Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/180

Rh 168 PEISANDER. §§ 10, &c ; Plut. Ages. 10 ; Paus. iii. 9 ; Diod. xiv. 83 ; Corn. Nep. Con. 4 ; Just. vi. 3). Dio- dorus improperl}'- calls him Periarchus. [E. E.] PEISANDER (UelaavSpos), literary. 1. A poet of Caraeirus, in Rhodes. The names of his parents were Peison and Aristaechma, and he had a sister called Diocleia ; but beyond these barren facts we know nothing of his life or circumstances. He appears to have flourished about the 33d Olym- piad (b. c. 648 — 645), though, according to some, he was earlier than Hesiod, and was a contem- porary and friend of Eumolpus. This latter statement, however, is only an instance of the way in which the connection between the great early masters of poetry and their followers in the same line was often represented as an actual personal relation. Peisander was the author of a poem in two books on the exploits of Hercules. It was called 'Hpa/cAeio, and Clement of Alexandria (Stroni. vi. p. 266, ed. Sylb.) accuses him of having taken it entirely from one Pisinus of Lindus. In this poem Hercules was for the first time repre- sented as armed with a club, and covered with the lion's skin, instead of the usual armour of the heroic period ; and it is not improbable, as MUller suggests, that Peisander was also the first who fixed the number of the hero's labours at twelve (Strab. XV. p. 688 ; Suid. s. v. IldcrapSpos ; Eratosth. Catast. 12 ; Ath. xii. p. 512, f ; Schol. ad ApoLl. Rhod. i. 1 1 96 ; Theocr. Epigr. xx. ; Miiller, Hist, of Gk. Lit. ix. § 3, Dor. ii. 12. § 1). The Alexandrian grammarians thought so highly of the poem that they received Peisander, as well as Antimachus and Panyasis, into the epic canon together with Homer and Hesiod. Only a few lines of it have been preserved ; two are given us by the Scholiast on Aristophanes {Nub. 1034), and another by Stobaeus {Flor. xii. 6). Other poems which were ascribed to Peisander were, as we learn from Suidas, spurious, having been com- posed chiefly by Aristeas. In the Greek Antho- logy (vol. i. p. 49, ed. Jacobs) we find an epigram attributed to Peisander of Rhodes, perhaps the poet of Cameirus ; it is an epitaph on one Hippaemon, together with his horse, dog, and attendant. By some, moreover, it has been thought, but on no sufficient grounds, that the fragments which pass as the 24th and 25th Idyllia of Theocritus, as well as the 4th of Moschus, are portions of the *Hpa- Keia of Peisander (Paus. ii. 37, viii. 22 ; Phot. Bihl. 239 ; Ath. xi. p. 469, d ; Strab. xiv. p. 655 ; Quint, x. 1 ; ApoUod. Bihl. i. 8 ; Hygin. Pott. Astr. ii.24 ; Schol. ad Find. Pyth. ix. 185 ; Schol. ad ApoU. Rhod. iv. 1396 ; Steph. 'Byz. s. v. Kd- fiipos ; Heyne, Ejcc. i. ad Virg. Aen. ii. ; Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. i. pp. 215, 590 ; Voss. de Po'dt. Graec. 3 ; Bode, Gesch. der Epischen Dichtkunst^ pp. 499, &c). From Theocritus {Epigr. xx.) it appears that a statue was erected by the citizens of Cameirus in honour of Peisander. 