Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/424

412 PLEISTARCHUS. the seventh Sterope, and relate that she became invisible from shame, because she alone among her sisters had had intercourse with a mortal man; others call her Electra, and make her disappear from the choir of her sisters on account of her grief at the destruction of the house of Dardanus (Hygin. Fab. 192, Poet Astr. ii. 21). The Pleiades are said to have made away with themselves from grief at the death of their sisters, the Hyades, or at the fate of their father, Atlas, and were afterwards placed as stars at the back of Taurus, where they form a cluster resembling a bunch of grapes, whence they were sometimes called βότρυς (Eustath. ad Hom. p. 1155). According to another story, the Pleiades were virgin companions of Artemis, and, together with their mother Pleione, were pursued by the hunter Orion in Boeotia; their prayer to be rescued from him was heard by the gods, and they were metamorphosed into doves (πελειάδες), and placed among the stars (Hygin, Poet. Astr. ii. 21; Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod. iii. 226; Pind. Nem. ii. 17). The rising of the Pleiades in Italy was about the beginning of May, and their setting about the beginning of November. Their names are Electra, Maia, Taygete, Alcyone, Celaeno, Sterope, and Merope (Tzetz. ad Lyc. 219, comp. 149; Apollod. iii. 10. § 1). The scholiast of Theocritus (xiii. 25) gives the following different set of names: Coccymo, Plaucia, Protis, Parthemia, Maia, Stonychia, Lampatho. (Comp. Hom. Il. xviii. 486, Od. v. 272; Ov. Fast. iv. 169, &c.; ; and Ideler, Untersuch. über die Sternennamen, p. 144.)

 PLEI'ONE (Πληϊόνη), a daughter of Oceanus, and mother of the Pleiades by Atlas. (Apollod. iii. 10. § 1; Pind. Fragm. 53; comp. ; .)

 PLEISTAE'NETUS (Πλεισταίνετος), an Athenian painter, the brother of Pheidias, is mentioned by Plutarch (De Glor. Athen. ii. p. 346) among the most celebrated painters, such as Apollodorus, Euphranor, Nicias, and Asclepiodorus, who painted victories, battles, and heroes ; but there is no other mention of him.

 PLEISTARCHUS（Πλείσταρχος). 1. King of Sparta, of the line of the Agids, was the son and successor of the heroic Leonidas, who was killed at Thermopylae, 489. He was a mere child at the time of his father's death, on which account the regency was assumed by his cousin Pausanias, who commanded the Greeks at Plataea. (Herod. ix. 10; Paus. iii. 4. § 9.) It appears that the latter continued to administer affairs in the name of the young king till his own death, about 467 (Thuc. i. 132). Whether Pleistarchus was then of age to take the reins of government into his own hands we know not, but Pausanias tells us that he died shortly after assuming the sovereignty, while it appears, from the date assigned by Diodorus to the reign of his successor Pleistoanax, that his death could not have taken place till the year 458. (Paus. iii. 5. § 1; Diod. xiii. 75; Clinton, F. H. vol. ii. p. 210.) No particulars of his reign are recorded to us.

 2. Son of Antipater and brother of Cassander, king of Macedonia. He is first mentioned in the year 313, when he was left by his brother in the command of Chalcis, to make head against Ptolemy, the general of Antigonus, when Cassander himself was recalled to the defence of Macedonia. (Diod. xix. 77.) Again, in 302, when the general coalition was formed against Antigonus, Pleistarchus was sent forward by his brother, with an army of 12,000 foot and 500 horse, to join Lysimachus in Asia. As the Hellespont and entrance of the Euxine was occupied by Demetrius, he endeavoured to transport his troops from Odessus direct to Heracleia, but lost by far the greater part on the passage, some having been capturned by the enemy's ships, while others perished in a storm, in which Pleistarchus himself narrowly escaped shipwreck. (Id. xx. 112.) Notwith-standing this misfortune, he seems to have rendered efficient service to the confederates, for which he was rewarded after the battle of Ipsus ( 301) by obtaining the province of Cilicia, as an independent government. This, however, he did not long retain, being expelled from it in the following year, by Demetrius, almost without opposition. (Plut. Demetr. 31.) Hereupon he returned to his brother Cassander, and from this time we hear no more of him. Pausanias mentions him as having been defeated by the Athenians in an action in which he commanded the cavalry and auxiliaries of Cassander; but the period at which this event took place is uncertain. (Paus. i. 15. § 1.) It is perhaps to him that the medical writer, Diocles of Carystus, addressed his work, which is cited more than once by Athenaeus, as τὰ πρὸς Πλείσταρχον Ὑγιεινά. (Athen. vii. 320, d, 324, f.)

 PLEI´STHENES（Πλεισθένης), a son of Atreus, and husband of Aerope or Eriphyle, the daughter of Catreus, by whom he became the father of Agamemnon, Menelaus, and Anaxibia (Apollod. ii. 2. § 2; ''Schol. ad Eurip. Or.'' 5; Aeschyl. Agam. 1569; comp. ; ). A son of Thyestes, who was killed by Atreus, was like-wise called Pleisthenes. (Hygin. Fab. 88.)

 PLEISTOANAX（Πλειστοάναξ, Πλειστώναξ), the nineteenth king of Sparta in the line of the Agidae, was the eldest son of the Pausanias who conquered at Plataea in 479. On the death of Pleistarchus, in  458, without issue, Pleistoanax succeeded to the throne, being yet a minor, so that in the expedition of the Lacedaemonians in behalf of the Dorians against Phocis, in  457, his uncle Nicomedes, son of Cleombrotus, commanded for him. (Thuc. i. 107; Diod. xi. 79; Paus. i. 13, iii. 5.) In 445 he led in person an invasion into Attica, being however, in consequence of his youth, accompanied by Cleandridas as a counsellor. The premature withdrawal of his army from the enemy's territory exposed both Cleandridas and himself to the suspicion of having been bribed by Pericles, and, according to Plutarch, while Cleandridas fled from Sparta and was condemned to death in his absence, the young king was punished by a heavy fine, which he was unable to pay, and was therefore obliged to leave his country. Pleistoanax remained nineteen years in exile, taking up his abode near the temple of Zeus on Mount Lycaeus in Arcadia, and having half his house within the sacred precincts that he might enjoy the benefit of the sanctuary. During this period his son Pausanias, a minor, reigned in his stead. The Spartans at length recalled him in  426, in obedience to the repeated injunctions of the Delphic oracle, - "to bring back the seed of the demi-god, the son of Zeus; else they should plough with a silver plough ;" - and his restoration was accompanied 