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

PSAMMENITUS. PSAMMITICHUS. 561
pian. ANtlhr. 4-7; Justin. xxxiv. 4; Liv. limt. by Cambyses in B. C. 525, and his country made
1.; Diod. xxxii. Exc. Phot. p. 523; Zonar. a province of the Persianl empire. His life was
ix. 28.) spared by Cambyses, but as he was detected
Prusias II. is described to us as a man in shortly afterwards in elldeavouring to excite a
whom personal deformity was combined with a revolt among the Egyptians, he was compelled to
character the most vicious and degraded, and all put an end to his life by drinking bull's blood.
ancient authors concur in representing him as the (Herod. iii. 10, 13-15.)
slave of every vice that was contemptible in a PSAMMIS (TdP,/ls), king of Egypt, succeeded
man, or odious in a king. His passion for the his farther Necho in B. c. 601, and reigned six
chase is attested by the epithet of the "Huntsmall" years.. He carried on war against Ethiopia, and
(Kvvnyo's), by which he is sometimes designated. died immediately after his return from the latter
(Polyb. xxx. 16, xxxvii. 2; Diod. xxxii. Exc. country. He was succeeded by his son Apries in
Vales. p. 591;-Appian. Mit/sr. 2, 4; Liv. Epit. B. C. 596 or 595. (Herod. ii. 159-16i.) In con1.; Athen. xi. p. 496. d.) sequence of the shortness of his reign and his war
The chronology of the reigns of tLe two kings with the Ethiopians, his name does not occur in
who bore the name of Prusias is very obscure: the writers of the Old Testament, like those of his
the earlier writers, such as Reinerus and Sigonius, father and son. Herodotus is the only writer who
even confounded the two, and supposed that there calls him Psammis. Manetho calls him Psaemwas only ole king of Bithynia of this name. Va- mnlhis, and Rosellini and Wilkinson make hin
lesius (ad Polyb. xxxvii. 2) was the first to point Psametik II. (Bunsen, Aegpytens Stelle in der
out this error: and the subject has since been fullly Weltyeschiclte, vol. iii. p. 130.)
investigated by Mr. Clinton (F.H. vol. iii. pp.413, PSAMMIiTICHUS or PSAMME'TICIIUS
4 18.) If we adopt the view of the last author, (TIa/u/-rTXos or TaAIA rlXos), the Greek form of
we may assign to the elder Prusias a reign of the Egyptian PSAMETIK. 1. A king of Egypt,
about 48 years (B. c. 228 —180), and of 31 years and founder of the Saitic dynasty, reigned 54
to the younger (180-149). But of these dates years, according to Herodotus, that is, from B. c.
the only one that can be fixed with certainty is 671 to 617.* (Herod. ii. 157.) The reign of this
that of the death of Prusias II. [E. H. B.] monarch forms an important epoch in Egyptian
history. It was during his time that the Greeks
7 A mwere first introduced into Egypt; and accordingly
the Greek writers were no longer exclusively dependent on the accounts of the Egyptian priests
for the history of the country. Psammitichus was
the son of Necho, and after his fatther had been put
to death by Sabacon, the Aethiopian usurper of the
Egyptian throne, he fled to Syria, and was restored
COIN OF PRUSIAS II. to Egypt by the inhabitants of the Saitic district,
of which he was a native, when Sabacon abandoned
PRY'TANIS (Ipv'Tavis). i. A king of Sparta, Egypt in consequence of a dream. (Herod. ii.
of the Proclid line, who, according to Pausanias, 152.) The manner in which Psammitichus obtained
~vas the son of Eurypon, and fourth king of thati possession of the kingdom is related at length by
race. The same author ascribes to his reign the Herodotus. After the death of Setho, the king
commencement of the wars between Sparta and and priest of HIephaestos, the dominion of Egypt
Argos. Diodorus allots a period of forty-nine was divided among twelve kings, of whom Psamyears to his reign, but omits all notice of the two mitichus was one.
kings between himn and Procles. It is needless to This period is usually called the Dodecarchia.
remark, that the chronology, and even the gene- The twelve kings probably obtained their indealogy, of the kings of Sparta before Lycurgus, is pendent sovereignty in the confusion which folprobably apocryphal. (Paus. iii. 7. ~ 2; Diod. lowed the death of Setho, of which Diodorus
ap. Euseb. Arm. p. 150.) speaks (i. 66), and to which Isaiah probably al2. One of the sons of PARISADES I., king ludes, when he says (Is. xix. 2), " they fought
of Bosporus. He appears to have submitted every one against his brother, and every one
without opposition to the authority of his elder against his neighbour; city against city, and kingbrother SatSrus, who ascended the throne on the dom against kingdom." The Dodecarchia is not
death of Parisades, B. C. 311, and was left by him mentioned by Manetho, but he makes three kings
in charge of his capital city of Panticapaeumn, of the Saitic dynasty intervene between the last
during the campaign in which he engaged against of the Ethiopians and Psammitichus. This, howtheir remaining brother Eumelus. Satyrus him- ever, need occasion us no surprise, because, as
self having fallen on this expedition, Prytanis as- Bunsen remarks, lists of dynasties know nothing of
sumed the sovereign power, but was defeated by anarchies or dodecarchies; and, in the chronological
Eunielus, and compelled to conclude a treaty, by tables of a monarchy, the name of a prince has the
which he resigned the crown to his brother. Not- dynastic right of occupying the period, which the
withstanding this, he made a second attempt to historian must represent as an anarchy or a divided
recover it, but was again defeated, and put to sovereignty. Thus Louis XVIII. did not enter
death by order of Eumelus. His wife and chil- France as king till the eighteenth year of his
dren shared the same fate. (Diod. xx. 22- reign, and Louis XVII. is never even mentioned
24.) [E. H. B.] in French history.
PSAMATOSIRIS. [ARSAC1DAE, p. 363, a.] But to return to the narrative of Herodotus. These
PSAMMENITUS ('Ta'uoLsrTos), king of
Egypt, succeeded his father Amasis in B. C. 526, " Bhckh places his accession in B. C. 654. (leaand reigned only six months. He was conquered nethlo und die flundstern-Periode, p. 342, &c.)
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