2. A poet of Laranda, in Lycia or Lycaonia, was a son of Nestor [No. 1. See above. Vol. II. p. 1 1 70, a], and flourished in the reign of Alex- ander Severus (a. d. 222 — 235). He wrote a po('m, which, according to Zosimus (v. 29), was called 'Hpwi/cat ^eoyafxiai. In most copies of Suidas (s. V. Tleia-avdpos) we find the title given as "HpaiKoi ^eoya/iilai, which, some have thought, derives confirmation from the statement in Ma- crobius {Sat. v. 2), that Peisander wrote a sort of nmversal history, commencing with the nuptials of PEISISTRATIDAE. Jupiter and Juno. But it seems clear that 'Hpa't- Kal is the right reading, and the work probably treated of the marriages of gods and goddesses with mortals, and of the heroic progeny thus pro- duced. It would seem to have been a very volu- minous performance, if we adopt the extremely probable alteration of ^' for €| in Suidas, and so consider it as consisting of sixty books (Suid. s. v. 'AydOvpaoi ; Steph. Byz. s. vf>. 'AydBvpaoi^ ^Airev- viou, "Ao-ra/cos, BoauAeta, KugeAeia, AwKofem, OtVwTpIa, Nt^c£TT;s). There are several passages making mention of Peisander, in which we have no means of ascertaining whether the poet of Ca- meirus or of Laranda is the person alluded to ; such are Schol. ad Apoll. Rhod. i. 471, ii. 98, 1090, iv. 57 ; Schol. ad Eur. Phoen. 1748. Ma- crobius, in the passage above referred to, says that Virgil drew the whole matter of the second book of the Aeneid from Peisander. But chronology, of course, forbids us to understand this of Peisan- der of Laranda ; and we hear of no such work as that to which Macrobius alludes by any older poet of the same name, for the notion of Valckenaer seems quite untenable, viz. that the 'UpwiKoi ^eo- ya/iiiai was written, in spite of the testimony of Suidas, by Peisander of Cameirus, and was in fact one and the same poem with the 'UpaKKeta (Valcken. Diatrib. ad Eur. Hipp. p. 24 ; Heyne, Exc. i. iii. ad Virg. Aen. ii. ; Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. i. pp.215, 590, iv. p. 265 ; Voss, de Pott. Graec. 9 ; Bode, Gesch. der Ejjisch. Dichtk. p. 500, note 1). [E. E.] PEISE'NOR {Tl€i(T'/,voop). 1. The father of Ops, and grandfather of Eurycleia, the nurse of Odysseus. (Horn. Od. i. 429.) 2. A herald of Telemachus in Ithaca. (Horn. Od. ii. 38.) 3. A distinguished Trojan, the father of Cleitus. (Horn. //. XV. 445.) 4. A centaur, mentioned only by Ovid. (Met. xii. 303.) [L. S.] PEPSIAS (nefo-jcs). 1. An Argive general. In B.C. 366, when Epaminondas was preparing to invade Achaia, Peisias, at his instigation, occupied a commanding height of Mount Oneium, near Cenchreae, and thus enabled the Thebans to make their way through the isthmus, guarded though it was by Lacedaemonian and Athenian troops. (Xen. Hell. vii. 1. §41 ; Diod. xv. 75.) 2. A statuary, is mentioned by Pausanias (i. 3.) as having made a statue of Apollo, which stood in the inner Cerameicus at Athens. [E. E.] PEISPDICE (ne«n5lK7j). 1. A daughter of Aeolus and Enarete, was married to Myrmidon, by whom she became the mother of Antiphus and Actor. (Apollod. i. 7- § 3.) 2. A daughter of Pelias and Anaxibia or Philo- mache. (Apollod. i. 9. § 10.) 3. A daughter of Nestor and Anaxibia. (Apol- lod. i. 9. § 9.) 4. The daughter of a king of Methymna in Lesbos, who, out of love for Achilles, opened to him the gates of her native city, but was stoned to death, at the command of Achilles, by his sol- diers. (Parthen. Erot. 21.) [L. S.] PEISISTRATIDAE (neto-torpoT/Sai), the legitimate sons of Peisistratus. [See Peisistra- Tus.] The name is used sometimes to indicate only Ilippias and Hipparchus, sometimes in a wider application, embracing the grandchildren and near connections of Peisistratus (as by Herodotus, viii.