The Aeneid (67 page)

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Authors: Robert Fagles Virgil,Bernard Knox

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BOOK: The Aeneid
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PENELEUS
(
pee-ne‘-le-us
): Greek who kills Coroebus at the fall of Troy, 2.530.
 
PENTHESILEA
(
pen-the-si-lee‘-a
): queen of the Amazons, killed by Achilles at Troy, 1.592.
 
PENTHEUS
(
pen‘-thyoos
): king of Thebes who, for spurning the rites of Dionysus, is maddened by the god and dismembered by his mother, Agave, with her troop of raving Bacchantes. In Virgil’s context, the king’s double vision is produced, one may suppose, by his manic state of mind, 4.588.
 
PERGAMUM
(
per‘-ga-mum
): (1) 3.161, the name Aeneas gives the city he founds in Crete, after (2) Pergamum (or Pergama), the citadel of Troy as well as a collective name for the city itself, 6.78.
 
PERIDIA
(
pe-ri-deye‘-a
): mother of Onites, a Rutulian killed by Aeneas, 12.602.
 
PERIPHAS
(
pe‘-ri-fas
): Greek, comrade of Pyrrhus in Troy’s last hours, 2.593.
 
PERSEUS
(
per‘-syoos
): Macedonian king who claimed descent from Achilles and his line, 6.965. See PAULLUS, and Introduction, p. 30.
 
PETELIA
(
pe-tee‘-li-a
): small, inland town in the toe of Italy, built by Philoctetes, according to legend, when he fled his home in Thessaly, 3.475.
PHAEACIA
(
fee-ay‘-sha
): (Corcyra, modern Corfu), an island kingdom in the Ionian Sea, ruled by Alcinous and Arete; its inhabitants, the Phaeacians, renowned for the hospitality they offered Ulysses and other travelers, 3.347.
 
PHAEDRA
(
fee‘-dra
): daughter of Minos, wife of Theseus, seductress of his son, Hippolytus, and a suicide whose ghost Aeneas sees among the lovelorn ladies in the Underworld, 6.516. See Note 7.884-908.
 
PHAËTHON
(
fay‘-e-thon
): (1) equivalent to Helios, god of the sun, 5.125. (2) More particularly, the son of Helios by Clymene; lover of Cycnus, killed by Jupiter’s thunderbolt as he attempted to guide his father’s chariot, 10.230. See CYCNUS.
 
PHARUS
(
fa‘-rus
): Rutulian killed by Aeneas, 10.380.
 
PHEGEUS
(
fee‘-gyoos
): (1) Trojan, aide-de-camp of Aeneas, 5.294. (2) Trojan killed by Turnus, perhaps identical with (1), 9.863. (3) Trojan beheaded by Turnus, 12.440.
 
PHENEUS
(
fe‘-ne-us
): town in Arcadia displayed to Anchises by the young Evander, 8.189.
 
PHERES
(
fee‘-reez
): Trojan killed by Halaesus, 10.489.
 
PHILOCTETES
(
fi-lok-tee‘-teez
): son of Poias, the great archer of the Trojan War, original commander of the Thessalians from Methone, marooned on Lemnos suffering from an infected snake bite, 3.475. See MELIBOEAN and PETELIA.
 
PHINEUS
(
fee‘-nyoos
): son of Agenor and king of Thrace, blinded by the gods for having blinded his own sons, and harried by the Harpies sent by Jupiter; they either snatched his food away from him or contaminated what was left, 3.258. See Note ad loc.
 
PHLEGYAS
(
fle‘-gi-as
): father of Ixion, tormented for having torched Apollo’s temple at Delphi, and one of the most agonized figures in the Underworld, doomed to warn mankind to submit to the will of the gods, 6.715.
 
PHOEBUS
(
fee‘-bus
): title of Apollo, derived from a Greek word meaning “luminous,” “brilliant,” with a sense of purity implied as well, 3.120.
 
PHOENICIAN
(
fee-ni‘-shan
): of Phoenicia, a narrow coastal strip of land between Syria and the Mediterranean, known for its navigators, traders, and artisans, and the cities of Sidon and Tyre; the original homeland of Dido, 1.413. See Introduction, p. 25.
 
