A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

PINARIUS. PINDARUS. 367
time long previous to the foundation of the city. wards served in the army of the triumvirs in the
The legend related that when Hercules came into war against Brutus and Cassius. (Suet. Caes. 83
Italy he was hospitably received on the spot, where Appian, B. C. iii. 22, iv. 107.)
Rome was afterwards built, by the Potitii and the 6. PINARIUS, a Roman eques, whom Augustus
Pinarii, two of the most distinguished families in ordered to be put to death upon a certain occasion.
the country. The hero, in return, taught them the (Suet.. Aug. 27.)
way in which he was to be worshipped; but as PI'NDARUS (IIvsapos), the greatest lyric
the Pinarii were not at hand when the sacrificial poet of Greece, according to the universal testimony
banquet was ready, and did not come till the of the ancients. Just as Homer was called simply
entrails of the victim were eaten, Hercules, in o 7roOTr-s, Aristophanes o KtroKUcs, and Thucydides
anger, determined that the Pinarii should in all oervyypape-rvs, in like manner Pindar was distinfuture time be excluded from partaking of the guished above all other lyric poets by the title of
entrails of the victims, and that in all matters re- O AvpLcds. Our information however respecting
lating to his worship they should be inferior to his life is very scanty and meagre, being almost
the Potitii. These two families continued to be entirely derived from some ancient biographies of
the hereditary priests of Hercules till the censor- uncertain value and authority. Of these we posship of App. Claudius (B. C. 312), who purchased sess five; one prefixed by Thomas Magister to
from the Potitii the knowledge of the sacred rites, his Scholia on the poet; a second in Suidas; a
and entrusted them to public slaves, as is related third usually called the metrical life, because it is
elsewhere. [PoTITIA GENS.] The Pinarii did not written in thirty-five hexameter lines; a fourth
share in the guilt of communicating the sacred first published by Schneider in his edition of Niknowledge, and therefore did not receive the same cander, and subsequently reprinted by Bickh along
punishment as the Potitii, bhut continued in ex- with the three other preceding lives in his edition
istence to the latest times. (Dionys. i. 40; Serv. of Pindar; and a fifth by Eustathius, which was
ad VTirg. Aen. viii. 268; Festus, p. 237, ed. Mill- published for the first time by Tafel in his edition
ler; Macrob. Saturn. iii. 6; Liv. i. 7; Iairtung, of the Opuscula of Eustathius, Frankfort, 1832.
Die Religion der Rimiser, vol. ii. p. 30.) It has Pindar was a native of Boeotia, but the ancient
been remarked, with justice, that the worship of biographies leave it uncertain whether he was born
Hercules by the Potitii and Pinarii was a sacrum at Thebes or at Cynoscephalae, a village in the
gentilitiumn belonging to these gentes, and that in territory of Thebes. All the ancient biographies
the time of App. Claudius these sacsa privata were agree that his parents belonged to Cynoscephalae;
made sacra publica. (Niebuhr, Hist. of Roome, but they might easily have resided at Thebes, just
vol. i. p. 88; Gbttling, Gesch. der R6mu. Staatsvesf. as in Attica an Acharnian or a Salaminian might
p. 178.) have lived at Athens or Eleusis. The name of
The Pinarii are mentioned in the kingly period Pindar's parents is also differently stated. His
[PINARIA, NO. 1; PINAItIUS, No. 1]], and were father is variously called Daiphantus, Pagondas,
elevated to the consulship soon after the corn- or Scopelinus, his mother Cleidice, Cleodice or
mencement of the republic. The first member of Myrto; but some of these persons, such as Scopethe gens, who obtained this dignity, was P. Pina- linus and Myrto, were probably only his teachers
rius Ma-mercinus Rufus in B. C. 489. At this early in music and poetry; and it is most likely that
time, MAMERCINUS is the name of the only family the names of his real parents were Daiphantus and
that is mentioned: at a subsequent period, we find Cleidice, which are alone mentioned in the " Mefamilies of the name of NATTA, POSCA, RUSCA, trical Life" of Pindar already referred to. The
and SCARPus, but no members of them obtained year of his birth is likewise a disputed point. He
the consulship. On coins, Natta and Scarpus are was born, as we know from his own testimony
the only cognomens that occur. The few Pinarii, (Fraym. 102, ed. Dissen), during the celebration
who occur without a surname, are given below. of the Pythian games. Clinton places his birth ill
PINA'RIUS. 1. Mentioned in the reign of 01. 65. 3, B. c. 518, Btickh in 01. 64. 3, B. c. 522,
Tarquinius Superbus (Plut. Comnp. Lyc. C. NuZm. 3.) but neither of these dates is certain, though the
2. L. PINARaUS, the commander of the Roman latter is perhaps the most probable. He probably
garrison at Enna in the second Punic war, B. C. died in his 80th year, though other accounts make
214, suppressed with vigour an attempt at insur- him much younger at the time of his death. If
rection which the inhabitants made. (Liv. xxiv. he was born in B. c. 522, his death would fall in
37-39.) B. C. 442. He was in the prime of life at the
3. T. PINARIUS, is only known from his having battles of Marathon and Salamnis, and was nearly
been ridiculed by the orator C. Julius Caesar Strabo, of the same age as the poet Aeschylus; but, as
who was curtle aedile, B.c. 90. (Cic. de Or. ii. 66.). K. O. Miiller has well remarked, the causes which
4. T. PINARIUS, a friend of Cicero, who men- determined Pindar's poetical character are to be
tions him three or four times (ad Att. vi. 1. ~ 23, sought in a period previous to the Persian war,
viii. 15, ad Famn. xii. 24). In one passage (ad and in the Doric and Aeolic parts of Greece rather
Q..Fr. iii. 1. ~ 6), Cicero speaks of his brother, than in Athens; and thus we may separate Pinwho was probably the same as the following per- dar from his contemporary Aeschylus, by placing
son [No. 5]. the former at the close of the early period, the
5. L. PINARIUS, the great-nephew of the dic- latter at the head of the new period of literature.
tator C. Julius Caesar, being the grandson of Julia, One of the ancient biographies mentions that PinCaesar's eldest sister. In the will of the dictator, dar married Megacleia, the daughter of Lysitheus
Pinarius was named one of his heirs along with and Callina; another gives Tirnoxena as the name
his two other great-nephews, C. Octavius and L. of his wife; but he may have married each in
Pinarius, Octavius obtaining three-fourths of the succession. He had a son, Daiphantus, and two
property, and the remaining fourth being divided daughters, Eumetis and Protomacha.
between Pinarius and Pedius. Pinarius after- The family of Pindar ranked among the noblest