PELOPS PENANCE. 



455 



newal of the war. The greater part of the islands, 

 the cities on the Hellespont and in Ionia, sided with 

 the Spartans. They even concluded an alliance with 

 the Persians against Athens, which, however, was 

 saved by Alcibiades. He had escaped from Sparta 

 in disguise, persuaded the Persian satrap Tissapher- 

 nes to break his alliance with that city, and gained 

 so many friends in Athens, that he was recalled, and 

 appointed general. He gained some splendid vic- 

 tories over the Peloponnesians, reconquered the cities 

 on the borders of the Hellespont, and the Athe- 

 nians, animated by such success, again rejected the 

 proposals of peace. At length Lysander, one of the 

 ablest Spartan commanders, signally defeated the 

 Athenian fleet at -fligospotamos, B. C. 405, and laid 

 siege to Athens, which was compelled by famine to 

 surrender, B. C. 404. The long walls and the forti- 

 fications of the Piraeus were demolished. The Athe- 

 nians were compelled to deliver up all their ships but 

 twelve, to renounce their former possessions, and to 

 submit to an oligarchy, established by Lysander. In 

 this war, many noble families became extinct, many 

 cities and territories were laid waste, and the whole 

 Grecian nation was so debilitated, that universal de- 

 pendence soon ensued. The history of this war is 

 best related by Thucydides and Xenophon. 



PELOPS ; son of Tantalus, king of Lydia. A 

 fable, which Pindar considers blasphemous, relates, 

 that Tantalus once entertained the gods in his capi- 

 tal, Sipylus, and, to prove their omniscience, served 

 up to them the body of his son Pelops. Jupiter dis- 

 covered the trick, and ordered the limbs to be thrown 

 again into the kettle, from which Clotho drew out 

 the body alive, and supplied, with ivory, the shoul- 

 der, which had been eaten by Ceres. According to 

 Pindar, Neptune carried the beautiful Pelops to the 

 abode of Jupiter. When Tantalus had made himself 

 unworthy of the society of the gods, Pelops was also 

 sent back to the dwellings of men. He went from 

 Lydia to Greece, became a suitor of the beautiful Hip. 

 podamia (q. v.), and obtained the bride, with a king- 

 dom. Peloponnesus received its name from him. Of 

 his sons, Atreus and Thyestes are most celebrated. 

 After death Pelops received divine honours, and a 

 temple was built to him in the grove at Olympia. 



PELVIS; the lower part of the cavity of the ab- 

 domen in men and animals. In the infant it consists 

 of many pieces, but, in the adult, it is composed of 

 four bones, so united as not to admit of motion on 

 each other, and is open above and below, wide at its 

 upper part and contracted at its inferior aperture. 

 The outside is roundish, the upper part broader, the 

 lower narrower. The whole pelvis is movable 

 upon the thighs ; the hip bone is therefore raised, 

 in walking, on that side which is supported by the 

 thigh : on the contrary, it sinks immediately with 

 the trunk on that side on which the foot is raised 

 and advanced. The walls of the cavity of the pelvis 

 are even, smooth, and covered with flesh. A line 

 drawn through the middle of the pelvis, divides it 

 into two parts, one of which is called the upper or 

 larger, the other the lower or smaller one. In well- 

 formed persons of a middle size, the diameter of the 

 great pelvis, or the distance from one hip bone to 

 the other, is, in the male sex, about nine, in the 

 female about eleven inches. The superior size of 

 tlie female pelvis is intended to assist gestation and 

 parturition. It is evident, that the pelvis of men 

 must have, on account of their erect figure, a differ- 

 ent direction from that of animals. The pelvis con- 

 tains a part of the small intestines, the rectum, the 

 bladder, the internal organs of generation, the large 

 nerves and blood-vessels of the lower limbs, and 

 many absorbent vessels, with their glands. Its office 

 IB to give steadiness to the trunk, to connect it with 



the lower extremities by a safe and firm junction, to 

 form the centre of all the great motions of the body, 

 and to give support to the gravid uterus. 



PEN ; a Celtic word signifying head, summit ; 

 hence Pennine Alps, Apennines, &c. 



PEN, WRITING-PENS. It is well known that 

 the ancients employed a certain reed, the nature of 

 which is not precisely ascertained, for writing. The 

 reeds were split, and shaped to a point like our 

 quills. When goose-quills first came into use, or 

 who first borrowed from the emblem of folly the 

 instruments of wisdom, is not known. It has been 

 asserted, that quills were used for writing as early 

 as the fifth century, according to the history of Con- 

 stantius. The oldest certain account is a passage of 

 Isidore, who died 636 A. D., and who, among the 

 instruments employed for writing, mentions reeds 

 and feathers. There exists, also, a poem on a pen, 

 written in the same century, and to be found in the 

 works of Adhelm, the first Saxon who wrote in Latin. 

 Alcuin, the friend and teacher of Charlemagne, 

 mentions writing-pens in the eighth century. After 

 that time, proofs exist which put the question of their 

 use beyond dispute. Mabillon saw a manuscript 

 gospel of the ninth century, in which the evangel- 

 ists were represented with pens in their hands. 

 Calami properly signify the reeds which the ancients 

 used in writing. Modern authors often use the word 

 as a Latin term for pens, and it is probable that the 

 same was employed to signify quills before the time 

 of Isidore. Reeds were used for a considerable time 

 after the introduction of writing-pens. In convents 

 they were retained a long time for the initials only. 

 By some letters of Erasmus to Reuchlin, it appears 

 that the former received three reeds from the latter, 

 and expressed a wish that Reuchlin, when he pro- 

 cured more, would send some of them to a certain 

 learned man in England. Quills, for some reason, 

 were, about the year 1433, extremely rare in Venice. 

 We learn from the familiar letters of learned men of 

 that time, that they were equally troubled by the 

 rarity of quills and by the difficulty of making good 

 ink. Of late, steel pens have been much used and 

 improved, and for certain purposes, as for signing 

 bank notes, to make the signatures uniform, they 

 appear well adapted ; as also for people who cannot 

 make pens ; but, on the whole, the quill affords a 

 much easier and handsomer chirography. 



PENAL LAW. See Criminal Law. 



PENANCE ; every penalty borne for the expia- 

 tion of an offence. In the early Christian church, 

 this ancient judicial principle was transferred to 

 religious penance, that is, to the atonement which 

 the sinner has to make, for his trespasses, to God 

 and the church. According to the doctrine of the 

 Protestants, it is not among the sacraments. This 

 doctrine considers compunction and faith as the only 

 elements of repentance and reformation. Penance 

 is considered by the Catholic church a sacramental 

 institution. The conditions for the necessary transi- 

 tion from bad to good, are a humble consciousness 

 of guilt. The conversion itself is a change in the 

 soul of man, effected by the power of God, but 

 necessarily connected with an exterior alteration. 

 The power of forgiving sins, in the literal sense of 

 the word, say the Catholics, has 1'een transferred by 

 Christ to the apostles, and to the church ; but the 

 latter can forgive the sins only of the truly 

 repentant and converted sinner. To bring him 

 to the knowledge of himself, the church has 

 established confession ; to calm his conscience, ab- 

 solution ; for the instruction and discipline of the 

 converted, she inflicts penance, as a satisfaction to 

 his own conscience and to God. Confession was not 

 invented by Innocent HI., but only enjoined by )iiat 



