Part 19

MUSES. The Goddesses of poetry, and of the arts and sciences. They were nine in number, and were the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (Memory). Mount Helicon in Boeotia was their favourite haunt.

MUSONIUS RUFUS. A celebrated Stoic philosopher, banished by Nero in 66 A.D. on the pretext of conspiracy.

MYIA. Of this daughter of Pythagoras we have no certain information.

MYRON. A celebrated sculptor, born about 480 B.C.

MYSTERIES (Eleusinian). Eumolpus, Musaeus, and Demeter, are all mentioned as the founders of these Mysteries, in which were commemorated the rape of Persephone by Pluto, and the wanderings of Demeter in search of her. They were held annually, the Greater at Eleusis and Athens, the Lesser at Agrae. Persons initiated at the Lesser could only be admitted to the Greater after a year's interval. A part of the Greater Mysteries, to which those only were admitted who had been fully initiated, and had taken the oath of secrecy, consisted of a torchlight procession from Athens to the temple of Demeter at Eleusis, after which the initiated were purified, repeated the oath of secrecy, and were admitted to the inner sanctuary of the temple. Of the secret doctrines there divulged nothing is known.

NARCISSUS. A youth so beautiful that he fell in love with his image reflected in a pool.

NAUSICAA. The beautiful daughter of Alcinous and Arete, who received Odysseus with kindness when cast up by the sea.

NELEUS. Of Scepsis; he is known to have been in possession of the MSS. of Aristotle, and may therefore have been a patron of literature.

NEMESIS. 'Wrath,' the Goddess who avenges presumption.

NEOPTOLEMUS, also called Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, after whose death the seer declared that Troy could not be taken without the help of his son. He distinguished himself in the taking.

NEPHELE. _See_ ATHAMAS. Changed to a cloud after his desertion of her.

NEREÏDS. The sea nymphs, daughters of Nereus, a Sea-God.

NESIOTES. _See_ CRITIUS.

NESTOR. Oldest and wisest of the Greek chiefs at Troy. His cup was one that 'scarce could another move from the table when it was full, but old Nestor lifted it with ease.'

NICANDER. Grammarian, poet, and physician of Colophon, about 140 B.C. Wrote _Theriaca_ and _Alexipharmaca_, works on poisons and antidotes.

NICIAS. The Athenian general in command of the Sicilian expedition, 415 B.C. Put to death by the Syracusans.

NICOSTRATUS. A wrestler and double Olympic victor, about 40 A.D.

NIOBE. _See_ LETO.

NIREUS. A Greek at the siege of Troy, famous for beauty.

NUMA. Second king of Rome; his reign was marked by peace and the founding of religious institutions.

ODYSSEUS. Son of Laertes, king of Ithaca. To escape joining the Greeks against Troy, simulated madness by driving a plough for a chariot, with one ox and one horse. Palamedes exposed him by threatening Odysseus's son Telemachus with a sword, when he confessed. In revenge, he ruined Palamedes at Troy, convicting him by forged evidence of treacherous dealings with the enemy. When Agamemnon lost heart, and was for returning, Odysseus prevailed on the Greeks not to give up. Took ten years getting home, detained by Calypso, by Circe, and otherwise. Circe enabled him to visit Hades and consult Tiresias. Escaped the Sirens by stopping his crew's ears with wax, and having himself bound to the mast.

OENEUS. _See_ MELEAGER.

OLYMPIA. In Elis; the Olympic games took place every four years, and, starting from 776 B.C., from which time a record of them was kept, were used for dating events, under the name of Olympiads. The games were the occasion of the largest gatherings of Greeks that took place.

OLYMPIAS. Wife of Philip of Macedon and mother of Alexander.

OLYMPIEUM. A temple of Zeus at Athens, begun by the tyrant Pisistratus (560-527 B.C.), but not finished till the time of Hadrian (117-138 A.D.).

OLYMPUS (1). A mountain separating Macedonia and Thessaly, the summit of which was the residence of the Gods.

OLYMPUS (2). A celebrated flute-player of Phrygia.

OMPHALE. _See_ HERACLES.

ORESTES. _See_ AGAMEMNON.

ORION. A giant and hunter of Boeotia. Blinded by Oenopion for ill-treatment of his daughter Merope, he recovered his sight by the help of Cedalion, who directed his eyes towards the rising sun.

