PLUTO PLYMOUTH 



589 



writer, born at Clipronzfia in Boeotia, A. D. 50. 

 According to some, Tm.jan was his pupil. In the 

 reign of that emperor, lie was invested with some 

 civil offices in Rome, where he taught philosophy; 

 and, having returned to his own country, he died 

 there in 120 or 130. He is said to have written 

 about 300 philosophical and historical works, of 

 which 125 are extant, but some of these are falsely 

 ascribed to him. The philosophical works, which 

 commonly go under the name of Ethica or Moralia, 

 explain the Platonic doctrines, combat the Stoic and 

 Epicurean, and treat of various practical subjects in 

 a popular way; they show him to have been of an 

 active turn of mind, and contain happy applications 

 of extensive learning. His historical writings are 

 yet more distinguished, and are valuable, as throw- 

 ing much light on ancient history, particularly his 

 Lives (44) and Parallels of Illustrious Greeks and 

 Romans (edited by Bryan, London, 1729, 5 vols., 

 4to; Leipsic, 1812 14, 9 vols., 12mo ; byCoray, 

 Paris, 1809 17, 6 vols.; translated into English by 

 the Langhornes); his Greek and Roman Researches, 

 Iris and Osiris, or of Egyptian Antiquities, and 

 Apothegms. The treatise On the Doctrines of 

 Philosophers (edited by Cassini, 1751, and by Beck, 

 1786), which contains valuable materials for the 

 history of philosophy, is probably not by him. His 

 manner of treating his subject is easy, often super- 

 ficial, and this is also the character of his style, which 

 is censured as being too much ornamented by quo- 

 tations from poets and philosophers. Among the 

 editions of his complete works, those of H. Stephens 

 (Paris, 1572, 13 vols.); of Rualdus (Paris, 1624, 2 

 vols., folio); of Frankfort (1599 and 1620, 2 vols., 

 folio); of Reiske, (Leipsic, 177482, 12 vols.), and 

 of Hutten (Tubingen, 17911805, 14 vols.), are the 

 best. Amyot's French translation of the Lives 

 (Les Vies des Hommes Illustres) was republished at 

 Paris in 1825 (10 vols.), with a Notice sur Plutargue 

 by Coray. The name Plutarch is often given to a 

 collection of lives of distinguished men. Such col- 

 lections exist not merely in English, but also in 

 French, Italian, Russian, German, and Swedish. 



PLUTO (among the Greeks, Ais, Aides, Hades, 

 the Invisible), third son of Saturn and Rhea, a bro- 

 ther of Jupiter and Neptune, to whom, on the par- 

 tition of the world, fell the kingdom of the shades. 

 There, under the surface of the earth, he is enthroned 

 as the ruler of the dead. As far beneath his habit- 

 ation as the heaven is above the earth, lies Tartarus, 

 the access to which is by a gate guarded by himself ; 

