HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY. 



205 



Philomela. The daughter of Pandion, king of 

 Athens ; changed into a nightingale. 



Phin'eas. King of Paphlagonia ; bad his eyes torn 

 out by Boreas, but was recompensed with the knowl- 

 edge of futurity. Also a king of Thrace turned into a 

 stone by Perseus. 



Phoe'bus. A title of Apollo. 



Ple'iades. Seven daughters of ^Atlas anil Pleione, 

 changed into stars. 



Plu'to. The son of Saturn and Ops, brother of Jupi- 

 ter and Neptune, and the god of the infernal regions. 



Plu'tus. The god of riches. 



Pomo'na. The goddess of fruits and autumn. 



Polyhym'nia. The Muse of rhetoric. 



Pri'am. The last king of Troy, the son of Laomedon, 

 under whose reign Troy was taken by the Greeks. 



Prome'theus. The son of Japetus; said to have 

 stolen fire from heaven to animate two bodies which he 

 had formed of clay, and was therefore chained by Jupi- 

 ter to Mount Caucasus, with a vulture perpetually 

 gnawing his liver. 



Pros'erpine. Wife of Pluto. 



Pro'teus. The son of Ooeanus and Tethys ; a sea god 

 and prophet, who possessed the power of changing him- 

 self into any shape. 



Psy'che. A nymph beloved by Cupid and made im- 

 mortal by Jupiter. 



Pyg'mies. A nation of dwarfs only a span long, car- 

 ried a way by Hercules. 



Pyl'ades. The constant friend of Orestes. 



Pyr'amus and Thisbe. Two lovers of Babylon, who 

 killed themselves with the same sword, and thus caused 

 the berries of the mulberry tree, under which they died, 

 to change from white to red. 



Py'thon. A huge serpent, produced from the mud of 

 the deluge ; killed by Apollo, who, in memory thereof, 

 instituted the Pythian games. 



Re'nius> The twin brother of Romulus, killed by 

 him for ridiculing the city walls. 



Rhadaman'thus. One of the three infernal judges. 



Rom'ulus. The son of Mars and Ilia ; thrown into the 

 Tiber by his uncle, but saved, with his twin brother, 

 Remus, by a shepherd ; became the founder and first 

 king of Rome. 



Sa'lii. The twelve frantic priests of Mars. 



Sa'lus. Goddess of health. 



Saturnalia. Feasts of Saturn. 



Sat/urn. A son of Coelus and Terra ; god of time. 



Sat'yrs. Attendants of Bacchus; horned monsters, 

 half goats, half men. 



Sem'ele. The daughter of Cadmus and Thebe, and 

 mother of Bacchus. 



Semir'amis, A celebrated queen of Assyria, who 

 built the walls of Babylon ; was slain by her own son, 

 Nimyas, and turned into a pigeon. 



Sera'pis. See Apis. 



Sile'nus. The foster-father, master, and companion 

 of Bacchus. He lived in Arcadia, rode on an ass, and 

 was drunk every day. 



Si'rens. Sea nymphs, or sea monsters, the daughters 

 of Oceanus and Amphitrite. 



Sis'yphus. The son of .lEolus ; a most crafty prince, 

 killed by Theseus, and condemned by Pluto to roll up 

 hill a large stone, which constantly fell back again. 



Sol. A name of Apollo. 



Som'nus. The son of Erebus and Nox, and the god 

 of sleep. 



Sphinx. A monster, who destroyed herself because 

 CEdipus solved the enigma she proposed. 



Sten'tor. A Grecian, whose voice is reported to have 

 been as strong and as loud as the voices of fifty men 

 together. 



Sthe'no. One of the three Gorgons. 



Styx. A river of hell. 



Sylvanus. A god of woods and forests. 



Ta'cita. A goddess of silence. 



Tan'talus. The son of Jupiter, and king- of Lydia, 

 who served up the limbs of his son, Pelops, to try the 

 divinity of the gods, for which he was plunged to the 

 chin in a lake of hell, and doomed to everlasting thirst 

 and hunger. 



Tar'tarns. The part of the infernal regions in which 

 the wicked were punished. 



Tau'rus. The bull under whose form Jupiter carried 

 away Europa. 



