Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/619

Rh ceding kings, but it is impossible to say to which they belong. (Eckhel, vol. ii. p. 394.) [E. H. B.] COIN OP PYLAEMENES. PYLAS (ITuAas), a son of Cteson, and king of Megara, who, after having slain Bias, his own father's brother, founded the town of Pylos in Peloponnesus, and gave Megara to Pandion who had married his daughter Pylia, and accordingly was his son-in-law. (Apollod. iii. 15. $ 5 ; Pans. i. 39. § 6, where he is called Pylos, and vi. 22. § 3, where he is called Pylon.) [L. S.] PYRAECHMES (Uvpaixf^Tis), an ally of the Trojans and commander of the Paeonians, was slain by Patroclus. (Horn. IL ii. 848, xvi. 287 ; Diet. Cret. iii. 4 ; comp. Paus. v. 4. § 2 ; Strab. viii. p. 357.) [L. S.] PYRAMUS. [Thisbe.] PYRANDER {Uvpavdos wrote a work on the history of the Peloponnesus. (Plut. Parall. Min. c. 37 ; Schol. ad Lycoplir. 1439.) PYREICUS, a Greek painter, who probably lived about or soon after the time of Alexander the Great, since Pliny mentions him immediately after the great painters of that age, but as an artist of a totally diiferent style. He devoted himself entirely to the production of small pictures of low and mean subjects; "tonstrinas suirinasque pinocit et asellos et ohsonia et siinilia," says Pliny; where we take the first two words to mean, not that he decorated the walls of the barbers' and shoemakers' shops with his pictures, but that he made pictures of them. It may also be taken for granted that these were treated in a quaint, or even a grotesque manner. His paintings were a source of great delight (con- summatae voluplatis), and commanded higher prices than the greatest works of many painters. (Plin. H.N.xxxy. 10. s. 37.)

The ancients gave a name to this kind of paint- ing, respecting the true form of which there is a difference of opinion. Pliny says that Pyreicus was called, on account of the subjects of his pictures, Rhyparographos (the reading of all the MSS.), in- stead of which Salmasius proposed to read Rhopo- graphos, as better suited to the sense, and Welcker adopts the correction {ad Philostr. 396), while Sillig and others are satisfied with the former read- ing. The difference is hardly important enough to be discussed here. (See Sillig, Cat. Artif. s.v. ; Doderlein, Lat. Synon. vol. ii. p. 38 ; and the Greek Lexicons, s.vv.) There is a line of Propertius (iii. 9. 12. s. 7. 12, Burmann) in which Burmann reads, on the autho- rity of two MSS.,— Pyreicus parva vindicat arte locum, where the great majority of the MSS. have Par- rhasius, a reading which would easily be inserted by a transcriber ignorant of the less known name of Pyreicus. In connection with Pyreicus the phrase 2>arca arte has a clear meaning ; whereas it

is difficult to explain it as referring to Parrhasius It is, liowever, uncertain which is right. Hertzberg keeps to the common reading. (See Sillig, Cat. Art. s. v.; and Hertzberg, Comment, adloe.) [P. S.] PYRES (Uvp-ns), of Miletus, a writer of that lascivious species of poetry denominated Ionic, and in which Sotades of Maroneia, who lived after Pyres, was principally conspicuous. As Sotades lived in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, Pyres must have lived previous to B. c. 285. (Athen. xiv. p. 620, e.) Suidas {s. v. ^wTcidrjs) erroneously calls him Uv^pos. [W. M. G.]

PYRGENSIS, M. POSTU'MIUS, one of the farmers of the public taxes in the second Punic war, was brought to trial in b. c. 212, for his pecu- lations and fraud ; and was condemned by the people, though not without great opposition, as lie was supported by the rest of the publicani and one of the tribunes. Postumius went into ex-ile before his condemnation. (Liv. xxv. 3, 4.)

PY'RGION (Uvpylwv), Avrote a work on the laws and institutions of the Cretans, of which the third book is quoted by Athenaeus (iv. p. 143, e.).

PYRGOTELES (UvpyoreX-ns), one of the most celebrated gem-engravers of ancient Greece, lived in the latter half of the fourth century b. c. The esteem in which he was held may be inferred from that edict of Alexander, which placed him on a level with Apelles and Lysippus, by naming him as the only artist who was permitted to engrave seal-rings for the king. (Plin. H. iV.vii. 37. s. 38, xxxvii. 1. s. 4.) Unfortunately, however, beyond this one fact, every thing else respecting the artist is involved in that obscurity, to which the neglect of ancient writers and the impudence of ancient as well as modern forgers have conspired to doom one of the most interesting branches of Greek art. Several works are extant under the name of Pyr- goteles, but of these the best known have been demonsti-ated by Winckelmann to be forgeries, and very few of the others have any pretensions to authenticity. For the full discussion of the ge- nuineness or spuriousness of the several gems ascribed to Pyrgoteles, the reader is referred to Winckelmann ( Werke, vol. vi. pp. 1 07, &c.), and Raoul-Rochette (Lettre a M. Schorn, pp. 150 — 152, 2d ed.). [P. S.]

PYRILAMPES {UvpiXdfxwTjs), a statuary of Messene, of whom nothing more is known than that he was the maker of the statues of three Olympic victors, namely, Pyrilampes of Epliesus, Xenon of Lepreon, and Asamon. (Paus. vi. 3. § 5. s. 12, 15. § 1, 16. § 4. S.5.) [P.S.]

P YRIPHLE'GETHON (nvpicpKeyieoov), flam- ing with fire, is the name of one of the rivers in the lower world. (Horn. Od. x. 513 ; Strab. v. p. 244.) [L. S.]

PYRO'MACHUS, artists. This name has been the occasion of much confusion, owing to its occurring in four different forms, namely, Phyro- machusy Phylomaclius, Philo7nachus, and Pyro- maclius., and owing also to the fact that there were two artists, who bore one or other of these three names.

1. We have already noticed the Athenian sculptor, who executed the bas-reliefs on the frieze of the temple of Athena Poliiis, about 01. 91, b. c 415, and the true form of whose name was Phy- romachus. [Phyromachus.] This artist is evi- dently the same whom Pliny mentions, in his list of statuaries, as the maker of a group reprcsentin^j