His fame had pre

Pelop.-Xen., Hist. Gr.-Pausan., 9, 13, &c.-Encycl. Us. Knowl., vol. 17, p. 388, seq.)

Thebans took part as allies of the Lacedæmonians, | of Persia, sent on their part Pelopidas to support their under the Spartan king Agesipolis. In this battle, own interest at the same court. Pelopidas being wounded and thrown down, was saved ceded him, and he was received by the Persians with from death by Epaminondas, who protected him with great honour, and Artaxerxes showed him peculiar fahis shield, maintaining his ground against the Arcadi- vour. Pelopidas obtained a treaty, in which the Theans until the Lacedæmonians came to their relief, and bans were styled the king's hereditary friends, and in saved both their lives. From that time a close friend- which the independence of each of the Greek states, ship was formed between Epaminondas and Pelopidas, including Messenia, was fully recognised. He thus which lasted till the death of the latter. When the disappointed the ambition of Sparta and of Athens, Lacedæmonians surprised the citadel of Thebes, and which aimed at the supremacy over the rest. The established the power of the aristocracy in that city, Athenians were so enraged at this, that they put their Pelopidas, who belonged to the popular party, retired ambassador Timagoras to death on his return to Athens. to Athens, together with a number of other citizens. Pelopidas, after his return, was appointed to march After a time, he and his brother exiles formed a plan, against Alexander of Pheræ, who had committed fresh with their friends in Thebes, for surprising and over-encroachments in Thessaly. But, when the army was throwing the oligarchy, and restoring the popular gov- on the point of marching, an eclipse of the sun took ernment. Pelopidas and some of his friends set off place, which so dismayed the Thebans that Pelopidas from Athens disguised as hunters, found means to en- was obliged to set off with only 300 volunteers, trustter Thebes unobserved, and concealed themselves in ing to the Thessalians, who joined him on the route. the house of a friend, whence they issued in the night, Alexander met him with a large army at a place called and, having surprised the leaders of the aristocratic Cynoscephala. Pelopidas, by great exertions, although party, put them to death. The people then rose in his army was much inferior in numbers, obtained an adarms, and, having proclaimed Pelopidas their com- vantage, and the troops of Alexander were retreating, mander, they obliged the Spartan garrison to surrender when Pelopidas, venturing too far amid the enemy, the citadel by capitulation (B.C. 379). Pelopidas was slain. The grief of both Thebans and Thessalians soon after contrived to excite a war between Sparta at his loss was unbounded: they paid splendid funeral and Athens, and thus divide the attention of the for- honours to his remains. The Thebans avenged his mer power. The war between the Thebans and the death by sending a fresh army against Alexander, who Lacedæmonians was carried on for some years in Boe- was defeated, and was soon after murdered by his own otia by straggling parties, and Pelopidas, having ob- wife.-Pelopidas was not only one of the most distained the advantage in several skirmishes, ventured tinguished and successful commanders of his age, but to encounter the enemy in the open field at Tegyræ, he and his friend Epaminondas rank among the most near Orchomenus. The Lacedæmonians were defeat-estimable public men of ancient Greece. (Plut., Vit. ed, and thus Pelopidas demonstrated, for the first time, that the armies of Sparta were not invincible; a fact which was afterward confirmed by the battle of Leuctra (B.C. 371), in which Pelopidas fought under the command of his friend Epaminondas. In the year 369 B.C., the two friends, being appointed two of the Bootarchs (Plut., Vit. Pelop., c. 24), marched into the Peloponnesus, obliged Argos, and Arcadia, and other states to renounce the alliance of Sparta, and carried their incursions into Laconia in the depth of winter. Having conquered Messenia, they invited the descendants of its former inhabitants, who had gone into exile about two centuries before, to come and repeople their country. They thus confined the power of Sparta to the limits of Laconia. Pelopidas and Epaminondas, on their return to Thebes, were tried for having retained the command after the expiration of the year of their office, but were acquitted; and Pelopidas was afterward employed against Alexander, tyrant of Phere, who was endeavouring to make himself master of all Thessaly. He defeated him. From Thessaly he was called into Macedonia, to settle a quarrel between Alexander, king of that country, and son of Amyntas II., and his natural brother Ptolemy. Having succeeded in this, he returned to Thebes, bringing with him Philip, brother of Alexander, and thirty youths of the chief families of Macedonia as hostages. A year after, however, Ptolemy murdered his brother Alexander, and took possession of the throne. Pelopidas, being applied to by the friends of the late king, enlisted a band of mercenaries, with which he marched against Ptolemy, who entered into an agreement to hold the government only in trust for Perdiccas, a younger brother of Alexander, till he was of age, and to keep the alliance of Thebes; and he gave to Pelopidas his own son Philoxenus and fifty of his companions as hostages. Some time after, Pelopidas, being in Thessaly, was treacherously surprised and made prisoner by Alexander of Phere, but the Thebans sent Epaminondas with an army, who obliged the tyrant to release him. The Thebans, soon after, having discovered that the Spartans and Athenians had sent ambassadors to conclude an alliance with Artaxerxes, king

