PHI 
86 PHI 
of the Lower Loire, and chief place of a canton, in the 
diftrift of Nantes. The place contains 2032, and the 
canton 7473, inhabitants, in fix communes. 
PHILELEUTHE'RIA, f. [from the Greek to 
love, and eXevdepiot, liberty.] The love of liberty. Scott. 
PHILEL'PHUS. See Filelfo, vol. vii. 
PHILE'MON, a Greek comic poet, fon of Damon, 
flourilhed about B.C. 274, in the reign of king Antigonus 
Gonatas. He was confidered as belonging to the new 
or the middle comedy; and was a rival of Menander, 
againft whom he frequently gained the prize. The titles 
of fome of his plays are preferved ; and the Mercator of 
Plautus is profefiedly taken from the E/z-wopo; of Phile¬ 
mon. It is faid that he died at the age of 97 or 99; and 
that the caufe of his death was a fit of laughter from feeing 
an afs eat figs. 
Philemon the Younger, fon of the preceding, was alfo 
a comic writer, and, according to Suidas, compofed 54 
comedies, of which confiderable fragments remain, and 
have been publiihed with thofe of Menander, and alfo 
in the Poet. Grtec. Minor. Vojfii Poet. Grccc. 
PHILE'MON, was a rich citizen of Coloflae in Phrygia. 
He was converted to the Chriftian faith, with Appia his 
wife, by Epaphras the difciple of St. Paul ; for St. Paul 
himfelf did not preach at Colofias. (Col. ii. 1.) Perhaps 
we fliould have known nothing of Philemon, had it not 
been on the account of his Have Onefiinus, who, having 
robbed him and run away from him, came to Rome, 
where he found St. Paul, and was very ferviceable to him. 
Paul converted him, baptized him, and fent him back to 
his matter Philemon ; to whom he wrote an Epiftle fiill 
extant, and which pafles for a mafterpiece of that kind of 
eloquence, natural, lively, ftrong, and pathetic, that was 
peculiar to St. Paul. Philemon (1,2.) had made a church 
of his houfe; and all his domeftics, as well as himfelf, 
were of the houfehold of faith. His charity, liberality, 
and companion, w'ere a fure refuge to all that were in 
diftrefs. The Apoftolical Conftitutions fay, that St. Paul 
made him bifiiop of Coloffte; but the Menaea infinuate, 
that he went to Gaza in Paleftine, of which he was the 
apoftle and firft bifiiop. From hence he returned to Co- 
lofiae, where he buffered martyrdom with Appia his wife, 
in the time of Nero. They relate feveral particulars of 
his martyrdom, and fay, that his body remained at Co- 
loffae, where it performed miracles. 
PHIL'EMOT,/. See Philomot. 
PHILE'SIA, f. [fo named by Commerfon from the 
Gr. 1J 5 iAe£o, to love, in alluiion to its lovely afpefl.] In bo¬ 
tany, a genus of the clafs hexandria, order monogynia, 
natural order of farmentaceae, Linn, (afparagi, Jujf.) 
Generic effential characters—Calyx none; petals fix, 
ereft, three of them internal; ltigma three-lobed ; berry 
fuperior, with three cells and many feeds. There is but 
one fpecies, which Dr. Smith has included under the 
genus Enargea. 
Philefia buxifolia, or box-leaved philefia : inner petals 
thrice as large as the outer; leaves with numerous tranf- 
verfe veins. Commerfon alone feems to have found this 
fine fpecies, in the Straits of Magellan. Lamarck’s plate, 
drawn from one of his dried fpecimens, is a very juft re- 
prefentation. The fnrub is two or three feet high, with 
the afpeCt of box, much branched and fmooth. Leaves 
ftalked, an inch long, elliptic-oblong, pointed, revolute; 
green, fmooth, with a longitudinal furrow above; glau¬ 
cous, with a central prominent rib, a marginal one at 
each edge, and numerous tranfverfe veins, beneath: 
their edges are rough with minute teeth near the point. 
Flowers terminal (not axillary), large and very handfome, 
apparently reddifh ; their three outer petals elliptical, 
flat, about half an inch long; the three inner obovate, 
thrice as long ; all veiny. Lamarck, t. 248. f. 3. 
PHILE'FA, in ancient geography, a town of Afia 
Minor, in the vicinity of Caria. 
