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Rh Penn.) was surprised on the 18th, but its. garrison escaped, and seven (out of 13) got safely to Fort Pitt. Fort Venango (near the site of the present Venango, Penn.) was taken and burnt about the same time by some Senecas (the only Iroquois in the conspiracy), who massacred the garrison and later burned the commander, Lieut. Gordon. About 500 Senecas on the 14th of September surprised a wagon train, escorted by 24 soldiers, from Fort Schlosser (2 m. above Niagara Falls), drove most of them over the brink of the Devil's Hole (below the cataract), and then nearly annihilated a party from Fort Niagara sent to the rescue.

In 1763, although the main attacks on Detroit and Fort Pitt had failed, nearly every minor fort attacked was captured, about 200 settlers and traders were killed, and in property destroyed or plundered the English lost about £100,000, the greatest loss in men and property being in western Pennsylvania. In June 1764 Colonel John Bradstreet (1711–1774) led about 1200 men from Albany to Fort Niagara, where at a great gathering of the Indians several treaties were made in July; in August he made at Presque Isle a treaty (afterwards annulled by General Thomas Gage) with some Delaware and Shawnee chiefs; and in September made treaties (both unsatisfactory) with the Wyandot, Ottawa and Miami at Sandusky, and with various chiefs at Detroit. He sent Captain Howard to occupy the forts at Michilimackinac, Green Bay and Sault Ste Marie, and Captain Morris up the Maumee river, where he conferred with Pontiac, and then to Fort Miami, where he narrowly escaped death at the hands of the Miami; and with his men Bradstreet returned to Oswego in November, having accomplished little of value. An expedition of 1500 men under Colonel Bouquet left Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in August, and near the site of the present Tuscarawas, Ohio, induced the Indians to release their prisoners and to stop fighting—the practical end of the conspiracy. Pontiac himself made submission to Sir William Johnson on the 25th of July 1766 at Oswego, New York. In April 1769 he was murdered, when drunk, at Cahokia (nearly opposite St Louis) by a Kaskaskia Indian bribed by an English trader; and he was buried near the St Louis Fort. His death occasioned a bitter war in which a remnant of the Illinois was practically annihilated in 1770 at Starved Rock (between the present Ottawa and La Salle), Illinois, by the Potawatomi, who had been followers of Pontiac. Pontiac was one of the most remarkable men of the Indian race in American history, and was notable in particular for his power (rare among the Indians) of organization.

See Francis Parkman, The Conspiracy of Pontiac (2 vols., Boston, 1851; 10th ed., 1896).

PONTIAC, a city and the county-seat of Oakland county, Michigan, U.S.A., on the Clinton river, about 26 m. N.W. of Detroit. Pop. (1890), 6200; (1900) 9769, of whom 2020 were foreign-born; (1910 U.S. census) 14,532. It is served by the Grand Trunk and the Pontiac, Oxford & Northern railways (being the southern terminus of the latter), and by the Detroit & Pontiac and the North-Western electric inter-urban lines. In the surrounding country there are many small, picturesque lakes (the largest being Orchard, about 6 m. south-east of Pontiac, Cass and Elizabeth lakes), and there is good hunting and fishing in the vicinity. In Pontiac is the Eastern Michigan Asylum for the insane (1878), with grounds covering more than 500 acres. The city has various manufactures, and the value of the factory products increased from $2,470,887 in 1900 to $3,047,422 in 1904, or 23.3%. Agricultural products, fruit and wool from the surrounding country are shipped in considerable quantities. The municipality owns and operates its waterworks. Pontiac, named in honour of the famous Indian chief of that narne, was laid out as a townin 1818, became the county-seat in 1820, was incorporated as a village in 1837, and was chartered in 1861.

PONTIANUS, pope from 230 to 235. He was exiled by the emperor Maximinus to Sardinia, and in consequence of this sentence resigned (Sept. 28, 235). He was succeeded by Anteros.

PONTIFEX. The collegium of the Pontifices was the most important priesthood of ancient Rome, being specially charged with the administration of the jus divinum, i.e. that part of the civil law which regulated the relations of the community with the deities recognized by the state officially, together with a general superintendence of the worship of gens and family. The name is clearly derived from pans and facere, but whether this should be taken as indicating any special connexion with the sacred bridge over the Tiber (Pans Sublicius), or what the original meaning may have been, cannot now be determined. The college existed under the monarchy, when its members were probably three in number; they may safely be considered as legal advisers of the rex in all matters of religion. Under the republic they emerge into prominence under a pontifex maximus, who took over the king's duties as chief administrator of religious law, just as his chief sacrificial duties were taken by the rex sacrorum; his dwelling was the regia, “ the house of the king.” During the republican period the number of pontifices increased, probably by multiples of three, until after Sulla (82 B.C.) we find them fifteen; for the year 57 B.C. we have a complete list of them in Cicero (Harusp. resp. 6, 12). Included in the collegium were also the rex sacrorum, the flamines, three assistant pontifices (minores), and the Vestal virgins, who were all chosen by the pontifex maximus. Vacancies in the body of pontifices were originally filled by co-optation; but from the second Punic War onwards the pontifex maximus was chosen by a peculiar form of popular election, and in the last age of the republic this held good for all the members. They all held office for life.

The immense authority of the college centred in the pontifex maximus, the other pontifices forming his consilium or advising body. His functions were partly sacrificial or ritualistic, but these were the least important; the real power lay in the administration of the jus divinum, the chief departments of which may briefly be described as follows: (1) the regulation of all expiatory ceremonials needed as the result of pestilence, lightning, &c.; (2) the consecration of all temples and other sacred places and objects dedicated to the gods by the state through its magistrates; (3) the regulation of the calendar both astronomically and in detailed application to the public life of the state; (4) the administration of the law relating to burials and burying-places, and the worship of the Manes, or dead ancestors; (5) the superintendence of all marriages by confarreatio, i.e. originally of all legal patrician marriages; (6) the administration of the law of adoption and of testamentary succession. They had also the care of the state archives, of the lists of magistrates, and kept records of their own decisions (commentarii) and of the chief events of each year (annales).

It is obvious that a priesthood having such functions as these, and holding office for life, must have been a great power in the state, and for the first three centuries of the republic it is probable that the pontifex maximus was in fact its most powerful member. The office might be combined with a magistracy, and, though its powers were declaratory rather than executive, it may fairly be described as quasi-magisterial. Under the later republic it was coveted chiefly for the great dignity of the position; Julius Caesar held it for the last twenty years of his life, and Augustus took it after theideath of Lepidus in 12 B.C., after which it became inseparable from the office of the reigning emperor. With the decay of the empire the title very naturally fell to the popes, whose functions as administrators of religious law closely resembled those of the ancient Roman priesthood, hence the modern use of “ pontiff ” and “ pontifical."

For further details consult Marquardt, Staatsverwaltung, iii. 235 seq.; Wissowa, Religion und Kultur der Römer, 430 seq.; Bouché-Leclercq, Les Pontifes, passim.

 PONTIVY, a town of western France, chief town of an arrondissement in the department of Morbihan, 46 m. N.N.W. of Vannes by rail. Pop. (1906), 6312 (town); 9506 (commune). The town, situated on the Blavet, at its confluence with the Nantes-Brest canal, comprises two distinct parts—the old town and that to the south known as Napoléonville. The latter, built by order of Napoleon I., who desired to make it the military headquarters for Brittany, and consisting chiefly of barracks, p subsequently gave its name to the whole town, but in 1871 the old name was resumed. The ancient castle (1485) of the dukes 