PELOPONNESIACUM BELLUM is the name given to the great contest between Athens and her allies on the one side, and the Peloponnesian confederacy, headed by Sparta, on the other, which lasted from 431 to 404 B.C. The war was a consequence of the jealousy with which Sparta and Athens regarded each other, as states each of which was aiming at supremacy in Greece, as the heads respectively of the Dorian and Ionian races, and as patrons of the two opposite forms of civil gov ernment, oligarchy and democracy. The war was eagerly desired by a strong party in each of those states; but it was necessary to find an occasion for commencing hostilities, especially as a truce for thirty years had been concluded between Athens and Sparta in the year B.C. 445. Such an occasion was presented by the affairs of Corcyra and Potidea. In a quarrel, which soon became a war, between Corinth and Corcyra, respecting Epidamnus, a colony of the latter state (B.C. 436), the Corcyreans applied to Athens for assistance. Their request was granted, as far as the conclusion of a defensive alliance between Athens and Corcyra, and an Athenian fleet was sent to their aid, which, however, soon engaged in active hostilities against the Corinthians. Potidea, on the isthmus of Pallene, was a Corinthian colony, and, even after its subjection to Athens, continued to receive every year from Corinth certain functionaries or officers (εяidпμlovрyoí). The Athenians, suspecting that the Potidæans were inclined to join in a revolt, to which Perdiccas, king of Macedon, was instigating the towns of Chalcidice, required them to dismiss the Corinthian functionaries, and to give other pledges of their fidelity. The Potideans refused; and, with most of the other Chalcidian towns, revolted from Athens, and received aid from Corinth. The Athenians sent an expedition against them, and, after defeating them in battle, laid siege to Potidea (B.C. 432). The Corinthians now obtained a meeting of the Peloponnesian confederacy at Sparta, in which they complained of the conduct of Athens with regard to Corcyra and Potidea. After others of the allies had brought their charges against Athens, and

tæa.

waste. In 'the same summer the Athenians expelled the inhabitants of Ægina from their island, which they colonized with Athenian settlers. In the winter there was a public funeral at Athens for those who had fallen in the war, and Pericles pronounced over them an oration, the substance of which is preserved by_Thucydides (2, 35-46). In the following summer (B.C. 430) the Peloponnesians again invaded Attica under Archidamus, who now entirely laid aside the forbearance which he had shown the year before, and left scarcely a corner of the land unravaged. This invasion lasted forty days. In the mean time, a grievous pestilence broke out in Athens, and raged with the more viru