ITIILET/E'RUS, an eunuch made governor of Per- 
gamus by Lyfimachus. He quarrelled with Lyfimachus 
and made himfelf matter of Pergamus, where he laid the 
foundation of a kingdom. See vol. xix. p. 611. 
PHILE'TAS, a Greek poet and grammarian, of the 
ifland of Cos, flouriflied under Philip and Alexander the 
Great, and was preceptor to Ptolemy Philadelphus. Fie 
was the author of fome Elegies, Epigrams, and other 
works, which have not come down to us. He is celebrated 
in the poems of Ovid and Propertius, as one of the belt 
poets of his age. ASlian reports a very improbable ftory 
of him, namely, “ that his body was fo (lender and feeble, 
that he was obliged to have fome lead in his pockets, to 
prevent him from being carried away by the wind.” 
PHIL'IA, in ancient geography, an ifland of Egypt, 
on the confines of Ethiopia, near the town of Tacompfon. 
—A promontory of Thrace, upon the Euxine Sea, near 
Philopolis. 
PHILI'ATROS,/. [from the Gr. (piteu, to love, and 
i*rpo;, a phyfician.] A ftudent in phyfic. Scott. 
PHIL'IBEG, properly Fillibeg, f. [from the Gaelic 
filleadh , a plait, or cloth, and beg-, little.] Literally, a little 
plaid ; a drefs, reaching only to the knees, worn by men 
in the Highlands of Scotland inftead of breeches. Dr. 
Johnfon. —It is otherwife called the kilt, and is a modern 
fubliitute for the lower part of the plaid, being found to 
be lefs cumberfome, efpecially in time of aftion, when the 
Highlanders ufed to tuck their brechdan into their girdle. 
Almoft all of them have a great pouch of badger and other 
(kins, with taffels dangling before, in which they keep 
their tobacco and money. Eucy. Brit. —A drefs refem- 
bling the highland pkilibeg-. Drummond's' Trav. —-The 
fillibeg, or lower garment, is (fill very common, and the 
bonnet almoft univerfal. Joknfoiis Journey to the Wejlern 
IJlands. 
PHIL'IDOR (Andrew Danican), the moft (kilful 
chefs-player perhaps that ever was known, and at the 
fame time an excellent mufician. He was born at Dreux, 
in France, in 1726; and was defeended from a long line of 
mufical anceftors, w'ho, in different branches of the art, 
had been attached to the court ever fince the time of 
Louis XIII. The family name was Danican; and it is 
pretended that this monarch, himfelf a dilettante mufician, 
occafioned the furname of Philidor, a famous performer 
on the hautbois, whom this prince had heard in his pro- 
grefs through France, to be given to Danican, whofe in- 
ftrument being the hautbois, when the king heard him 
perform, he cried out “Here’s another Philidor!” 
Andrew was educated as a page or chorifter in the chapei 
royal, under Catnprn, maitre de chapelle. In 1737 he 
produced his firft motet, or full anthem, which was per¬ 
formed in the chapel, and complimented by the king as 
an extraordinary produftion for a child of eleven years 
old. On his change of voice, and quitting the chapel, 
he eftablifhed himfelf at Paris, where lie fubfiftedby a few 
fcholars, and by copying raufic ; but every year he went 
to Verfailles with a new motet. 
The progrefs which he had made at chefs awakened in 
him a defire to travel, in order to try his fortune ; and in 
1745 he fet out for Holland, England, Germany, See. In 
thefe voyages he formed his tatte in muiic upon the bell 
Italian models. In 1753 he tried his ftrength as a mufical 
compofer in London, by new fetting Dryden’s Ode on St. 
Cecilia’s Day. Handel is faid, by his biographer, to have 
found his chorufies u’ell written, but dilcovered a want 
of tatte in his airs. As his time was more occupied by 
chefs than mufic, he printed in London, at a large fub- 
feription, in 1749, h*s “ Analyfe des Echecs.” 
In 1754 he returned to Paris, and devoted his whole 
time to mufic. He had his “Laudse Jerufalem” per¬ 
formed at Verfailles; hut it was found to be too Italian; 
and, as the queen of Louis XV. difliked that ftyle of 
mufic in the church, his hopes of obtaining, by this com- 
poiition, a place of maitre de chapelle, were fruftrated. 
In 1757 he compofed an all ofaferious opera ; but Ribel, 
opera 
