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

493 PORPHYRION. PORPHYRIUS.
thigh in order to show that she had a courageous according to others, attempted to throw the island
soul and could be trusted with the secret. At the of Delos against the gods, Zeus hurled a thundersame time her affection for her husband was stronger bolt at him, and Heracles completed his destruction
than her stoicism, and on the morning of the ] 5th, with his arrows. (Apollod. i. 6. ~ 1, &c.; Pind.
her anxiety for his safety was so great that she Pyth. viii. 12; Horat. Carrz. iii. 4. 54; Claudian,
fainted away, and word was brought to Brutus in the Gigantom. 114, &c.)
senate-house that his wife was dying. She parted 2. According to a tradition of the Athmonians,
with Brutus at Velia in Lucania in the course of the the most ancient king in Attica; he is said to
same year, when he embarked for Greece. She then have reigned even before Actaeus, and to have iinreturned to Rome, where she continued to live un- troduced into Attica the worship of Aphrodite.
molested by the triumvirs. But after she learnt the (Pals. i. 2. ~ 5, 14. ~ 6.) [L. S.]
loss of the battle of Philippi and the death of PORPHY'RIUS (IopcpdpLos), the celebrated
Brutus in B. C. 42, she resolved not to survive the antagonist of Christianity, was a Greek philosopher
ruin of her party and the death of her husband, of the Neo-Platonic school. Eunapius and Suidas
and accordingly put an end to her own life. The (following no doubt, Porphyrius himself, Vit. Plot.
common tale was, that her friends, suspecting her 8, p. 107), in their biographies call him a Tyrian;
design, had taken all weapons out of her way, but both St. Jerome (PraIefj Ep)ist. ad Gal.) and
and that she therefore destroyed herself by swal- St. Chrysostom (Homil. VI. in I. ad Corinthl. p.
lowing live coals. The real fact may have been 58) term him Ba'aveoST7's, a word on the fancied
that she suffocated herself by the vapour of a correction of which a good deal of ingenuity has
charcoal fire, which we know was a frequent been unnecessarily expended; some imagining that
means of self-destruction among the Romans. it is a corruption of some term of reproach (such as
(Plnt. Cat. 25, 73, BrZtt. 2, 13, 15, 23, 33; Dion $soTavcL7-s, herb-caler, LoOdn-aTos, or 8aavcd-'T7s).
Cass. xliv. 13, xlvii. 49; Appian, B. C. iv. 136; The more reasonable view is that the word is
Val. Max. iii. 2. ~ 5, iv. 6. ~ 5; Polyaen. viii. correct enough, and describes more accurately the
32; Martial, i. 43.) birth-place of Porphyrius,-Batanea, the Bashan of
3. The daughter of Cato Uticensis by his second Scripture. To account for his being called a Tyrian
wife Marcia. She remained with her mother in some have supposed that he was originally of
Rome when her father left the city in B. c. 49 on Jewish -origin, and having first embraced, and
Caesar's approach. (Plut. Cat. 52.) She probably afterwards renounced Christianity, called himself a
died young. Tyrian to conceal his real origin. Heunmann, nmakPO'RCIA GENS, plebeian, is not mentioned ing a slight alteration in the text of Chrysostom,
till the middle of the third century before the supposed that Porphyrius falsely assumed the epiChristian aera; and the first member of the gens, thet Ba-rae'Tr7c, to induce the belief that he was
who obtained the consulship, was the celebrated of Jewish origin, that his statements with regard to
M. Porciue Cato, in B. C. 195. The name was the Jewish Scriptures might have the more weight.
derived by the Romans from porcus, a pig, and None of these conjectures seems in any degree prowvas compared with Ovinius, Caprilius, and Taurus, bable. The least improbable view is that of Jonall of which names indicated connection with the sius, who is followed by Fabricius, Brucker, and
breeding or feeding of cattle. (Plut. Public. 11; others, that there was a Tyrian settlement in the
Varr. de R. R. ii. 1.) The Porcii were divided district of Batanea, and that Porphyrius was born
into three families under the republic, namely, there, but, from the neighbourhood of the more imthose of LAECA, LICINuS, and CATO, all of which portant place, called himself, and was called by
names appear on coins. In the imperial period we others, a Tyrian. (Brucker, Hist. Crit. Phil. vol.
find two or three other cognomens, which are given ii. p. 240; Harles, ad Fabr. Bibl. Gr. vol. v. p.
below. 725.)
PORCINA, an agnomen of M. Aemilius Lepi- The original name of Porphyrius was Malchus
dus, consul B. C. 137. (MdAXxos, the Greek form of the Syrophoenician
PO'RCIUS FESTUS. [FEsTUS.] Melech), a word, as he himself tells us, which
PO'RCIUS LATRO. [LATRO.] signified king. His father bore the same name,
PO'RCIUS SEPTI'MIUS. [SEP-rIMIUS.] and was a man of distinguished family (Porph. Vit.
PORPHY'RIO, POMPO'NIUS, the most Plot. c. 16). Aurelius, in dedicating a work to
valuable among the ancient commentators on Ho- him, styled him Bao-Leks. The more euphonious
race. His annotations, however, in common with name fIopipmplos (in allusion to the usual colour of
those of all the earlier Latin scholiasts, have been royal robes), was subsequently devised for him by
so altered and interpolated by the transcribers of his preceptor Longinus (Eunap. Porph. p. 13;
the middle ages, that it is extremely difficult, and, Suid. s. v.). Suidas states that he lived in the
in many cases impossible, to separate the genuine reign of Aurelian, and died in that of Diocletian.
matter from what is supposititious. We know no- Eunapius says, more explicitly, that he lived in the
thing regarding the history of Porphyrio, nor the~ reigns of Gallienus, Claudius, Tacitus, Aurelian,
period when he flourished, except that he was, if and Probus. Porphyrius himself tells us that he
we can trust Charisius (p. 196, ed. Lindemann), was thirty years of age when he first became the
later than Festus, and that he must have been later pupil of Plotinus, which was in the tenth year of
than Acro also, whom he quotes (ad Hor. Sat. i. the reign of Gallienus ( Fit. Plot. c. 4. p. 99); the
8. 25, ii. 3. 33.) (See Suringar, IHistoria Crit. date of his birth was, therefore, A. D, 233.
Scholiast. Lat.) For the editions of Porphyrio, see From Porphyritls himself, as quoted by Eusebius
the notice of the editions of HoRATIUs. [W. R.] (tI. E. iii. 19; comIp. Proclus, il Tim. i. p. 20), it
PORPIIHYRION (l1opcvpwvwY). 1. One of the appears that when very young he was placed under
giants, a son of Uranus and Ge. During the the instruction of Origen. This could not have
fight between the giants and the gods, whell been, as some have imagined, at Alexandria, for
Porphyrion intended to offer violence to Hera, or, about the time of the birth of Porphyrius Origen