after some of the Athenian envoys, who happened to be in the city, had defended the conduct of their state, the Spartans first, and afterward all the allies, decided that Athens had broken the truce, and they resolved upon immediate war; King Archidamus alone recommended some delay. In the interval necessary for preparation, an attempt was made to throw the blame of commencing hostilities upon the Athenians, by sending three several embassies to Athens with demands of such a nature as could not be accepted. In the assembly which was held at Athens to give a final answer to these demands, Pericles, who was now at the height of his power, urged the people to engage in the war, and laid down a plan for the conduct of it. He ad-lence on account of the crowded state of the city. Of vised the people to bring all their moveable property this terrible visitation Thucydides, who was himself a from the country into the city, to abandon Attica to the sufferer, has left a minute and apparently faithful deravages of the enemy, and not to suffer themselves to be scription (2, 46, seq.). The murmurs of the people provoked to give them battle with inferior numbers, but against Pericles were renewed, and he was compelled to expend all their strength upon their navy, which might to call an assembly to defend his policy. He sucbe employed in carrying the war into the enemy's ter-ceeded so far as to prevent any overtures for peace ritory, and in collecting supplies from subject states; being made to the Lacedæmonians, but he himself and farther, not to attempt any new conquest while the was fined, though immediately afterward he was rewar lasted. His advice was adopted, and the Spartan elected general. While the Peloponnesians were in envoys were sent home with a refusal of their de- Attica, Pericles led a fleet to ravage the coasts of mands, but with an offer to refer the matters in differ- Peloponnesus. In the winter of this year Potidea ence to an impartial tribunal, an offer which the Lace- surrendered to the Athenians on favourable terms. dæmonians had no intention of accepting. After this, (Thucyd., 2, 70) The next year (B.C. 429), instead the usual peaceful intercourse between the rival states of invading Attica, the Peloponnesians laid siege to was discontinued. Thucydides (2, 1) dates the begin- Platea. The brave resistance of the inhabitants forced ning of the war from the early spring of the year 431 their enemies to convert the siege into a blockade. In B.Č., the fifteenth of the thirty years' truce, when a the same summer, an invasion of Acarnania by the party of Thebans made an attempt, which at first suc- Ambracians and a body of Peloponnesian troops was ceeded, but was ultimately defeated, to surprise Pla- repulsed; and a large Peloponnesian fleet, which was The truce being thus openly broken, both par- to have joined in the attack on Acarnania, was twice ties addressed themselves to the war. The Pelopon- defeated by Phormion in the mouth of the Corinthian nesian confederacy included all the states of Pelopon- gulf. An expedition sent by the Athenians against nesus except Achaia (which joined them afterward) the revolted Chalcidian towns was defeated with great and Argos, and without the Peloponnesus, Megaris, loss. In the preceding year (B.C. 430) the Athenians Phocis, Locris, Bootia, the island of Leucas, and the had concluded an alliance with Sitalces, king of the cities of Ambracia and Anactorium. The allies of the Odrysæ in Thrace, and Perdiccas, king of Macedon, on Athenians were Chios and Lesbos, besides Samos and which occasion Sitalces had promised to aid the Athethe other islands of the Egean which had been re- nians to subdue their revolted subjects in Chalcidice. duced to subjection (Thera and Melos, which were He now collected an army of 150,000 men, with which still independent, remained neutral), Platæa, the Mes- he first invaded Macedonia, to revenge the breach of senian colony in Naupactus, the majority of the Acar- certain promises which Perdiccas had made to him nanians, Corcyra, Zacynthus, and the Greek colonies the year before, and afterward laid waste the territory in Asia Minor, in Thrace and Macedonia, and on the of the Chalcidians and Bottiæans, but he did not atHellespont. The resources of Sparta lay chiefly in tempt to reduce any of the Greek cities. About the her land forces, which, however, consisted of contin- middle of this year Pericles died. The invasion of gents from the allies, whose period of service was lim- Attica was repeated in the next summer (428 B.C.); ited; the Spartans were also deficient in money. The and, immediately afterward, all Lesbos except MeAthenian strength lay in their fleet, which was manned thymne revolted from the Athenians, who laid siege to chiefly by foreign sailors, whom the wealth they_col- Mytilene. The Mytileneans begged aid from Sparta, lected from their allies enabled them to pay. Thu- which was promised, and they were admitted into the cydides informs us, that the cause of the Lacedæmoni- Spartan alliance. In the same winter a body of Plaans was the more popular, as they professed to be de-taans, amounting to 220, made their escape from the liverers of Greece, while the Athenians were fighting besieged city in the night, and took refuge in Athens. in defence of an empire which had become odious In the summer of 427 the Peloponnesians again inthrough their tyranny, and to which the states which yet retained their independence feared to be brought into subjection. In the summer of the year 431 B.C., the Peloponnesians invaded Attica under the command of Archidamus, king of Sparta. Their progress was slow, as Archidamus appears to have been still anxious to try what could be done by intimidating the Athenians before proceeding to extremities. Yet their presence was found to be a greater calamity than the people had anticipated; and, when Archidamus made his appearance at Acharne, they began loudly to demand to be led out to battle. Pericles firmly adhered to his plan of defence, and the Peloponnesians returned home. Before their departure the Athenians had sent out a fleet of 100 sail, which was joined by fifty Corcyrean ships, to waste the coasts of Peloponnesus; and towards the autumn Pericles led the whole disposable force of the city into Megaris, which he laid

