[Parthia], an ancient country corresponding to Northern Persia; was inhabited by a people of Scythian origin, who adopted the Aryan speech and manners, and subsequently yielded much to Greek influence; after being tributary successively to Assyria, Media, Persia, Alexander the Great, and Syria, they set up an independent kingdom in 250 B.C. In two great contests with Rome they made the empire respect their prowess; between 53 and 36 B.C. they defeated Crassus in Mesopotamia, conquered Syria and Palestine, and inflicted disaster on Mark Antony in Armenia; the renewal of hostilities by Trajan in A.D. 115 brought more varied fortunes, but they extorted a tribute of 50,000,000 denarii from the Emperor Macrinus in 218. Ctesiphon was their capital; the Euphrates lay between them and Rome; they were over thrown by Ardashir of Persia in 224. The Parthians were famous horse-archers, and in retreat shot their arrows backwards often with deadly effect on a pursuing enemy.
[Partick] (36), a western suburb of Glasgow, has numerous villas, and its working population is very largely engaged in shipbuilding.
[Partington, Mrs.], an imaginary lady, the creation of the American humorist Shillaber, distinguished for her misuse of learned words; also another celebrity who attempted to sweep back the Atlantic with her mop, the type of those who think to stave back the inevitable.
[Pascal, Blaise], illustrious French thinker and writer, born at Clermont, in Auvergne; was distinguished at once as a mathematician, a physicist, and a philosopher; at 16 wrote a treatise on conic sections, which astonished Descartes; at 18 invented a calculating machine; he afterwards made experiments in pneumatics and hydrostatics, by which his name became associated with those of Torricelli and Boyle; an accident which befell him turned his thoughts to religious subjects, and in 1654 he retired to the convent of [Port Royal] (q. v.), where he spent as an ascetic the rest of his days, and wrote his celebrated "Provincial Letters" in defence of the Jansenists against the Jesuits, and his no less famous "Pensées," which were published after his death; "his great weapon in polemics," says Prof. Saintsbury, "is polite irony, which he first brought to perfection, and in the use of which he has hardly been equalled, and has certainly not been surpassed since" (1623-1662).
[Pas-de-Calais], the French name for the Strait of Dover; also the name of the adjacent department of France.
[Pasha], a Turkish title, originally bestowed on princes of the blood, but now extended to governors of provinces and prominent officers in the army and navy.
[Pasiphaë], the wife of [Minos] (q. v.) and mother of the [Minotaur] (q. v.).
[Paskievitch], a Russian general, born at Poltava; took part in repelling the French in 1812, defeated the Persians in 1826-27 and the Turks in 1828-29; suppressed a Polish insurrection in 1831 and a Magyar revolution in 1849; was wounded at Silistria in 1854 and resigned (1782-1856).
[Pasquino], a cobbler or tailor who lived in Rome at the end of the 15th century, notable for his witty and sarcastic sayings, near whose shop after his death a fragment of a statue was dug up and named after him, on which, as representing him, the Roman populace claim to this day, it would seem, the privilege of placarding jibes against particularly the ecclesiastical authorities of the place, hence Pasquinade.
[Passau] (17), a Bavarian fortified town, situated at the confluence of the Inn and the Danube, 105 m. E. of Münich by rail; is a picturesque place, strategically important, with manufactures of leather, porcelain, and parquet, and trade in salt and corn.