A Smaller Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities

by William Smith

PHORMINX. [[Lyra].]

PHRATRĬA. [[Tribus].]

PHỸLARCHI (φύλαρχοι) were at Athens after the age of Cleisthenes ten officers, one for each of the tribes, and were specially charged with the command and superintendence of the cavalry. There can be but little doubt that each of the phylarchs commanded the cavalry of his own tribe, and they were themselves collectively and individually under the control of the two hipparchs, just as the taxiarchs were subject to the two strategi. Herodotus informs us that when Cleisthenes increased the number of the tribes from four to ten, he also made ten phylarchs instead of four. It has been thought, however, that the historian should have said ten phylarchs in the place of the old phylobasileis, who were four in number, one for each of the old tribes.

PHỸLŎBĂSĬLEIS (φυλοβασιλεῖς) were four in number, representing each one of the four ancient Athenian tribes, and probably elected (but not for life) from and by them. They were nominated from the Eupatridae, and during the continuance of royalty at Athens these “kings of the tribes” were the constant assessors of the sovereign, and rather as his colleagues than counsellors. Though they were originally connected with the four ancient tribes, still they were not abolished by Cleisthenes when he increased the number of tribes, probably because their duties were mainly of a religious character. They appear to have existed even after his time, and acted as judges, but in unimportant or merely formal matters.