vaded Attica, while they sent a fleet of 42 galleys, under Alcidas, to the relief of Mytilene. Before the fleet arrived Mytilene had surrendered, and Alcidas, after a little delay, sailed home. In an assembly which was held at Athens to decide on the fate of the Mytileneans, it was resolved, at the instigation of Cleon, that all the adult citizens should be put to death, and the women and children made slaves; but this barbarous decree was repealed the next day. The land of the Lesbians (except Methymne) was seized and divided among Athenian citizens, to whom the inhabitants paid a rent for the occupation of their former property. In the same summer the Plateans surrendered; they were massacred, and their city was given up to the Thebans, who razed it to the ground. In the year 426 the Lacedæmonians were deterred from invading Attica by earthquakes. An expedition against Etolia, under the Athenian general Demos

tans.

thenes, completely failed; but afterward Demosthe- |(Vid. Syracusa.) Sicily proved a rock against which nes and the Acarnanians routed the Ambracians, who their resources and efforts were fruitlessly expended. nearly all perished. In the winter (426-5) the Athe- And Sparta, which furnished but a commander and a nians purified the island of Delos, as an acknowledg- handful of men for the defence of Syracuse, soon bement to Apollo for the cessation of the plague. At held her antagonist reduced, by a series of unparalleled the beginning of the summer of 425, the Peloponne- misfortunes, to a state of the utmost distress and weaksians invaded Attica for the fifth time. At the same ness. The accustomed procrastination of the Spartime, the Athenians, who had long directed their tans, and the timid policy to which they ever adhered, thoughts towards Sicily, sent a fleet to aid the Leon- alone preserved Athens in this critical moment, or at tini in a war with Syracuse. Demosthenes accom- least retarded her downfall. Time was allowed for panied this fleet, in order to act, as occasion might her citizens to recover from the panic and consternaoffer, on the coast of Peloponnesus. He fortified Py- tion occasioned by the news of the Sicilian disaster; lus on the coast of Messenia, the northern headland and, instead of viewing the hostile fleets, as they had of the modern Bay of Navarino. In the course of the anticipated, ravaging their coasts and blockading the operations which were undertaken to dislodge him, a Piræus, they were enabled still to dispute the empire body of Lacedæmonians, including several noble Spar- of the sea, and to preserve the most valuable of their tans, got blockaded in the island of Sphacteria, at the dependancies. Alcibiades, whose exile had proved so mouth of the bay, and were ultimately taken prisoners injurious to his country, since it was to his counsels by Cleon and Demosthenes. Pylus was garrisoned alone that the successes of her enemies are to be atby a colony of Messenians, in order to annoy the Spar- tributed, now interposed in her behalf, and by his inAfter this event the Athenians engaged in vig- trigues prevented the Persian satrap, Tissaphernes, orous offensive operations, of which the most impor- from placing at the disposal of the Spartan admiral tant was the capture of the island of Cythera by Nici- that superiority of force which must at once have termias early in B.C. 424. This summer, however, the nated the war by the complete overthrow of the AtheAthenians suffered some reverses in Boeotia, where nian republic. (Thucyd., lib., 8.) The temporary revthey lost the battle of Delium, and on the coasts of olution which was effected at Athens by his contriMacedonia and Thrace, where Brasidas, among other vance also, and which placed the state at variance exploits, took Amphipolis. The Athenian expedition with the fleet and army stationed at Samos, afforded to Sicily was abandoned, after some operations of no him another opportunity of rendering a real service to great importance, in consequence of a general pacifica- his country by moderating the violence and animosity tion of the island, which was effected through the in- of the latter. The victory of Cynossema and the subfluence of Hermocrates, a citizen of Syracuse. In the sequent successes of Alcibiades, now elected to the year 423, a year's truce was concluded between Spar- chief command of the forces of his