Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/557

Rh PRONAX. into Hades ; and Zeus allowed him to supply the place of Prometheus (Apollod. ii. 5. § 4 ; comp. Cheiron). According to others, however, Zeus himself delivered Prometheus, when at length the Titan was prevailed upon to reveal to Zeus the decree of fate, that, if he should become by Thetis the fiither of a son, that son should deprive him of the sovereignty. (Serv. ad Virg. Edog. vi. 42 ; Apollod. iii. 13. § 5 ; Hygin. Fah. 54; comp. Aeschyl. Prom. 167, &c. 376.) There was also an account, stating that Pro- metheus had created men out of earth and water, at the very beginning of the human race, or after the flood of Deucalion, when Zeus is said to have ordered him and Athena to make men out of the mud, and the winds to breathe life into them (Apollod. i. 7. § 1 ; Ov. Met i. 81 ; Etym. Mag. s. V. Upoixrfdevi). Prometheus is said to have given to men something of all the qualities possessed by the other animals (Horat, Carm. i. 16. 13). The kind of earth out of which Prometheus formed men was shown in later times near Panopeus in Phocis (Paus. X. 4. § 3), and it was at his suggestion that Deucalion, when the flood approached, built a ship, and carried into it provisions, that he and Pyrrha might be able to support themselves during the calamity (Apollod. i. 7. § 2). Prometheus, in the legend, often appears in connection with Athena, e. g., he is said to have been punished on mount Caucasus for the criminal love he entertained for her (Schol. ad ApoUon. Rhod. ii. 1249) ; and he is further said, with her assistance, to have ascended into heaven, and there secretly to have lighted his torch at the chariot of Helios, in order to bring down the fire to man (Serv. ad Virg. Edog. vi. 42). At Athens Prometheus had a sanctuary in the Academy, from wlience a torch-race took place in honour of him (Paus. i. 30. § 2 ; Schol. ad Soph. Oed. Col. 55 ; Harpocrat. s. v. Kafj-irds). The mythus of Prometheus is most minutely discussed by Welcker, in his Aeschylisclie Trilogie Prometheus^ Darmstadt, 1824 ; by Y bicker, Mythologiedes lapet. Geschlechtes, 1824 ; and with especial reference to the Prometheus of Aeschylus, by Schoemann, Des Aeschylus Gefeaselter Prometheus. Greifswald, 1844, and by Blackie, in the Class. Mus. vol. v. p. l,&c., which contain a very sound explanation of the mythus, as developed by Aeschylus. [L. S.] PRONAEA (Upovaia), a surname of Athena, under which she had a chapel at Delphi, in front of the temple of Apollo. (Herod, i. 92 ; Aeschyl, Eum. 21 ; Paus. ix. 10. § 2.) Pronaus also occurs as a surname of Hermes. (Paus. I. c.) [L. S.] PRONA'PIDES [Upoyairid-ns, a various reading is UpovomS-ns), an Athenian, is said to have been the teacher of Homer. (Tzetzes, Chil. v. 634.) He is enumerated among those who used the Pelasgic letters, before the introduction of the Phoenician, and is characterised as a graceful composer of song, (Diod. iii. 66.) Tatian {Oral, ad Graec. c. 62) melitions, among the early Greek writers, one Pros- nautides, an Athenian, whom Worth, in his edition of Tatian, plausibly conjectures to be Pronapides, According to the Scholiast on Theodosius the Gram- marian, Pronapides invented the mode of writing from left to right now in use, as contradistinguished from the crirvpiSdy, the fiovaTpo(pr)5dv, and other methods. (Bekker, Anecd.Graec.7B6. 17 ; Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. i. p, 217.) [W. M, G,] PRONAX (npcSral), a son of Talaus and Lysi- mache, and a brother of A draetus and Eriphyle. VOL. UI, PROPERTIUS. 545 He was the father of Lycurgus and Amphithea (Apollod. i. 7. § 13), According to some traditions the Nemean games were instituted in honour of Pronax. (Aelian, V. H. iv. 5 ; comp. Paus. iii. 18. §7.) [L.S.] PRONOE {npov6ir]), the name of three mythical personages, one a Nereid (Hes. Theog. 261), the second a daughter of Phorbas, and mother of Pleuron and Calydon, by Aetolus (Apollod. i. 7. § 7), and the third a Naiad. (Conon, 2.) [L. S.] PRO'NOMUS {np6vo^los), of Thebes, the son of Oeniadas, was one of the most distinguished auletic musicians of Greece at the time of the Pelopon- nesian War (Epigr. Incert. 212, Brunck, Anal. vol. iii. p. 194). He was the instructor of Alcibiades in flute-playing. (Ath. iv. p. 184, d.) He in- vented a new sort of flute, the compass of which was such, that melodies could be played upon it in all the three modes of music, the Dorian, the Phry- gian, and the Lydian, for each of which, before this invention, a separate flute had been necessary. (Paus. ix. 12. § 4, s. 5, 6 ; Ath, xiv. p. 631, e.) One very celebrated composition of his was a Delian prosodia (that is, a prelude to be played as the sacred embassy to Delos approached the temple), which he made for the people of Chalcis in Euboea (Paus. I. c). His melodies were brought forward, in competition with those of Sacadas, the Argive, in the musical contests which formed a part of the festivities celebrated at the foundation of Messene by Epaminondas (Paus. iv. 27, § 4. s. 7). Another proof of the high esteem in which he was held by his fellow-citizens was afibrded by their erection of his statue near that of Epaminondas, in the temple of Apollo Spodius, at Thebes (Paus. ix. 12. § 4. s. 5, 6). He is mentioned once by Aris- tophanes (Eccles. 102, comp. Schol. and Suid. s. v.) but only to hang a jest on his long beard. (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. ii. p. 136 ; Ulrici, Gesch. d. Hellen. Dichtk. vol. ii. p. 76 ; Bode, Gesch. d. Hellen. Dichtk. vol. ii. pt. i. pp. 43, n. 3, 207, 314, pt. ii. pp. 192, 236, 351.) [P. S.] PRONOUS (UpSvoos). 1. A son of Phegeus, and brother of Agenor in Psophis, slew Alcmaeon. (Apollod. iii. 7. § 6 ; comp. Agenor and Alc- maeon ; Schol. ad Thuc. i. 3.) 2. A Trojan who was slain by Patroclus. (Honi. //. xvi. 399.) [L. S.J PRONUBA, a surname of Juno among the Romans, describing her as the deity presiding over marriage. (Virg. Aen. iv. 166, vii. 319; Ov. Heroid. y. AZ.) [L. S.] PROPE'RTIUS, SEX.AURE'LIUS. (The agnomen, Nauta, found in some Codices a.nA early editions, seems to have been derived from a corrupt reading of ii. 24. 38.) The materials for a life of Propertius are meagre and unsatisfactory, consist- ing almost entirely of the inferences which may be drawn from hints scattered in his writings. We know neither the precise place nor date of his birth. He tells us that he was a native of Um- bria, where it borders on Etruria, but nowhere mentions the exact spot Conjecture has assigned it, among other towns, to Mevania, Ameria, His- pellum, and Asisium ; of which one of the two last seems entitled to the preference. The date of his birth has been variously placed between the years of Rome 697 and 708 (b. c. 57 to 46). Lachmann, however, was the first who placed it so low as B. c. 48 or 47 ; and the latest date (b. c. 46) is that of Hertzberg, the recent German