PHOENIX
(
fee‘-niks
): son of Amyntor, aged tutor and comrade of Achilles, 2.946.
 
PHOLOË
(
foh‘-lo-ee
): Cretan slave girl, Sergestus’ prize for entering the ship-race at Anchises’ funeral games, 5.316.
PHOLUS
(
foh‘-lus
): (1) a Centaur killed by Hercules, 8.347. (2) Trojan killed by Turnus, 12.407.
 
PHORBAS
(
fohr‘-bas
): Trojan shipmate of Palinurus, impersonated by the god of sleep to tempt Aeneas’ helmsman to his doom, 5.936.
 
PHORCUS
(
fohr‘-kus
): (1) an old god of the sea, leader of the Nereids, 5.268. (2) Latin, father of Cydon and his brothers, seven warriors hurling as many spears against Aeneas, 10.389.
 
PHRYGIAN
(
fri‘-jan
): 1.461, of the PHRYGIANS (
fri’-janz
), Trojan allies, inhabitants of Phrygia, a land mass in Asia Minor including Troy and stretching eastward from the city into Anatolia, 9.158. In Latin poetry, Phrygian often stands derogatorily for oriental, and thence effeminate.
 
PICUS
(
pee‘-kus
): son of Saturn, father of Faunus, transformed into a wood-pecker (
picus
in Latin) by Circe who, stung by his rebuff of her advances, covered his wings with color, 7.53.
 
PILLARS OF PROTEUS
: 11.317; see PROTEUS.
 
PILUMNUS
(
pee-loom‘-nus
): son of Daunus, forebear of Turnus, a patron deity of house and household, 9.4.
 
PINARIAN
(
pee-nay‘-ri-an
): of a Roman family, the Pinarii, that, together with the family of the Potitii, founded the rites for Hercules and performed them in antiquity, 8.313.
 
PIRITHOUS
(
pee-ri‘-tho-us
): son of Zeus, king of the Lapiths, who, with his comrade Theseus, attempted to abduct Persephone, the Queen of the Underworld, from the bridal bed of Death; in punishment Pirithous was clapped in chains for all time, 6.451.
 
PISA
(
pee‘-za
): city in Etruria, supposedly established by colonists from Pisa in Elis in the northwestern Peloponnese, 10.216.
 
PLEMYRIUM
(
plee-mi‘-ri-um
): Sicilian headland to the south of the Bay of Syracuse, 3.800.
 
PLUTO
(
ploo‘-toh
): king of the Underworld, 7.383.
 
PO
: river in northern Italy, Latin
Padus,
9.774.
 
PODALIRIUS
(
po-da-leye‘-ri-us
): Trojan killed by Alsus, 12.365.
 
POLITES
(
po-leye‘-teez
): Trojan, son of Priam, killed by Pyrrhus, 2.652.
 
POLLUX
(
po‘-luks
): brother of Helen and twin of Castor, sons of Leda. The extraordinary privilege granted them—that they should come back to life on alternate days—was attributed to the fact that one (Pollux) was the son of immortal Jupiter and the other (Castor) of Tyndareus, Leda’s human husband, 6.142.
 
POLYBOETES
(
po-li-bee‘-teez
): Trojan priest whose ghost Aeneas encounters among the war heroes in the Underworld, 6.562.
 
POLYDORUS
(
po-li-doh‘-rus
): Trojan, son of Priam, who placed him under the guardianship of king Polymestor of Thrace; when Priam’s fortunes failed, Polymestor took Polydorus’ treasure together with his life, 3.53.
 
POLYPHEMUS
(
po-li-fee‘-mus
): Cyclops, son of Neptune, blinded by Ulysses and his crew in revenge for the monster’s devouring of their shipmates, 3.742.
 
POMETIA
(
po-mee‘-ti-a
) or Pometii: town of the Volscians, southeast of Rome near the Pomptine Marshes, 6.895.
 
POMPEY
(
pom‘-pee
) the Great: renowned Roman leader, Gnaeus Pompeius Mag nus, 6.956. See Introduction, pp. 1, 30.
 