country, once more ta and Athens, with a view to a lasting peace. Hos restored Athens to the command of the sea, and, had tilities were renewed in 422, and Cleon was sent to she reposed that confidence in the talents of her gencope with Brasidas, who had continued his opera-eral which they deserved and her necessities required, tions even during the truce. A battle was fought be the efforts of Sparta and the gold of Persia might have tween these generals at Amphipolis, in which the de- proved unavailing. But the second exile of Alcibiafeat of the Athenians was amply compensated by the des, and, still more, the iniquitous sentence which condouble deliverance which they experienced in the deaths demned to death the generals who fought and conboth of Cleon and Brasidas. In the following year quered at Arginusæ, sealed the ruin of Athens; and (421) Nicias succeeded in negotiating a peace with the battle of Argos Potamos at length terminated a Sparta for fifty years, the terms of which were, a mu- contest which had been carried on, with scarcely any tual restitution of conquests made during the war, and intermission, during a period of twenty-seven years, the release of the prisoners taken at Sphacteria. This with a spirit and animosity unparalleled in the annals treaty was ratified by all the allies of Sparta except of warfare. Lysander now sailed to Athens, receiving the Boeotians, Corinthians, Eleans, and Megarians. as he went the submission of the allies, and blockaded This peace never rested on any firm basis. It was no the city, which surrendered after a few months (B.C. sooner concluded than it was discovered that Sparta 404) on terms dictated by Sparta, with a view of mahad not the power to fulfil her promises, and Athens king Athens a useful ally by giving the ascendancy in insisted on their performance. The jealousy of the the state to the oligarchical party. The history of the other states was excited by a treaty of alliance which Peloponnesian war was written by Thucydides, upon was concluded between Sparta and Athens immediate- whose accuracy and impartiality, as far as his narrative ly after the peace; and intrigues were commenced for goes, we may place the fullest dependance. His histhe formation of a new confederacy, with Argos at the tory ends abruptly in the year 411 B.C. For the rest head. An attempt was made to draw Sparta into al- of the war we have to follow Xenophon and Dioliance with Argos, but it failed. A similar overture, dorus. The value of Xenophon's history is impaired subsequently made to Athens, met with better suc- by his prejudices, and that of Diodorus by his carelesscess, chiefly through an artifice of Alcibiades, who ness. (Encycl. Us. Knowl., vol. 17, p. 389, seqq.— was at the head of a large party hostile to the peace, Cramer's Ancient Greece, vol. 2, p. 299, seq.) and the Athenians concluded a treaty offensive and PELOPONNESUS (ПIɛλоñóνvηoos), that is, according defensive with Argos, Elis, and Mantinea for 100 to the commonly-received explanation, "the island of years (B.C. 420). In the year 418, the Argive con- Pelops" (IIéλоñоç vñσoç), a celebrated peninsula, comfederacy was broken up by their defeat at the battle of prehending the most southern part of Greece, and Mantinea, and a peace, and soon after an alliance, was which would be an island were it not for the Isthmus made between Sparta and Argos. In the year 416 an of Corinth. Its name is said to have been derived expedition was undertaken by the Athenians against from Pelops, who is reported by the later Greek myMelos, which had hitherto remained neutral. The thologists to have been of Phrygian origin. ThucydMelians surrendered at discretion; all the males who ides, however (1, 9), simply observes that he came had attained manhood were put to death; the women from Asia, and brought great wealth with him. He and children were made slaves; and subsequently 500 married Hippodamia, the daughter of Enomaus, king Athenian colonists were sent to occupy the island. of Pisa in Elis, and succeeded to his kingdom. Pe(Thucyd., 5, 116.) The fifty years' peace was not lops is said also to have subsequently extended his doconsidered at an end, though its terms had been bro-minions over many of the districts bordering upon Elis, ken on both sides, till the year 415, when the Athenians undertook their disastrous expedition to Sicily.