PICTŪRA (γραφή, γραφική, ζωγραφία), painting. I. History of the Art. It is singular that the poems of Homer do not contain any mention of painting as an imitative art. This is the more remarkable, since Homer speaks of rich and elaborate embroidery as a thing not uncommon. This embroidery is actual painting in principle, and is a species of painting in practice, and it was considered such by the Romans, who termed it “pictura textilis.” The various allusions also to other arts, similar in nature to painting, are sufficient to prove that painting must have existed in some degree in Homer’s time, although the only kind of painting he notices is the “red-cheeked” and “purple-cheeked ships,” and an ivory ornament for the faces of horses, which a Maeonian or Carian woman colours with purple. Painting seems to have made considerable progress in Asia Minor while it was still in its infancy in Greece, for Candaules, king of Lydia (B.C. 716), is said to have purchased at a high price a painting of Bularchus, which represented a battle of the Magnetes. The old Ionic painting probably flourished at the same time with the Ionian architecture, and continued as an independent school until the sixth century B.C., when the Ionians lost their liberty, and with their liberty their art. Herodotus (i. 164) mentions that when Harpagus besieged the town of Phocaea (B.C. 544), the inhabitants collected all their valuables, their statues and votive offerings from the temples, leaving only their paintings, and such works in metal or of stone as could not easily be removed, and fled with them to the island of Chios; from which we may conclude that paintings were not only valued by the Phocaeans, but also common among them. Herodotus (iv. 88) also informs us that Mandrocles of Samos, who constructed for Darius Hystaspis the bridge of boats across the Bosporus (B.C. 508), had a picture painted, representing the passage of Darius’s army, and the king seated on a throne reviewing the troops as they passed, which he dedicated in the temple of Hera at Samos. After the conquest of Ionia, Samos became the seat of the arts. The Heraeum at Samos, in which the picture of Mandrocles was placed, was a general depository for works of art, and in the time of Strabo appears to have been particularly rich in paintings, for he terms it a “picture-gallery” (πινακοθήκη). The first painter in Greece itself, whose name is recorded, is Cimon of Cleonae. His exact period is uncertain, but he was probably a contemporary of Solon, and lived at least a century before Polygnotus. It was with Polygnotus of Thasos that painting reached its full development (about B.C. 463). Previous to this time the only cities that had paid any considerable attention to painting were Aegina, Sicyon, Corinth, and Athens. Sicyon and Corinth had long been famous for their paintings upon vases and upon articles of furniture; the school of Athens had attained no celebrity whatever until the arrival of Polygnotus from Thasos raised it to that pre-eminence which it continued to maintain for more than two centuries, although very few of the great painters of Greece were natives of Athens. The principal contemporaries of Polygnotus were Dionysius of Colophon, Plistaenetus and Panaenus of Athens, brothers (or the latter perhaps a nephew) of Phidias, and Micon, also of Athens. The works of Polygnotus and his contemporaries were conspicuous for expression, character, and design; the more minute discriminations of tone and local colour, united with dramatic composition and effect, were accomplished in the succeeding generation, about 420 B.C., through the efforts of Apollodorus of Athens and Zeuxis of Heraclea. The contemporaries of Apollodorus and Zeuxis, and those who carried out their principles, were Parrhasius of Ephesus, Eupompus of Sicyon, and Timanthes of Cythnus, all painters of the greatest fame. Athens and Sicyon were the principal seats of the art at this period. Eupompus of Sicyon was the founder of the celebrated Sicyonian school of painting which was afterwards established by Pamphilus. The Alexandrian period was the last of progression or acquisition; but it only added variety of effect to the tones it could not improve, and was principally characterised by the diversity of the styles of so many contemporary artists. The most eminent painters of this period were Protogenes, Pamphilus, Melanthius, Antiphilus, Theon of Samos, Apelles, Euphranor, Pausias, Nicias, Nicomachus, and his brother Aristides. Of all these Apelles was the greatest. The quality in which he surpassed all other painters will scarcely bear a definition; it has been termed grace, elegance, beauty, χάρις, venustas. His greatest work was perhaps his Venus Anadyomene, Venus rising out of the waters. He excelled in portrait, and indeed all his works appear to have been portraits in an extended sense; for his pictures, both historical and allegorical, consisted nearly all of single figures. He enjoyed the exclusive privilege of painting the portraits of Alexander.—The works of Greek art brought from Sicily by Marcellus were the first to inspire the Romans with the desire of adorning their public edifices with statues and paintings, which taste was converted into a passion when they became acquainted with the great treasures and almost inexhaustible resources of Greece, and their rapacity knew no bounds. Mummius, after the destruction of Corinth, B.C. 146, carried off or destroyed more works of art than all his predecessors put together. Scaurus, in his aedileship, B.C. 58, had all the public pictures still remaining in Sicyon transported to Rome, on account of the debts of the former city, and he adorned the great temporary theatre which he erected upon that occasion with 3000 bronze statues. Verres ransacked Asia and Achaia, and plundered almost every temple and public edifice in Sicily of whatever was valuable in it. Amongst the numerous robberies of Verres, Cicero mentions particularly twenty-seven beautiful pictures taken from the temple of Minerva at Syracuse, consisting of portraits of the kings and tyrants of Sicily. Yet Rome was, about the end of the republic, full of painters, who appear, however, to have been chiefly occupied in portrait, or decorative and arabesque painting. Among the Romans the earliest painter mentioned is a member of the noble house of the Fabii, who received the surname of Pictor through some paintings which he executed in the temple of Salus at Rome, B.C. 304, which lasted till the time of the emperor Claudius, when they were destroyed by the fire that consumed that temple. Pacuvius also, the tragic poet, and nephew of Ennius, distinguished himself by some paintings in the temple of Hercules in the Forum Boarium, about 180 B.C. But generally speaking the artists at Rome were Greeks. Julius Caesar, Agrippa, and Augustus were among the earliest great patrons of artists. Caesar expended great sums in the purchase of pictures by the old masters. He gave as much as 80 talents for two pictures by his contemporary Timomachus of Byzantium, one an Ajax, and the other a Medea meditating the murder of her children. These pictures, which were painted in encaustic, were very celebrated works; they are alluded to by Ovid (Trist. ii. 525), and are mentioned by many other ancient writers.—There are three distinct periods observable in the history of painting in Rome. The first or great period of Graeco-Roman art may be dated from the conquest of Greece until the time of Augustus, when the artists were chiefly Greeks. The second, from the time of Augustus to the so-called Thirty Tyrants and Diocletian, or from the beginning of the Christian era until about the latter end of the third century, during which time the great majority of Roman works of art were produced. The third comprehends the state of the arts during the exarchate, when Rome, in consequence of the foundation of Constantinople, and the changes it involved, suffered similar spoliations to those which it had previously inflicted upon Greece. This was the period of the total decay of the imitative arts amongst the ancients. About the beginning of the second period is the earliest age in which we have any notice of portrait painters (imaginum pictores) as a distinct class. Portraits must have been exceedingly numerous amongst the Romans; Varro made a collection of the portraits of 700 eminent men. The portraits or statues of men who had performed any public service were placed in the temples and other public places; and several edicts were passed by the emperors of Rome respecting the placing of them. The portraits of authors also were placed in the public libraries; they were apparently fixed above the cases which contained their writings, below which chairs were placed for the convenience of readers. They were painted also at the beginning of manuscripts. Several of the most celebrated ancient artists were both sculptors and painters; Phidias and Euphranor were both; Zeuxis and Protogenes were both modellers; Polygnotus devoted some attention to statuary; and Lysippus consulted Eupompus upon style in sculpture. Moreover scene-painting shows that the Greeks were acquainted with perspective at a very early period; for when Aeschylus was exhibiting tragedies at Athens, Agatharchus made a scene, and left a treatise upon it.—II. Methods of Painting. There were two distinct classes of painting practised by the ancients—in water colours, and in wax, both of which were practised in various ways. Of the former the principal were fresco, al fresco; and the various kinds of distemper (a tempera), with glue, with the white of egg, or with gums (a guazzo); and with wax or resins when these were rendered by any means vehicles that could be worked with water. Of the latter the principal was through fire (διὰ πυρὸς), termed encaustic (ἐγκαυστική, encaustica). The painting in wax (κηρογραφία), or ship painting (inceramenta navium), was distinct from encaustic. It does not appear that the Greeks or Romans ever painted in oil; the only mention of oil in ancient writers in connection with painting is the small quantity which entered into the composition of encaustic varnish to temper it. They painted upon wood, clay, plaster, stone, parchment, and canvas. The use of canvas must have been of late introduction, as there is no mention of it having been employed by the Greek painters of the best periods. They generally painted upon panels or tablets (πίνακες, πινόκια, tabulae, tabellae), which when finished were fixed into frames of various descriptions and materials, and encased in walls. The style or cestrum used in drawing, and for spreading the wax colours, pointed at one end and broad and flat at the other, was termed γραφίς by the Greeks and cestrum by the Romans; it was generally made of metal. The hair pencil (penicillus, penicillum) was termed ὑπογραφίς, and apparently also ῥαβδίον. The ancients used also a palette very similar to that used by the moderns. Encaustic was a method very frequently practised by the Roman and later Greek painters; but it was in very little use by the earlier painters, and was not generally adopted until after the time of Alexander. Pliny defines the term thus: “ceris pingere ac picturam inurere,” to paint with wax or wax colours, and to burn in the picture afterwards with the cauterium; it appears therefore to have been the simple addition of the process of burning in to the ordinary method of painting with wax colours. Cerae (waxes) was the ordinary term for painters’ colours amongst the Romans, but more especially encaustic colours, and they kept them in partitioned boxes, as painters do at present.—III. Polychromy. Ancient statues were often painted, and what is now termed polychrome sculpture was very common in Greece. The practice of colouring statues is undoubtedly as ancient as the art of statuary itself; although they were perhaps originally coloured more from a love of colour than from any design of improving the resemblance of the representation. The Jupiter of the Capitol, placed by Tarquinius Priscus, was coloured with minium. In later times the custom seems to have been reduced to a system, and was practised with more reserve. The practice also of colouring architecture seems to have been universal amongst the Greeks, and very general amongst the Romans.—IV. Vase Painting. The fictile-vase painting of the Greeks was an art of itself, and was practised by a distinct class of artists. The designs upon these vases (which the Greeks termed λήκυθοι) have been variously interpreted, but they have been generally considered to be in some way connected with the initiation into the Eleusinian and other mysteries. They were given as prizes to the victors at the Panathenaea and other games, and seem to have been always buried with their owners at their death, for they have been discovered only in tombs. Even in the time of the Roman empire painted vases were termed “operis antiqui,” and were then sought for in the ancient tombs of Campania and other parts of Magna Graecia. We may form some idea of their immense value from the statement of Pliny, that they were more valuable than the Murrhine vases. [[Murrhina Vasa].] The paintings on the vases, considered as works of art, vary exceedingly in the detail of the execution, although in style of design they may be arranged in two principal classes, the black and the yellow; for those which do not come strictly under either of these heads are either too few or vary too slightly to require a distinct classification. The black are the most ancient, the yellow the most common.—V. Mosaic, or pictura de musivo, opus musivum, was very general in Rome in the time of the early emperors. It was also common in Greece and Asia Minor at an earlier period, but at the time of the Roman empire it began to a great extent even to supersede painting. It was used chiefly for floors, but walls and also ceilings were sometimes ornamented in the same way. There are still many great mosaics of the ancients extant. The most valuable is the one discovered in Pompeii a few years ago, which is supposed to represent the battle of Issus. The composition is simple, forcible, and beautiful, and the design exhibits in many respects merits of the highest order.

