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

PYREICUS. PYROMACI US. 607
oeding kings, but it is impossible to say to which is difficult to explain it as referring to Parrhasius
they belong. (Eckhel, vol. ii. p. 394.) [E. 11. B.] It is, however, uncertain which is right. Hertzberg,~ keeps to the common reading. (See Sillig, Cal.
Art. s. I.; and Hertzberg, Comment. ad loc.) [P. S.]
PYRES (Iu'prls), of Miletus, a writer of that
c? 0 \ lascivious species of poetry denominated Ionic, and
in which Sotades of Maroneia, who lived after
_i __ At of',i R Pyres, was principally conspicuous. As Sotades
_~, & lived in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, Pyres
~ ~:{;{:~ / \ Adu Smust have lived previous to B. C. 285. (Athen.
xiv. p. 620, e.) Suidas (s. v.:wrdas1s) erroneously
calls him rIvtPos. [WV. M. G.]
COIN OF PYLARMENES. PYRGENSIS, M. POSTU'MIUS, one of the
farmers of the public taxes in the second Punic
PYLAS (rlvdas), a son of Cteson, and king of war, was brought to trial in B. c. 212, for his pecuMegara, who, after having slain Bias, his own lations and fraud; and was condemned by the
father's brother, founded the town of Pylos in people, though not without great opposition, as he
Peloponnesus, and gave Megara to Pandion who was supported by the rest of the publicani and one
had married his daughter Pylia, and accordingly of the tribunes. Postumius vent into exile before
was his son-in-law. (Apollod. iii. 15. 5; Paus. his condemnation. (Liv. xxv. 3, 4.)
i. 39. ~ 6, where he is called Pylos, and vi. 22. PY'RGION (fIvplwcv), wrote a work on the
~ 3, where he is called Pylon.) [L. S.] laws and institutions of the Cretans, of which the
PYRAECHMES (ITupaiXgUns), an ally of the third book is quoted by Athenaeus (iv. p. 143, e.).
Trojans and commander of the Paeonians, was slain PYRGO'TELES (rlupyor7vqs), one of the
by Patroclus. (Hom. II. ii. 848, xvi. 287; Dict. most celebrated gem-engravers of ancient Greece,
Cret. iii. 4; comp. Paus. v. 4. ~ 2; Strab. viii. lived in the latter half of the fourth century B. C.
p. 357.) [L. S.] The esteem in which he was held may be inferred
PYRAMUS. [THISBE.] from that edict of Alexander, which placed him on
PYRANDER (lvdpailaos), wrote a work on a level with Apelles and Lysippus, by naming him
the history of the Peloponnesus. (Plit. Patrall. as the only artist who was permitted to engrave
Min. c. 37; Schol. ad Lycopls'. 1439.) seal-rings for the king. (Plin. H. N. vii. 37. s. 38,
PYREICUS, a Greek painter, who probably xxxvii. 1. s. 4.) Unfortunately, however, beyond
lived about or soon after the time of Alexailder the this one fact, every thing else respecting the artist is
Great, since Pliny mentions him inlimediately after involved in that obscurity, to which the neglect of
the great painters of that age, but as an artist of a ancient writers and the impudence of ancient as
totally different style. He devoted himself entirely well as modern forgers have conspired to doom one
to the production of small pictures of low and mean of the most interesting branches of Greek art.
subjects; " tonstrinas sutriiesque pinxdi t t sellos et Several works are extant under the name of Pyroblsonic aet siiiliae," says Pliny; where we take the goteles, but of these the best known have been
first two words to mean, not that he decorated the demonstrated by Winckelmann to be forgeries,
walls of the barbers' and shoemakers' shops with and very few of the others have any pretensions to
his pictures, but that he made pictures of them. It authenticity. For the full discussion of the gemay also be taken for granted that these were nuineness or spuriousness of the several gems
treated in a quaint, or even a grotesque manner. ascribed to Pyrgoteles, the reader is referred to
His paintings were a source of great delight (con- Winckelmann (Werke, vol. vi. pp. 107, &c.), and
suznmmatae voluptctis), and commanded higher prices Raoul-Rochette (Lettre a M. Scdorn, pp. 150-152,
than the greatest works of many painters. (Plin. 2d ed.). [P. S.]
H. N. xxxv. 10. s. 37.) PYRILAMPES (rlvpiAdu7rols), a statuary of
The ancients gave a name to this kind of paint- Messene, of whom nothing more is known thal
ing, respecting the true form of which there is a that he was the maker of the statues of three
difference of opinion. Pliny says that Pyreicus Olympic victors, namely, Pyrilampes of Ephesus,
was called, on account of the subjects of his pictures, Xenon of Lepreon, and Asamon. (Paus. vi. 3. ~ 5.
Rlhsyparograpdlos (the reading of all the MSS.), in- s. 12, 15. ~ 1, 16. ~ 4. s. 5.) [P. S.]
stead of which Salnmasius proposed to read Rhopo- PYRIPHLE'GETHON (IvpipAsEy'0v), flam-,qrealos, as better suited to the sense, and Welcker ing with fire, is the name of one of the rivers in
adopts the correction (ad Philostr. 396), while the lower world. (Hom. Od. x. 513; Strab. v.
Sillig and others are satisfied with the former read- p. 244.) [L. S.]
intg. The difference is hardly important enough to PYRO'MACHUS, artists. This name has
be discussed here. (See Sillig, Cat. Artif. s. v.; been the occasion of much confusion, owing to its
Doderlein, Let. Synoin. vol. ii. p. 38; and the occurring in four different forms, namely, PhyrsoGreek Lexicons, s. vv.) Saches, Phyloniacdus, Philomachus, and PyroThere is a line of Propertius (iii. 9. 12. s. 7. 12, machus, and owing also to the fact that there were
Burmann) in which Burmann reads, on the autho- two artists, who bore one or other of these three
rity of two MSS.,- names.
Py eicus parva vindicat arte locum, 1. We have already noticed the Athenian
sculptor, who executed the bas-reliefs on the frieze
where the great majority of the MSS. have Par- of the temple of Athena Polias, about 01. 91, B. C.
rhasius, a reading which would easily be inserted 415, and the true form of whose name was Phyby a transcriber ignorant of the less known name romachus. [PHYROiMACHUS.] This artist is eviof Pyreicus. In connection with Pyreicus the dently the same whom Pliny mentions, in his list
phrase petra aect has a clear nearning; whereas it of statuaries, as the maker of a group representing