ORITHYIA. Daughter of Erechtheus, king of Athens. Carried off by Boreas.

ORPHEUS. A Thracian musician, son of the Muse Calliope. His music charmed wild beasts, trees, and rocks, and prevailed upon Pluto to restore his wife Eurydice, on condition that Orpheus should not look back to see that she was following him; this condition not being observed, Eurydice remained in Hades. Orpheus was afterwards torn in pieces by the Thracian women, and his head and lyre thrown into the Hebrus, and carried to Lesbos.

OSIRIS. An Egyptian king, deified after death, as the husband of Isis.

OSROËS. Son of Vologesus I. A king of Parthia, engaged in war with the Emperor Trajan.

OTHRYADES. The only survivor of the three hundred Spartans who fought with three hundred Argives for the possession of Thyrea in Cynuria. Being left for dead by the two Argive survivors, he raised a trophy on the field, with an inscription in his own blood, and thus secured the victory.

OTUS. _See_ EPHIALTES.

PACTOLUS. A Lydian river, whose sands were said to contain gold.

PAEAN, (1) A name of Apollo; (2) a song sung before or after a battle.

PALAMEDES. A Greek hero in the Trojan War. _See under_ ODYSSEUS. Said to have added certain letters to the Greek alphabet.

PAN. A rustic God, son of Hermes and Penelope. Invented the Pan's pipe, and attended upon Dionysus. Represented with horns and goat's legs.

PANATHENAEA. Two festivals of this name were celebrated at Athens with games, sacrifices, &c.; the Lesser annually, the Greater every fourth year.

PANCRATIUM. A contest in the public games, in which both boxing and wrestling were employed.

PANGAEUS. A range of mountains in Macedonia, famous for gold and silver mines.

PANTHEA (1). Wife of Abradatas, king of Susa. Her spirit and loyalty are commended by Xenophon.

PANTHEA (2). Presumably the mistress of the Emperor Lucius Verus.

PARIS. Son of Priam king of Troy.

PARMENIO. An able lieutenant of Alexander.

PARTHENIUS. A Greek elegiac poet, about 30 B.C.

PARTHIANS. The successors in Asia of the Persian monarchy. The war between their king Vologesus III and Rome, 162-165 A.D., was conducted on the Roman side by the Emperor Lucius Verus. He brought it to a successful conclusion, more by the merits of his lieutenants, Cassius and Statius Priscus, than his own.

PARTHONICE. 'Conquest of the Parthians,' quoted as an affected poetical-sounding title.

PATROCLUS. Friend and follower of Achilles, who, when he sulked himself, lent him his armour, in which Patroclus won great renown; but Apollo struck him senseless, Euphorbus ran him through, and Hector gave him the last fatal blow.

PEGASUS. _See_ BELLEROPHON.

PELASGICUM. A space under the Acropolis at Athens, unoccupied till the Spartan invasions in the Peloponnesian war brought the country Attics into the town.

PELEUS. Father of Achilles.

PELIAS. King of Iolcus, usurper of his nephew Jason's rights. When Medea restored Jason's father Aeson to youth by cutting him to pieces and boiling him, she persuaded the daughters of Pelias to try the same system with their father, which resulted in his death.

PELOPIDS. The descendants of Pelops, many of them, as Atreus and Thyestes, Agamemnon and Menelaus, Orestes, Electra and Iphigenia, famous in tragic story.

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.

PHAEDRA. Daughter of Minos of Crete, and wife of Theseus. _See_ HIPPOLYTUS.

PHAEDRUS. A character in two of the dialogues of Plato, whose friend he was.

PHAETHON. Son of Helius and Clymene. Being allowed on one occasion to drive the chariot of the sun, he lost control of the horses, and almost consumed the earth with fire. Zeus slew him with a thunderbolt, and cast him into the river Eridanus. His sisters, changed into poplars on its banks, wept tears of amber for his loss.

PHALARIS. Tyrant of Agrigentum in Sicily, 570-564 B.C. For the brazen bull in which he is said to have burnt many victims alive, see _Phalaris I_.

PHAON. An ugly old boatman at Mytilene, with whom Sappho is said to have fallen in love, after he had been made young and beautiful by Aphrodite as a reward for carrying her across the sea without payment.

PHARUS. A small island off the coast of Egypt, on which was a famous lighthouse, built by Ptolemy II.

