published, he denied the existence of a Supreme Being. This doctrine he supported by observing, that his doubts arose from the uncertainty of the existence of a Supreme Power, and from the shortness of human life. This book was publicly burnt at Athens, and the philosopher banished from the city, as a worthless and contemptible being. Protagoras visited from Athens different islands in the Mediterranean, and died in Sicily in a very advanced age, about 400 years before the christian era. He generally reasoned by dilemmas, and always left the mind in suspense about all the questions which he proposed. Some suppose that he was drowned. Diogenes Laërtius, bk. 9.—[♦]Plato, Protagoras.——A king of Cyprus, tributary to the court of Persia.——Another.
[♦] ‘Plutarch’ replaced with ‘Plato’
Protagorĭdes, an historian of Cyzicus, who wrote a treatise on the games of Daphne, celebrated at Antioch.
Protei columnæ, a place in the remotest parts of Egypt. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 11, li. 262.
Protesilai turris, the monument of Protesilaus, on the Hellespont. Pliny, bk. 4, ch. 11.—Mela, bk. 2, ch. 2.
Prōtĕsĭlāus, a king of part of Thessaly, son of Iphiclus, originally called Iolaus, grandson of Phylacus, and brother to Alcimede the mother of Jason. He married Laodamia the daughter of Acastus, and some time after he departed with the rest of the Greeks for the Trojan war with 40 sail. He was the first of the Greeks who set foot on the Trojan shore, and as such he was doomed by the oracle to perish, therefore he was killed as soon as he had leaped from his ship, by Æneas or Hector. Homer has not mentioned the person who killed him. His wife Laodamia destroyed herself when she heard of his death. See: [Laodamia]. Protesilaus has received the patronymic of Phylacides either because he was descended from Phylace, or because he was a native of Phylace. He was buried on the Trojan shore, and, according to Pliny, there were near his tomb certain trees which grew to an extraordinary height, which, as soon as they could be discovered and seen from Troy, immediately withered and decayed, and afterwards grew up again to their former height, and suffered the same vicissitude. Homer, Iliad, bk. 2, li. 205.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 12, fable 1; Heroides, poem 13, li. 17.—Propertius, bk. 1, poem 19.—Hyginus, fable 103, &c.
Proteus, a sea deity, son of Oceanus and Tethys, or, according to some, of Neptune and Phœnice. He had received the gift of prophecy from Neptune because he had tended the monsters of the sea, and from his knowledge of futurity mankind received the greatest services. He usually resided in the Carpathian sea, and, like the rest of the gods, he reposed himself on the sea-shore, where such as wished to consult him generally resorted. He was difficult of access, and when consulted he refused to give answers, by immediately assuming different shapes, and if not properly secured in fetters, eluding the grasp in the form of a tiger, or a lion, or disappearing in a flame of fire, a whirlwind, or a rushing stream. Aristæus and Menelaus were in the number of those who consulted him, as also Hercules. Some suppose that he was originally king of Egypt, known among his subjects by the name of Cetes, and they assert that he had two sons, Telegonus and Polygonus, who were both killed by Hercules. He had also some daughters, among whom were Cabira, Eidothea, and Rhetia. Homer, Odyssey, bk. 4, li. 360.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 8, fable 10; Amores, poem 12, li. 36.—Hesiod, Theogony, li. 243.—Virgil, Georgics, bk. 4, li. 387.—Hyginus, fable 118.—Herodotus, bk. 2, ch. 112.—Diodorus, bk. 1.
Prothēnor, a Bœotian who went to the Trojan war. Homer, Iliad, bk. 2.
Protheus, a Greek at the Trojan war.——A Spartan who endeavoured to prevent a war with the Thebans.
Prothous, a son of Lycaon of Arcadia. Apollodorus.——A son of Agrius.