whence the whole country, according to the common account, obtained the name of Peloponnesus. Aga

the Sinus Saronicus, a name derived from Saron, which in ancient Greek signified an oak leaf (Plin., 4, 5), now called Gulf of Engia. (Strab., l. c.)-The principal mountains of Peloponnesus are, those of Cyllene (Zyria) and Erymanthus (Olonos) in Arcadia, and Taygetus (St. Elias) in Laconia. Its rivers are, the Alpheus, now Rouphia, passing through Arcadia and Elis, and discharging itself into the Sicilian Sea; the Eurotas, or Basilipotamo, watering Laconia, and falling into the Sinus Laconicus; the Pamisus, or Pirnatza, a river of Messenia, falling into the Sinus Meslake, which is that of Stymphalus, or Zaracca, in Arcadia.-According to the best modern maps, the area of the whole peninsula may be estimated at 7800 square miles; and in the more flourishing period of Grecian history, an approximate computation of the population of its different states furnishes upward of a million as the aggregate number of its inhabitants.-The divisions of the Peloponnesus were Achaia, Elis, Messenia, Laconia, Argolis, and Arcadia. (Cramer's Anc. Greece, vol. 3, p. 1, seqq.)

Greece. At an entertainment given to the gods by Tantalus, the latter, in order to try their divinity, is said to have killed and dressed his son Pelops, and to have set him for food before them. The assembled deities, however, immediately perceived the horrid nature of the banquet, and all abstained from it with the exception of Ceres, who, engrossed with the loss of her daughter Proserpina, in a moment of abstraction ate one of the shoulders of the boy. At the desire of Jupiter, Mercury put all the parts back into the caldron, and then drew forth the young Pelops alive again, and perfect in all his parts except the shoulder, which was replaced by an ivory one, that was said to possess the power of removing every disorder and healing ev