PĪLA (σφαῖρα), a ball. The game at ball (σφαιριστική) was one of the most favourite gymnastic exercises of the Greeks and Romans, from the earliest times to the fall of the Roman empire. It is mentioned in the Odyssey, where it is played by the Phaeacian damsels to the sound of music, and also by two celebrated performers at the court of Alcinous in a most artistic manner accompanied with dancing. The various movements of the body required in the game of ball gave elasticity and grace to the figure; whence it was highly esteemed by the Greeks. The Athenians set so high a value on it, that they conferred upon Aristonicus of Carystus the right of citizenship on account of his skill in this game. It was equally esteemed by the other states of Greece; the young Spartans, when they were leaving the condition of ephebi, were called σφαιρεῖς, probably because their chief exercise was the game at ball. Every complete gymnasium had a room (σφαιριστήριον, σφαίριστρα) devoted to this exercise [[Gymnasium]], where a special teacher (σφαιριστικός) gave instruction in the art. Among the Romans the game at ball was generally played at by persons before taking the bath, in a room (sphaeristerium) attached to the baths for the purpose. Pila was used in a general sense for any kind of ball: but the balls among the Romans seem to have been of three kinds; the pila in its narrower sense, a small ball; the follis, a great ball filled with air; and the paganica, of which we know scarcely anything, but which appears to have been smaller than the follis and larger than the pila. The Harpastum (from ἁρπάζω) seems to have been the name of a ball, which was thrown among the players, each of whom endeavoured to catch it.

Pila, Game at Ball. (From the Baths of Titus.)

PĪLĀNI. [[Exercitus], [p. 168] b.]

PĪLENTUM, a splendid four-wheeled carriage, furnished with soft cushions, which conveyed the Roman matrons in sacred processions and in going to the Circensian and other games. The pilentum was probably very like the [Harmamaxa] and [Carpentum], but open at the sides, so that those who sat in it might both see and be seen.