Penelope. Wife of Odysseus.
Pentheus. King of Thebes, resisted the introduction of Dionysus's rites; the God caused his Bacchantes, among them Pentheus's mother Agave, to tear him to pieces in their frenzy.
Perdiccas. One of Alexander's generals, who, on the strength of the dying king's having handed him his ring, claimed the succession, but was defeated by the combination of Ptolemy, Antipater, and other generals, and finally assassinated.
Peregrine. Nothing can be added to Lucian's description of him in the Death of Peregrine, but that he is a historical character.
Periander. Son of Cypselus, and tyrant of Corinth. A patron of literature, and one of the Seven Sages.
Pericles. Greatest of Athenian statesmen. A pupil of Anaxagoras. He was nicknamed 'Olympian.' Lucian mentions his funeral speech, delivered in 431 B.C., and his intercourse with the famous Milesian courtesan Aspasia, by whom he had a son Pericles.
Peripatetics. Aristotle of Stagira (385-323 B.C.), the founder of this school of philosophers, studied for twenty years under Plato. In 335 B.C. he began teaching independently in the Lyceum, a public garden at Athens. The name Peripatetic refers to his habit of walking about while lecturing. Forty-six of his works remain, though perhaps only in the form of notes. They are remarkable for the rigidly systematic treatment applied to all subjects alike, to Ethics and Poetry, not less than to Zoology and Mechanics. Most notable of his doctrines is that which refers all definable things to four Causes, viz., Matter, the existence of which is Potentiality, and the Moving, Final, and Formal Causes, whose operation is included under the general term Energy; the combination of Potentiality and Energy resulting in the perfection of the completed thing. The summum bonum, according to Aristotle, is Eudaemonia (Happiness); and each virtue is the mean between the excess and defect of some quality. The virtuous mean between avarice and profuseness, or between luxury and asceticism, might perhaps involve that respect for money with which Lucian reproaches the Peripatetics. The ten Categories, or Predicaments, were an attempt to classify all existing things; among them were Substance, Quality, Quantity, Relation, Time, and Place.
Persephone. Daughter of Zeus and Demeter. Pluto, with the permission of Zeus, carried her down to Hades. Demeter, discovering the truth after a long search, left Heaven in anger, and took up her abode on earth. Zeus now ordered Pluto to restore Persephone: as, however, she had partaken of food in the lower world, she was compelled to return thither for one-third of each year.
Perseus. His story is given under Danae, Gorgons, and Andromeda.
Phaeacians. A fabulous people described in the Odyssey as inhabiting Scheria. Alcinous was their king.