memnon and Menelaus were descended from him. Such is the mythic legend relative to the origin of the name Peloponnesus. The word, however, does not occur in Homer. The original name of the peninsula appears to have been Apia (Hom., Il., 1, 270.—Id. ib., 3, 49), and it was so called, according to Eschylus (Suppl., 255), from Apis, a son of Apollo, or, according to Pausanias (2, 5, 5), from Apis, a son of Telchin, and descendant of Egialeus. When Argos had the supremacy, the peninsula, according to Strabo (371), was sometimes called Argos; and, indeed, Homer seems to use the term Argos, in some cases, as inclu-seniacus. The Peloponnesus contains but one small ding the whole peninsula. (Thucyd., 1, 9.) The origin, therefore, of the name Peloponnesus still remains open to investigation. It is possible that Pelops, instead of having actually existed, may be merely a symbol representing an old race by the name of Pelopes, according to the analogy which we find in the national appellations of the Dryopes, Meropes, Dolopes, and others. The Peloponnesus, then, will have derived its name from this old race, and the very term Pelopes (Pel-opes) itself will receive something like confirmation from the ingenious remarks of Buttmann relative PELOPS, son of Tantalus king of Phrygia, and celto the early population along the shores of the Medi-ebrated in both the mythic and historical legends of terranean. (Vid. Apia, and Opici.) After the line of the mythic Pelops had become celebrated in epic poetry as the lords of all Argos and of many islands, the name of Peloponnesus would appear to have come into general use, and, by a common error, to have been transferred from the race or nation of the Pelopes to their fabulous leader. (Vid. Pelops.)-Peloponnesus, though inferior in extent to the northern portion of Greece, may be looked upon, says Strabo, as the acropolis of Hellas, both from its position, and the power and celebrity of the different people by which it was inhabited. In shape it resembled the leaf of a planetree, being indented by numerous bays on all sides. (Strab., 335.—Plin., 4, 5.-Dionys. Per., 403.) It is from this circumstance that the modern name of Mo-ery complaint by its touch. Hence, says the scholiast rea is doubtlessly derived, that word signifying a mul- to Pindar, the descendants of Pelops had all such a berry leaf.-Strabo estimates the breadth of the penin- shoulder as this (TOLOTOV Elxov Tov pov. Schol. sula at 1400 stadia from Cape Chelonatas, now Cape ad Pind., Ol., 1, 38). The ivory shoulder of Pelops Tornese, its westernmost point, to the isthmus, being became also a subject for the painter, as appears from nearly equal to its length from Cape Malea, now Cape Philostratus (Imag., 1, 30, p. 807), where Pelops is St. Angelo, to Egium, now Vostizza, in Achaia. Po- said horpávai tử ůμw, "to flash forth rays of light lybius reckons its periphery, setting aside the sinuosities from his shoulder." The shoulder of the son of Tanof the coast, at 4000 stadia, and Artemidorus at 4400; talus also plays a conspicuous part in the legend of but, if these are included, the number of stadia must Troy. The soothsayers, it seems, had declared that be increased to 5600. Pliny says that "Isidorus com- the city of Priam would never be taken until the puted its circumference at 563 miles, and as much Greeks should have brought to their camp the arrows again if all the gulfs were taken into the account. The of Hercules and one of the bones of Pelops. Acnarrow stem from which it expands is called the isth-cordingly, the shoulder-blade (μorhárn) of the son of mus. At this point the Egean and Ionian seas, break- Tantalus was brought from Pisa to Troy. (Pausan. ing in from opposite quarters north and east, eat away 5, 13, 3. Böckh, ad Pind., I. c.) Another legend all its width, till a narrow neck of five miles in breadth states, that the Palladium in Troy was made of the is all that connects Peloponnesus with Greece. On bones of Pelops. (Vid. Palladium.)—But to return one side is the Corinthian, on the other the Saronic to the regular narrative: Neptune, attracted by the Gulf. Lechæum and Cenchreæ are situated on oppo- beauty of Pelops, carried him off in his golden car to site extremities of the isthmus, a long and hazardous Olympus, where he remained until his father Tantalus circumnavigation for ships, the size of which prevents had drawn on himself the indignation of the gods, their being carried over land in wagons. For this rea- when they sent Pelops once more down to the "swiftson various attempts have been made to cut a naviga-fated race of men." (Pind., Ol., 1, 60, seqq.)—When ble canal across the isthmus by King Demetrius, Julius Cæsar, Caligula, and Nero, but in every instance without success." (Plin., 4, 5.)—On the north the Peloponnesus is bounded by the Ionian Sea, on the west by that of Sicily, to the south and southeast by that of Libya and Crete, and to the northeast by the Myrtoan and Egean. These several seas form in succession five extensive gulfs along its shores: the Corinthiacus Sinus, now Gulf of Corinth or Lepanto, which separated the northern coast from Ætolia, Loeris, and Phocis; the Sinus Messeniacus, now Gulf of Coron, on the coast of Messenia; the Sinus Laconicus, now Gulf of Colokythia, on that of Laconia; the Sinus Argolicus, now Gulf of Napoli; and, lastly,