 thither, after death, must all men descend. Power- 

 ful, terrible, inflexible to prayers or flattery, is the 

 dark-haired god. Hercules, however, carried offhis 

 dog, the fearful Cerberus, who lies before Pluto's 

 dreadful abode. He rides on a chariot drawn by 

 four black horses, which he guides with reins of 

 gold. His helmet makes the wearer invisible. So 

 says the Iliad. The Odyssey gives a somewhat dif- 

 ferent account. It does not explicitly place his hab- 

 itation beneath the earth. Ulysses sailed from ^Eaea 

 with a north wind, passed over the ocean, and land- 

 ed near the lofty rocks and the grove of Proserpine, 

 where the Cimmerians dwell in everlasting dark- 

 ness. Having arrived there, he proceeded along the 

 ocean until he reached the nocturnal darkness, the 

 abode of Ais, where dwell the dead. But according 

 to Hesiod,on the western margin of the northern hemi- 

 sphere, wrapt in eternal darkness, one cleft, in a 

 cavity under the surface of the earth, leads down to 

 the dead, another to Tartarus. Yet both of these 

 subterranean abysses are mentioned by him under 

 the latter name. Homer, and those poets who fol- 

 lowed next after him, described the realms of Hades 

 as being under the surface of the earth, where the 



dead, like the living on earth, good and bad, dwell 

 together, and a few enemies of the gods alone suffer 

 torments ; Tartarus was a distinct region. But as 

 philosophy, by bolder conjectures concerning the 

 surface of the earth, and, finally, by the doctrine of 

 a floating sphere, did away the old notions of Tarta- 

 rus, and the belief of a future retribution gained 

 ground : the realms of the dead, placed at first un- 

 der the surface of the earth, and then by some in the 

 centre, were separated into Elysium and Tartarus. 

 These changes had also an influence on the notions en- 

 tertained respecting the sovereign of the lower world. 

 He not only gained in outward power and supre- 

 macy, but'the conceptions of his character were 

 changed ; he became a benevolent being, who held 

 in his hand the keys of the earth, and blessed the 

 year with fruits ; for from the abyss of night come 

 all riches and plenty. It is therefore not strange, 

 that the later ages, confounding Hades with Plutus, 

 called him Pluto, and attributed to him dominion 

 over the treasures concealed in the bowels of the 

 earth. He fought with his brothers against the 

 Titans, and received from the Cyclops, whom he had 

 released, the helmet that makes its wearer invisible, 

 which he lent to Mercury in the war of the giants, 

 and to Perseus in his expedition against the Gor- 

 gons, and which afterwards came into the possession 

 of Meriones. The Furies and Charon are his minis- 

 ters. He judges every open and secret deed, and to 

 him are subordinate the tnree judges ^Eacus, Minos, 

 and Rhadamanthus. Bacchus, Hercules, Orpheus, 

 and Ulysses entered his realms alive, and left them un- 

 injured ; but Theseus and Pirithous, whose object 

 is said to have been the abduction of his wife, he 

 caused to be chained, though the former is said to 

 have been subsequently released by Hercules. The 

 worship of Pluto was extensively spread among the 

 Greeks and Romans. The cypress, the box, the 

 narcissus, and the plant adiantum (maiden-hair), 

 were sacred to him : oxen and goats were sacrificed 

 to him in the shades' of night, and his priests were 

 crowned with cypress. He is represented in gloomy 

 majesty, his forehead shaded by his hair, and with 

 a thick beard. His head is sometimes covered with 

 a veil. He frequently also wears his helmet, or a 

 crown of ebony, or a wreath of adiantum or nar- 

 cissus. In his hand he holds a two-forked sceptre, a 

 staff or a key ; by his side is Cerberus. He is either 

 seated on a throne of ebony or in a chariot. His 

 epithets are " the subterranean Jupiter," " the Sty- 

 gian," &c. 



PLUTUS, son of lasion and Ceres, was the god 

 of riches. His genealogy show the meaning of the 

 allegory, which is merely this, that " Agriculture 

 produces wealth." At first Plutus had the use of 

 his eyes, but Jupiter struck him blind, because he 

 confined his gifts to the good ; and he thenceforth 

 conferred them equally on the good and the bad. His 

 residence was under the earth. He is weak, and 

 limps when he comes to mortals, but swift-footed or 

 winged when he leaves them. Fortune carries him 

 in her arms, and he also forms one of Minerva's 

 retinue. He is sometimes confounded with Pluto. 



PLUVOISE. See Calendar. 



PLYMOUTH ; a borough town of England, in 

 Devonshire, and, on account of its harbours and the 

 docks in its neighbourhood, one of the most impor- 

 tant maritime places in the kingdom. It is situated at 

 the head of the capacious haven of Plymouth sound, 

 on the eastern side of a tongue of land formed by 

 the estuaries of the rivers Plym and Tamar, which 

 here empty themselves into the sea. Plymouth 

 stands at the mouth of the Plym, within about a 

 mile and a half of the town of Devonport, formerly 

 called Plymouth Dock, to which it is united by the 