Telem'achus. The only son of Ulysses. 



Terpeich'ore. The Muse presiding over dancing. 



Thc'inis. The daughter of Coelus and Terra, and 

 goddess of justice. 



Ti'phys. Pilot of the ship Argo. 



Tisiph'one. One of the three Furies. 



Ti'tan. The son of Ccelus and Terra, elder brother 

 of Saturn, and one of the giants who warred against 

 heaven. 



Titho'nus. The son of Laomedon, loved by Aurora, 

 and turned by her, in his old age, into a grasshopper. 



Tri'ton. The son of Neptune and Amphitrite, a 

 powerful sea god, and Neptune's trumpeter. 



Tro'ilus. A son of Priam and Hecuba. 



Troy. A city of Phrygia, famous for holding out a 

 siege of ten years against the Greeks, but finally cap- 

 tured and destroyed. 



Ulys'ses. King of Ithaca, who, by his subtlety and 

 eloquence, was eminently serviceable to the Greeks in 

 the Trojan "War. 



Ura'nia. The Muse of astronomy. 



Venus. One of the most celebrated deities of the 

 ancients, the wife of Vulcan, the goddess of beauty, the 

 mother of love, and the' mistress of the graces and of 

 pleasures. 



Vertum'nus. A deity of the Romans, who presided 

 over spring and orchards, and who was the lover of 

 Pomona. 



Ves'ta. The sister of Ceres and Juno, the goddess of 

 fire, and patroness of vestal virgins. 



Viri'placa. An inferior nuptial goddess, who recon- 

 ciled husbands and wives. A temple at Rome was dedi- 

 cated to her, whither the married couple repaired after 

 a quarrel. 



Vulcan. The god who presided over subterraneous 

 fire, patron of workers in metal. 



Zeph'yrus. The west wind, son of .SSolus and Aurora, 

 and love'r of the goddess Flora. 

 Zeus. A title of Jupiter. 



LEGEND AND FOLKLORE. 



The eccentricities of traditional story and tradition- 

 ary practice have always been found a more or less in- 

 teresting and amusing study by the contemplative 

 observer of human nature ; and almost all travelers and 

 historians, from Herodotus downward, have occasion- 

 ally condescended to add something to the general col- 

 lection of curiosities in that department. But to make 

 a thorough investigation of the " vulgar antiquities " 

 of any country, and especially of one's own, was, until 

 very recently, regarded as childish and useless. An ex- 

 ception, indeed, has been made in favor of the folklores 

 of ancient Greece and Rome, as being intrinsically 

 beautiful and exceptionally instructive. But the very 

 fact that these had been beautified by artistic treat- 

 ment impaired their usefulness from the purely anti- 

 quarian point of view; and in any case the floating 

 traditions of Attica and Latium were too few, too frag- 

 mentary, and gathered from too narrow an area to fur- 

 nish adequate data for the anthropologist and the so- 

 ciologist. 



It was in Germany that the study of folklore entered 

 upon its scientific stage, and indeed that country has 

 been most prolific in curious oral traditions and unwrit- 

 ten customs. Every custom has an instructive history 

 if we can but succeed in interpreting its lore. 



Orion was a giant hunter, noted for his beauty. 



Puck and Robin Goodfellow are identical myths. 



Ogri, The, were giants said to feed on human flesh. 



Toadstool, The, is called in Ireland the fairy's mush- 

 room. 



Lioki was th3 god of strife and evil in Scandinavian 

 mythology. 



Jupiter chose the eagle as the best preservative 

 against lightning. 



Apotheosis was the deification or raising of a mortal 

 to the rank of a god. 



Oak, The, is sacred to Jupiter because he first taught 

 mankind to live upon acorns. 



Goat, The, was the animal usually sacrificed to Bac- 

 chus, on account of its propensity to destroy the vine. 



Gypsies, The, are said to be wanderers because they 

 refused shelter to the Virgin and Christ-child on the 

 flight into Egypt. 



Valkyri, in the northern mythology, are either nine 

 or three times three divine maidens, who cleave their 

 way through air and water to lead to Odin those who 

 have fallen in battle and who are worthy of Valhalla. 