POPULONIA
(
po-pu-loh‘-ni-a
): coastal city of Etruria, source of Turnus’ allies led by Abas (3), 10.208.
 
PORSENNA
(
por-seen‘-a
): king of Etruria, 8.758. See Introduction, p. 34.
 
PORTUNUS
(
pohr-too‘-nus
): god of harbors, who impels the
Scylla
, the victor in the ship-race at Anchises’ funeral games, 5.269.
 
POTITIUS
(
po-tee‘-ti-us
): founder of the Potitian clan that, together with the Pinarian, established the rites of Hercules in Evander’s kingdom, and so eventually in Rome as well, 8.312.
 
PRAENESTE
(
pree-nees‘-tee
): renowned city in Latium, now Palestrina, in the foothills of the Apennines east of Rome, 7.790.
 
PRIAM
(
preye‘-am
): (1) king of Troy, son of Laomedon of the line of Dardanus, father of Hector, Paris, and many others, 1.553. (2) Grandson of Priam (1), and son of Polites, 5.621.
 
PRIVERNUM
(
pree-veer‘-num
): Latian city southeast of Rome and inhabited by Volscians; the place where Camilla was born, 11.641.
 
PRIVERNUS
(
pree-veer‘-nus
): Rutulian killed by Capys (1), 9.656.
 
PROCAS
(
pro‘-kas
): Alban king, whose prefiguration is presented by Anchises to Aeneas in the Underworld, 6.887.
 
PROCHYTA
(
pro‘-ki-ta
): small, seismic island off the coast of Campania, southwest of Cape Misenum, at the northern tip of the Bay of Naples, 9.810.
 
PROCRIS
(
proh‘-krees
): daughter of Erectheus, wife of Cephalus, who inadvertently killed her while hunting, 6.516.
PROMOLUS
(
pro‘-mo-lus
): Trojan killed by Turnus, 9.654.
 
PROSERPINA
(
pro-ser‘-pi-na
): (Persephone), daughter of Ceres and wife of Pluto, who abducted her from earth to the Underworld where she rules among the dead, 4.868. See Note ad loc.
 
PROTEUS
(
proh‘-tyoos
): the Old Man of the Sea, servant of Neptune, and a prophet known for changing himself into any shape he chooses, 11.317. The Pillars of Proteus (ibid.), presumably the island of Pharus, off Alexandria in the Nile Delta—where Menelaus was marooned when homeward bound from Troy—gain their name by analogy with the Pillars of Hercules at the western end of the Mediterranean Sea.
 
PRYTANIS
(
pri‘-ta-nis
): Trojan killed by Turnus, 9.865.
 
PUNIC
(
pyoo‘-nik
): equivalent of Carthaginian, 1.411. For the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage, see Introduction, pp. 25-27.
 
PYGMALION
(
pig-may‘-li-on
): brother of Dido, who murdered her husband, Sychaeus, and effectively drove her into exile from Tyre, 1.421.
 
PYRGI
(
peer‘-gee
): Etrurian coastal town, its contingent allied with Aeneas, 10.222.
 
PYRRHUS
(
peer‘-us
): son of Achilles, also known as Neoptolemus, and the killer of Priam, 2.585. See Introduction, p. 15.
 
QUERCENS
(
kweer‘-kens
): one of many Rutulians who storm the Trojans’ fort by the Tiber, 9.778.
 
QUIRINUS
(
kwi-ree‘-nus
): “Father Quirinus,” the name given the deified Romulus, 6.991.
 
QUIRITES
(
kwi-ree‘-teez
): the citizenry of Rome, 7.827. The Romans themselves considered the name to derive from the Sabine town of Cures, north of Rome, off the Via Salaria.
 
RAPO
(
ra‘-po
): Rutulian who kills the Trojan Parthenius and Orses, 10.883.
 
REMULUS
(
rem‘-yoo-lus
): (1) native of Tibur, guest of Caedicus (1), who presents him with lavish gifts, 9.419. (2) Family name of Numanus, Rutulian killed by Ascanius, his first kill in battle, 9.674. (3) Rutulian killed by Orsilochus, 11.753.

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