PĂRENTĀLĬA. [[Funus].]
PĂRĬES. [[Domus].]
PARMA, dim. PARMŬLA, a round shield, three feet in diameter, carried by the velites in the Roman army. Though small, compared with the [Clipeus], it was so strongly made as to be a very effectual protection. This was probably owing to the use of iron in its frame-work. The parma was also worn by the cavalry. We find the term parma often applied to the target [[Cetra]], which was also a small round shield, and therefore very similar to the parma.
Parma. (From the Columna Trajana.)
PĂROCHI, certain people paid by the state to supply the Roman magistrates, ambassadors, and other official persons, when travelling, with those necessaries which they could not conveniently carry with them. They existed on all the principal stations on the Roman roads in Italy and the provinces, where persons were accustomed to pass the night. Of the things which the parochi were bound to supply, hay, fire-wood, salt, and a certain number of beds appear to have been the most important.
PĂROPSIS (παροψίς), any food eaten with the ὅψον as the μάζα, a kind of frumenty or soft cake, broth, or any kind of condiment or sauce. It was, likewise, the name of the dish or plate, on which such food was served up, and it is in this latter signification that the Roman writers use the word.
PARRĬCĪDA, PARRĬCĪDĬUM. A parricida signified originally a murderer generally, and is hence defined to be a person who kills another dolo malo. It afterwards signified the murderer of a parent, and by an ancient law such a parricide was sewed up in a sack (culleus), and thrown into a river. A law of the dictator Sulla contained some provisions against parricide, and probably fixed the same punishment for the parricide, as the Lex Pompeia de Parricidiis, passed in the time of Cn. Pompeius. This law extended the crime of parricide to the killing of a brother, sister, uncle, aunt, and many other relations, and enacted that he who killed a father or mother, grandfather or grandmother, should be punished (more majorum) by being whipped till he bled, sewed up in a sack with a dog, cock, viper, and ape, and thrown into the sea. Other parricides were simply put to death.
PASSUS, a measure of length, which consisted of five Roman feet. [[Pes].] The passus was not the step, or distance from heel to heel, when the feet were at their utmost ordinary extension, but the distance from the point which the heel leaves to that in which it is set down. The mille passuum, or thousand paces, was the common name of the Roman mile. [[Milliare].]
PĂTER FĂMĬLIAE. [[Familia]; [Matrimonium].]