Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/577

 PEGASEUM. of Mardonius, who in the night had discharged their arrows at the rock under the impulse of Artemis, mistaking it for the enemy. In commemoration of this event, there was a brazen statue of Artemis Soteira at Pesrae. (Paus. i. 44. § 4.) Pegae is also mentioned in the following passages : — Strab. ix. pp. 400, 409; Pans. i. 41. § 8 ; Ptol. iii. 15. § 6; Steph. B. s. v.; Mela, iii. 3. § 10; Plin. iv. 7. s. 1 1 ; Hierocl. p. 645; Tab. Pent, where it is called Pache. Its site is now occupied by the port of Fsatho, not far from the shore of which are found the remains of an ancient fortress. (Leake, Northern Greece, vol. ii. p. 407.) PEGASE'UM STAGNUM, a small lake in the Caystrian plain near Ephesus, from which issues the little river Phyrites, a tributary of the Caystrus. (Plin. V. 31.) The district surrounding the lake is at present an extensive morass. (Comp. Arundell, Seven Churches, p. 23, &c.) [L. S.] PEIR.AEEUS. [Athknae, p. 306] PEIRAEUS and PEIEAEUM, in Corinthia. [p. 685.] PEIRAEUS. [Amisur.] PEIRE'NE FONS. [Corinthus, p. 680, b.] PEIRE'SIAE. [AsTEUiuM.] PEIKUS. [AcHAiA, p. 13, b.] PEISO. [Pelso.] PEIUM (Jlr}tov), a fortress of the Tolistoboii, in Galatia, where Deiotarus kept his treasures. (Strab. xii. p. 567.) PELAGO'NIA (XliXayovia, Strab. vii. pp. 326, 327; UriKayovla, Steph. B.). a district of Macedonia, bordering on Iliyricum, occupied by the Pelagones {UiKa.y6vfs, Strab. vii. pp. 327, 331, Fr. 38—40, 434; Ptol. iii. 13. § 34; Plin. iv.l7). Although Livy employs the name of Pelagonia, corresponding with the fertile plains of BiioUa, in his nariative of the campaigns of Sulpicius, as that of a large district containing Stymbara, it is evident, from his account of the division of Macedonia after tiie Roman con- quest, that Pelagonia became the appellation of the chief town of the Pelagones, and the capital of the Fourth Macedonia, wiiich included all the primitive or Upper Macedonia E. of the range of Pindus and Scardus. (Liv. xlv 29.) It was perhaps not spe- cifically employed as the name of a town until the other two cities of Pelagonia were ruined ; for that Pelagonia, or a portion of it, once contained three, may be inferred from the adjunct Tripolitis, given to it by Strabo (vii. p. 327). The town, which, from the circumstance of its having been the capital of the F<iurth Macedonia, must have been of sotue importance, existed till a late period, as it is noticed in the Syriecdemus of Hierocles, and by the Byzan- tine historian, Malchus of Philadelphia, who speaks of the strength of its citadel {ap. Const. Porph. Excerpt, de Legat. p. 81). From its advantageous p:)sition it was occupied by Manuel Comnenus, in the war with GeTsa II. and the Hungarians. (Nicet. p. 67 ; Le Beau, Bos Empire, vol. xvi. p. 141.) The name of Pelagonia still exists as the designation of the Greek metropolitan bishopric of Bitolia or Mo- nasteri, now the chief place of the surrounding country, and the ordinary residence of the governor ot liumili. At or near the town are many ves- tiges of ancient buildings of Roman times. The dis- trict was exposed to invasions from the Dardani, ■who bordered on the N., for which reasons the com- munication ("fauces Pelagoniae," Liv. xxxi. 34) were carefully guarded by the kings of Macedonia, being of great importance, as one of the direct en- VOL. II. PELASGL 56t trances from Iliyricum into JIacedonia by the course of the river Drilon. Between the NE. extremity, Mt. Ljubatrin, and the Knsura of Levol. there are in the mighty and continuous chain of Scardus (above 7000 feet high) only two pa^ses fit for an army to cross, one near the N. extremity of the chain fi-o)n Kalkmidele to Prisrendi or Persserin a very high " col," not less than 5000 feet above the sea- level; the other considei'ably to the S, and lower as well as easier, nearly in the latitude of A'kridha. Leake (^Northern Gi-eece, vol. iii. pp. 318 — 322) is of opinion that the passes of Pelagonia, in which Per- seus was stationed by his father Philip, were this latter depression in the chain over which the modern road from Scodra or Scutari runs, and the Via Egnatia travelled formerly. The Illyrian Autari- atae and Dardani, to the N. of Pehmonia, no doubt threatened Macedonia from the former pass, to the NE. of the monntain-chain of Scardus. (Comp. Grote, Greece, c. xxv. and the references there to Pouqueville, Boue', Grisebach, and iMuller.) Stym- bara or Stubara, was situated appaiently on the Erigon, as also were most of the J'elagonian towns. Poly bins (v. 108) speaks of a Pelagonian town named Pi.ssaeum (riio-troro;'). Ptolemy (/. c.) as- signs to the Pelagones the two towns of Andra- ristus or Euristus (^Peut. Tab., the orthography is not quite certain), and Stobi. [E. B. J ] PELASGl (nea(Tyoi), an ancient race, widely spread over Greece and the coasts and islands of the Aegean sea in prehistoric times. We also find traces of them in Asia Minor and Italy. I. T/ie Pda.<i(ians in Greece. — The earliest men- tion of the Pela,sgi is in Homer (//. ii. 681), who enumerates several Thessalian tribes as lurniihing a Contingent under the connnand of Achilles, and among them  those who dwelt in Pela.sgian Aig(js." Homer also speaks of Epirus as a chief abode ot I he Pelasgi; for Achilles addresses Zeus as Ao.-Sojj'urf, XiiKaayiKi. {II. xvi. 233.) And this agrees with Hesiod's description of Dodona as the seat of the Pelasgi." {Fragm. xviii.) So in the SuppUces of Aeschylus, the king declares himself to be ruler of the country through which the Algus and the Strymon flow, and also of the whcde <if the land of the Perrhaebi, near the Paeonians, and the Doduuean mountains, as far as the sea. {Suppl. 250, f-eq.). Herodotus tells us he found traces ot the Pela.sgi at Dodona, where he says they worshipped all the gods, without giving a name to any (ii. 52). Cutiijiare his mythic account of the two priestesses at D.idima (ii. 56) with Homer's description of the Selli. (//. xvi. 234, seq.) Strabo (v. p. 22 1, C.) says : " Nearly all are .'igreed about the Pelasgi, that they were an ancieni irihe (jpvXov') spread over the whole of Hella-, and e.-pe- cially by the side of the Aeolians in The.s.-aly. . . . And that part of Thessaly is called Pelassiian Aigos, which extends from the coast between the ouik't of the Peneius and Thermopylae as far as the niouniain range of Pindus, because the Pelasgians were masters of that regiin."* We also hear of the Pelasgi in Boeotia, where they dwelt for a time, after having, in con; unci ion with the Thracians, driven out the Aones, Tenindces, Leieges and Hyantes. Afterwards they were, in their turn, driven out by the former inh:ibitanrs, and took refuge at Athens under Mt. Hyniettus, part of Hellas (vol. i. p. 404). o o
 * Argos probably means a plain, see Kruse's