Dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

970 PRYTANETON. PSEPIHISMA.
the different provinces, with a large part of which is found in the case of the daughters of Aristeides,
the Romans originally did not interfere. A general who on the death of their father were considered
view of the Provinces should therefore be completed as the adopted children of the state, and married
acind corrected by a view of the several provinces. from (E'icoOEsa-o) that common home of the city,
The authorities for this view of the Provincial just as they would have been from their father's
government have been generally referred to. They home had he been alive. (Plut. Arist. c. 27.)
are, more particularly, Sigonius, De Antique Jure Moreover, from the ever-burning fire of the PryProvinciarum, Lib. i.-iii.; Goettling, Gesc/icchte taneium, or home of a mother state, was carried
der R62nischen Staatsveesfassung; Walter, Gesc/hic/hte the sacred fire which was to be kept burning in
des Rtmiscllen Rechts, where the authorities are the prytaneia of her colonies; and if it happened
very conveniently collected and arranged, and that this was ever extinguished, the flame was
chap. xxxi. Notes 76, 79, wherein he differs from rekindled from the prytaileium of the parent city.
Savigny as to the Jus Italicum; in chapter xxxvii. (Duker, ad Thtucyd. i. 24.) Lastly, a Prytaneium
Walter has described the provincial divisions of wasalso a distinguishing mark of an independent
the Empire, which existed about the middle of the state, and is mentioned as such by Thucydides (ii.
fifth century A. D.; Savigny, Geschichte des R'mz. 15), who informs us that before the time of
R. im Mittelalter, vol. i.; Puchta, Ueber den Inhalt Theseus, every city or state (roXlts) of Attica posder Lex Rzubria, Zeitschrift, &c., vol. x. [G. L.] sessed a pry taneium. The Achaeans, we are told
PROVOCA'TIO. [APPELLATIO, p. 107, a.] (Herod. vii. 197), called their prytaneium xi7-rov
PROVOCATO'RES. [GLADIATORES, p. 575, (from Xets, populus), or the "town-hall," and
b.] exclusion from it seems to have been a sort of civil
PROXENTIA, PRO'XENUS (7rpo~SEVa, excommunication.
rpEVeos). [HOSPITIUTB.] The Prytaneium of Athens lay under the
PRUDENTES. [JuRIsCONSuTLTI.] Acropolis on its northern side (near the &yopd),
PRYTANEIUM (7rpurTave7o). The 7rpvrave-a and was, as its name denotes, originally the place
of the ancient Greek states and cities were to the of assembly of the lIpVreavEs: in the earliest times
communities living around them, the common it probably stood on the Acropolis. Officers called
houses of which they in some measure represented, Ilpu'aves were entrusted with the chief magi.what private houses were to the families which tracy in several states of Greece, as Corcyra,
occupied them. Just as the house of each family Corinth, Miletus, and the title is sometimes sywas its home, so was the 7rptraverov of every state nonymous with aelAXE7s, or princes, having appa.or city the common home of its members or inha- rently the same root as 7rprVos or 7rpoTaros. At
bitants, and was consequently called the EiT[a Athens they were in early times probably a ma4rdXEoS, the "focus" or "penetrale urbis." (Cic. gistracy of the second rank in the state (next to
de Leg. ii. 12; Liv. xli. 20; Dionys. ii. 23, 65.) the Archon), acting as judges in -various cases
This correspondence between the 7rpurave7ov, or (perhaps in conjunction with him), and sitting in
home of the city, and the private home of a man's the Prytaneium. That this was the case is renfamily, was at Athens very remarkable. A per- dered probable by the fact, that even in aftertimles
petual fire or 7rip io-Ceo'r0o was kept continually the fees paid into court by plaintiff and defendant,
burning on the public altar of the city in the Pry- before they could proceed to trial, and received by
taneium, just as in private houses a fire was kept the dicasts, were called 7rpvraVe7a. (Pollux, vii).
up on the domestic altar in the inner court of the 38.) This court of the Prytaneium, or the i uerln
house. (Pollux, i. 7; Arnold, ad Thucyd. ii. 15.) ripvTraeL'q,, is said (Pollux, viii. 120) to have been
The same custom was observed at the Pry- presided over by the piuXeoGaoAes, who perhaps
taneium of the Eleans, where a fire was kept burn- were the same as the 7rpTraveis.
ing night and day. (Paus. v. 15. ~ 5.) Moreover In later ages, however, and after the establishthe city of Athens exercised in its Prytaneium the ment of the courts of the Heliaea, the court of the
duties of hospitality, both to its own citizens and Prytaneium had lost what is supposed to have been
strangers. Thus foreign ambassadors were enter- its original importance, and was made one of the
tained here, as well as Athenian envoys on their courts of the Ephetae, who held there a species of
return home from a successful or well conducted mock trial over the instruments by which any indimission. (Aristoph. Atcharn. 125; Pollux, ix. 40.) vidual had lost his life, as well as over persons who
Here, too, were entertained from day to day the had committed murder, and were not forthcoming
successive Prytanes or Presidents of the Senate, or detected.
together with those citizens who, whether from per- The tablets or toves otherwise IKSpsElm, on
sonal or ancestral services to the states, were which Solon's laws were written (Plut.Sol. 25),
honoured with what was called the irL7rtLs es were also deposited in the Prytaneium (Paus. i.
TIpv-raveLi, the " victus quotidianus in Prytaneo " 18. ~ 3); they were at first kept on the Acropolis,
(Cic. de Orat. i. 54), or the privilege of taking probably in the old Prytaneiunm, but afterwards
their meals there at the public cost. This was removed to the Prytaneium in the &yopd, that
granted sometimes for a limited period, some- they might be open to public inspection. (Pollux,
times for life, in which latter case the parties viii. 128.) Ephialtes is said to have been the author
enjoying it were called &ei'01roe. The custom of this measure (Harpocrat. s. v.'O rarcaeOezv eoios),
of conferring this honour on those who had been but their removal may have been merely the coiiof signal service to the state and their descend- sequence of the erection of a new Prytaneium on
ants, was of so great antiquity that one instance the lower site in the time of Pericles. (Thirlwall,
of it was referred to the times of Codrus; and Hist. of Geece, vol. ii. p. 54.) [R. W.]
in the case to which we allude the individual PRYTANES (7rpvTaCeYs). [BouI,E, pp. 210,
thus hcnoured was a foreigner, a native of Delphi. 212; PRYTANEmU Ms.]
(Lycurg. c. Leocr. p. 158.) Another illustration of PSEPHISMA (Ecttl. a). [BOULE, pp. 210,
the uses to which the Prytaneium was dedicated, 211; NouaIOTIHErT'E.]