PỸANEPSIA (πυανέψια), a festival celebrated at Athens every year on the seventh of Pyanepsion, in honour of Apollo, said to have been instituted by Theseus after his return from Crete. The festival, as well as the month in which it took place, are said to have derived their names from πύαμος, another form for κύαμος, i.e. pulse or beans, which were cooked at this season and carried about.
PỸLĂGŎRAE. [[Amphictyones].]
PỸRA. [[Funus].]
PYRRHĬCA. [[Saltatio].]
PȲTHĬA (πύθια), one of the four great national festivals of the Greeks. It was celebrated in the neighbourhood of Delphi, anciently called Pytho, in honour of Apollo, Artemis, and Leto. The place of this solemnity was the Crissaean plain, which for this purpose contained a hippodromus or race-course, a stadium of 1000 feet in length, and a theatre, in which the musical contests took place. The Pythian games were, according to most legends, instituted by Apollo himself. They were originally perhaps nothing more than a religious panegyris, occasioned by the oracle of Delphi, and the sacred games are said to have been at first only a musical contest, which consisted in singing a hymn to the honour of the Pythian god, with the accompaniment of the cithara. They must, on account of the celebrity of the Delphic oracle, have become a national festival for all the Greeks at a very early period, and gradually all the various contests were introduced which occur in the Olympic games. [[Olympia].] Down to Ol. 48. the Delphians had been the agonothetae at the Pythian games; but in the third year of this Olympiad, after the Crissaean war, the Amphictyons took the management under their care, and appointed certain persons, called Epimeletae (ἐπιμεληταί), to conduct them. Some of the ancients date the institution of the Pythian games from this time. Previous to Ol. 48. the Pythian games had been an ἐνναετηρίς, that is, they had been celebrated at the end of every eighth year; but in Ol. 48. 3. they became, like the Olympia, a πενταετηρίς, i.e. they were held at the end of every fourth year; and a Pythiad, therefore, from the time that it was used as an aera, comprehended a space of four years, commencing with the third year of every Olympiad. They were in all probability held in the spring, and took place in the month of Bucatius, which corresponded to the Attic Munychion.
PȲTHĬI (πύθιοι), four persons appointed by the Spartan kings, two by each, as messengers to the temple of Delphi. Their office was highly honourable and important; they were always the messmates of the Spartan kings.
PYXIS, dim. PYXĬDŬLA (πύξις, dim. πυξίδιον), a casket; a jewel-box. The caskets in which the ladies of ancient times kept their jewels and other ornaments, were made of gold, silver, ivory, mother-of-pearl, tortoise-shell, &c. They were also much enriched with sculpture. The annexed woodcut represents a very plain jewel-box, out of which a dove is extracting a riband or fillet.
Pyxis, jewel-box. (From a Painting at Herculaneum.)