PHIDIAS. Famous Athenian sculptor, 490-432 B.C. The chryselephantine statue of Zeus at Olympia was his work.

PHILIP OF MACEDON. King, 359-336 B.C. Raised Macedon from an insignificant State to the mistress of Greece, and made possible the conquests of his son Alexander by his organization. Used diplomacy as much as arms to effect his ends, and systematically bribed persons in the states opposed to him, especially in Athens.

PHILIPPIDES. More usually called Phidippides.

PHILO. The person to whom Lucian addresses _The Way to write History_ is unknown.

PHILOCRATES. Prominent Athenian, probably in the pay of Philip, into whose hands he constantly played.

PHILOCTETES. Armour-bearer of Heracles, inherited his bow. Left at Lemnos on the way to Troy, because a wound from a snake-bite rendered him offensive by its stench. Later, an oracle declaring the bow necessary for the capture of Troy, Odysseus went and induced him to come.

PHILOSOPHY. Lucian is fond of ridiculing the different schools of philosophy, some for their paradoxical choice of ends, some for their hypocrisy in practically disregarding their own precepts. The regulation philosophic garb and appearance also comes in for satire; it consisted of threadbare cloak, wallet, and staff, with long beard. A brief account of the chief schools will be found under ACADEMY, CYNICS, CYRENAICS, PERIPATETICS, STOICS, EPICUREANS, SCEPTICS, PLATO, PYTHAGORAS.

PHILOXENUS. A poet, who, for his severe criticism of a poem of Dionysius I, was imprisoned in the Syracusan quarries. The tyrant, having pardoned him and invited him to dinner, recited another poem he had composed. Asked his opinion of it, Philoxenus made no direct reply, but said, 'Take me back to the quarries.'

PHINEUS. King of Bithynia, blinded by Zeus for unjustly blinding his own children; and _See_ HARPIES.

PHLEGETHON. 'Burning,' one of the infernal rivers.

PHOCION. Athenian statesman and general, died 318 B.C.; distinguished for virtue, moderation, and poverty.

PHOEBUS. _See_ APOLLO.

PHOENIX (1). Son of Amyntor king of Argos. Blinded by his father, fled to Peleus, was cured by Chiron of his blindness, and became tutor to Achilles.

PHOENIX (2). An Indian bird which lived five hundred years and then cremated itself, another rising from its ashes.

PHOLUS. _See_ HERACLES.

PHRIXUS. _See_ ATHAMAS.

PHRYGIANS. Troy being in Phrygia, 'Phrygians' is often used for 'Trojans.'

PHRYNE. Famous Athenian courtesan, 328 B.C.

PHRYNON. Athenian politician in the Macedonian interest, associated by Demosthenes especially with Philocrates.

PIRAEUS. The port of Athens, about five miles off.

PISA. The town in Elis, near which the Olympic games were held.

PITCH-PLASTERS were employed by women and by effeminate men for removing the hair from the body.

PITYOCAMPTES. 'Pine-bender,' descriptive surname of the robber Sinis, who killed travellers by fastening them to the top of a pine bent down and then allowed to spring up. He was killed by Theseus in the same way.

PLATAEA. A town in Boeotia, near which the final battle of the Graeco-Persian war was fought, 478 B.C. The Persians were defeated.

PLATO. An Athenian philosopher (428-347 B.C.), and pupil of Socrates, whom in his dialogues he often makes the mouthpiece of his own doctrines. He studied in Africa, Egypt, Italy, and Sicily, and returned to Athens in 386 B.C. to lecture in the gymnasium of the Academy. He paid three visits to the Syracusan court of Dionysius I and II. The Platonic theory of Ideas is an attempt to secure accuracy of definition (which is the first step towards knowledge), by contemplation of those abstract types or Ideas of things, of which external objects are in every case only an imperfect manifestation, and which are perceptible to us by reason of our familiarity with them in a previous existence; for the soul is immortal, and what we call the acquisition of knowledge is in fact only recollection. In his _Republic_ we have a sketch of a model state, in which philosophers are to be kings, and community of women is recommended as a means of securing scientific breeding.

PLUTO. 'Rich' in dead, according to Lucian's derivation; also called Hades. Drew lots with his brothers Zeus and Posidon, and received the Lower World for his share. His wife was Persephone.

PLUTUS. Son of Iasion and Demeter, and God of wealth. Blinded by Zeus.

PNYX. The place where the Athenian Assembly was held. It was cut out of the side of a small hill west of the Acropolis.

PODALIRIUS. Son of Asclepius, and brother of Machaon, with whom he led the Thessalians of Tricca against Troy. Both brothers inherited their father's medical skill.

POECILE. The 'Painted' Porch in the Athenian market-place, adorned with paintings of Polygnotus. Here Zeno, the founder of the Stoic philosophy, opened his school, which was accordingly often spoken of as 'The Porch.'

POENAE. 'Punishments.' Infernal spirits, akin to the Erinyes.

POLEMON. Athenian philosopher, head of the Academy, 315 B.C. Had been dissolute in youth, but was converted, as related in _The Double Indictment_, by Xenocrates.

POLIAS. _See_ ATHENE.

POLLUX (1). _See_ CASTOR.

POLLUX (2). _See_ HERODES.

POLUS (1). A rhetorician of Agrigentum, pupil of Gorgias, with whom he is introduced by Plato in the _Gorgias_.

POLUS (2). A celebrated tragic actor.

POLYCLITUS. 452-412 B.C. A Sicyonian sculptor, reckoned the equal of Phidias. His 'canon' was a bronze statue in which he exemplified the principles that he had laid down in a book to which he gave the same name. The _Diadumenus_, or youth tying on a fillet, was one of his most famous works.

POLYCRATES. Powerful tyrant of Samos. Frightened by his excessive prosperity, tried to propitiate Nemesis by throwing into the sea a ring that he prized highly; but a fisherman found it in a fish, and returned it, a sign that his offering was rejected. He was lured to Asia by Oroetes, satrap of Sardis, and by him crucified, 522 B.C.

POLYDAMAS. Olympic victor, 408 B.C. Marvellous stories are told of his strength.

POLYGNOTUS. Famous painter, of Thasos, 422 B.C.

POLYNICES. One of the sons of Oedipus, who killed each other.

POLYPHEMUS. _See_ CYCLOPES. His story is given _Dialogues of the Sea-Gods_, i.

POLYXENA. Daughter of Priam and Hecuba, loved by Achilles, who after his death demanded that she should be sacrificed to his _manes_. She submitted willingly, and was slain by Neoptolemus at his father's tomb.

PORCH, THE. _See_ POECILE and STOICS.

PORUS. _See_ ALEXANDER (1).

POSIDON. Son of Cronus, brother of Zeus and Pluto, received the sea as his province. Assisted Apollo in building the walls of Troy for Laomedon.

PRAXITELES. Athenian sculptor, 364 B.C. With Scopas, headed the later Attic school, known less for sublimity than beauty. The Cnidian _Aphrodite_ was his.

PRIAPUS. Son of Dionysus and Aphrodite, worshipped especially at Lampsacus.

PRODICUS. Sophist of Ceos, often at Athens, where Socrates is said to have attended his lectures, about 430 B.C. Spoken of by Plato with more respect than most sophists, and famous for his apologue of _The Choice of Heracles_, between Pleasure and Virtue.

PROETUS. _See_ BELLEROPHON.

PROMETHEUS. Son of Iapetus, and therefore first cousin of Zeus, who nailed him up on the Caucasus, and instructed an eagle to devour his liver, which grew again each night. The provocation had been threefold: (1) Prometheus, forming clay figures, had persuaded Athene to breathe life into them, and thus created man; (2) he had stolen fire from Heaven for the use of man; (3) by dividing a slain animal into two portions, one consisting of bones wrapped up in fat, the other of the lean parts, and persuading Zeus to choose the former as his share, he had secured the more desirable portion of sacrificial animals for man. The confusion of the sexes alluded to in the _Literary Prometheus_ (7) is perhaps drawn from Plato's account in the _Symposium_ of the creation of double beings, who possessed the characteristics of both sexes, and referred by Lucian to Prometheus on his own responsibility; though in Phaedrus (Fables, iv. 14) Prometheus is charged with a confusion of the sexes in a different sense.

PROTESILAUS. A Thessalian, son of Iphiclus, and the first Greek slain by the Trojans. Permitted to return to life for a few hours to see his wife Laodamia.

PROTEUS. The prophetic old man of the sea, from whom it was only possible to obtain information by seizing him; this was difficult, as he changed into many different shapes. Peregrine (whom see) took the name of Proteus.

PTOLEMY (1). Son of Lagus, surnamed Soter. A general of Alexander, and afterwards king of Egypt. Died 283 B.C.

PTOLEMY (2) Philadelphus, son of Ptolemy Soter. Married his sister Arsinoe, 309-247 B.C.

_Ptolemy_ (3) Dionysus. King of Egypt, 80-51 B.C.

PUZZLES. Lucian is never tired of ridiculing the verbal quibbles in which the philosophers of his time indulged. He attributes them especially to the Stoics, whose insistence on pure reason, as opposed to emotion, for the guide of life, resulted in much attention to logic, including its paradoxical forms. Among these logical puzzles are the following: (1) Sorites, the heap trick. Suppose a heap of corn. Is it a heap? Yes. Take a grain away. Is it a heap? Yes. And so on, till only one grain is left. The drawing of the line is impossible. (2) The Horns. If you have not lost a thing, you still have it? Certainly. Have you lost your horns? No. Then you are horned. (3) The Crocodile. A child is caught by a crocodile; the father asks him to give it back. I will, says the crocodile, on condition that you tell me correctly whether I shall do so or not. The dilemma is obvious. (4) The Day and Night. This appears to be a proof that there is no such thing as night, through the ambiguity in 'Day being, Night cannot be,' which in Greek, though not in English, is equally natural in the sense of Since it is day, it cannot be night, and, if day exists, night cannot. (5) The Reaper. I will prove to you that you will not reap your corn, thus. If you reap it, you will not either-reap-or-not-reap, but reap. If you do not reap it, you will not either-reap-or-not-reap, but not reap. So in each case you will not either reap or not reap, that is, there will be no reaping. (6) The Rightful Owner. Unexplained; but _see_ Epictetus, ii, xix. (7) and (8) The Electra, and The Man in the Hood, sufficiently explained in _Sale of Creeds_ (22).

PYANEPSION. An Attic month.

PYLADES. Cousin and friend of Orestes.

PYRRHIAS. Stock name for a slave. Used jestingly in _Sale of Creeds_ instead of Pyrrho.

PYRRHO. Of Elis. About 300 B.C. Gave up painting to become a philosopher, and was the founder of the Sceptics.

PYRRHUS. King of Epirus, 295-272 B.C. The greatest general of his time, won several victories over the Romans.

PYTHAGORAS. Born at Samos, settled at Croton in Italy. 580-510 B.C. The early Ionic philosophers, as Thales and Heraclitus, had found the origin of all things in some one principle, as water, or fire. Pythagoras found it in number and proportion; hence the name Order (#kosmos#), which he first gave to the universe; hence also the mystic importance attached to certain numbers, e.g. the Decad, called Tetractys (which we have translated 'quaternion') as made by the addition of the first four integers (1+2+3+4=10), and the Pentagram, or figure resulting from the production of all the sides of a regular pentagon till they intersect. Pythagoras had travelled in Egypt, and perhaps brought thence his most famous doctrines of the immortality of the soul and transmigration; he is said to have retained the memory of his own previous existences, especially as Euphorbus the Trojan, whose shield he recognized; human knowledge, for him as for Plato, would be accounted for as recollection from earlier lives. He instituted a brotherhood of his disciples, with elaborate training and different degrees; and the Pythagorean 'Ipse dixit,' implying that what the master had said was not open to argument, marks the strict subordination; a novice had to observe silence for five years. Pythagoras left no writings, and this, combined with the mystic character of his speculations on number and his specially authoritative position, gave occasion to innumerable legends, misrepresentations, and extensions. The Pythagorean prohibition of beans as food has never been explained; _see_ Mayor's note on Juv. xv. 174. The usual account is that he thought the souls of his parents might be in them. The story of his appearing at the Olympic games with a golden thigh is one of the later legends illustrative of his supposed assumption of superhuman qualities, which made him the model of impostors or half-impostors like Apollonius of Tyana, Alexander of Abonutichus, or Paracelsus.

PYTHEAS. An Athenian orator, of disreputable character; an enemy of Demosthenes.

PYTHON. An eloquent Byzantine orator in the pay of Philip of Macedon.

RHADAMANTHUS. Son of Zeus and Europa, and brother of Minos. After his death, a judge in Hades.