Pelops had attained to manhood, he resolved to seek in marriage Hippodamia, the daughter of Enomaüs, king of Pisa. An oracle having told this prince that he would lose his life through his son-in-law, or, as others say, being unwilling, on account of her surpassing beauty, to part with her, he proclaimed that he would give his daughter only to the one who should conquer him in the chariot-race. The race was from the banks of the Cladius in Elis to the altar of Neptune at the Isthmus of Corinth, and it was run in the following manner: Enomaüs, placing his daughter in the chariot with the suiter, gave him the start; he himself followed with a spear in his hand, and, if he overtook the unhappy lover, he ran him through.

which they presided, raises a natural suspicion that the hero's connexion with the East may have been a mere fiction, occasioned by a like interest, and propagated by like arts. This distrust is confirmed by the religious form which the legend was finally made to assume when it was combined with an Asiatic superstition, which found its way into Greece after the time of Homer. The seeming sanction of Thucydi des loses almost all its weight, when we observe that he does not deliver his own judgment on the question, but merely adopts the opinion of the Peloponnesian antiquaries, which he found best adapted to his purpose of illustrating the progress of society in Greece." (Thirlwall's Greece, vol. 1, p. 70.) Mr. Kenrick sees in Pelops the dark-faced one (wɛλóc and w), and thinks that the reference is to a system of religion, characterized by dark and mysterious rites, which spread from Phrygia into Greece. (Philol. Museum, No. 5, p. 353.) For another explanation of the legend of Pelops, consult remarks under the article

Thirteen had already lost their lives when Pelops came. In the dead of the night, says Pindar, Pelops went down to the margin of the sea, and invoked the god who rules it. On a sudden Neptune stood at his feet, and Pelops conjured him, by the memory of his former affection, to grant him the means of obtaining the lovely daughter of Enomaus. Neptune heard his prayer, and bestowed upon him a golden chariot, and horses of winged speed. Pelops then went to Pisa to contend for the prize. He bribed Myrtilus, son of Mercury, the charioteer of Enomaüs, to leave out the linchpins of the wheels of his chariot, or, as others say, to put in waxen ones instead of iron. In the race, therefore, the chariot of Enomaüs broke down, and he fell out and was killed, and thus Hippodamia became the bride of Pelops. (Schol. ad Pind., Ol., 1, 114.-Hygin., fab., 84.-Pind., Ol., 1, 114, seqq. -Apoll. Rhod., 1, 752. — Schol., ad loc.-Tzetz. ad Lycophr., 156.) Pelops is said to have promised Myrtilus, for his aid, one half of his kingdom, or, as other accounts have it, to have made a most dishon-Tantalus. ourable agreement of another nature with him. Unwilling, however, to keep his promise, he took an opportunity, as they were driving along a cliff, to throw Myrtilus into the sea, where he was drowned. To the vengeance of Mercury for the death of his son were ascribed all the future woes of the line of Pelops. (Soph., Electr., 504, seqq.) Hippodamia bore to Pelops five sons, Atreus, Thyestes, Copreus, Alcathous, and Pittheus, and two daughters, Nicippe and Lysidice, who married Sthenelus and Mestor, sons of Perseus.-The question as to the personality of Pelops has been considered in a previous article (vid. Peloponnesus), and the opinion has there been advanced which makes him to have been merely the symbol of an ancient race called Pelopes. To those, however, who are inclined to regard Pelops as an actual personage, the following remarks of Mr. Thirlwall may not prove uninteresting: "According to a tradition, which appears to be sanctioned by the authority of Thucydides, Pelops passed over from Asia to Greece with treasures, which, in a poor country, afforded him the means of founding a new dynasty. His descendants sat for three generations on the throne of Argos: their power was generally acknowledged throughout Greece; and, in the historian's opinion, united the Grecian states in the expedition against Troy. The renown of their ancestor was transmitted to posterity by the name of the southern peninsula, called after him Peloponnesus, or the isle of Pelops. Most authors, however, fix his native seat in the Lydian town of Sipylus, where his father Tantalus was fabled to have reigned in more than mortal prosperity, till he abused the favour of the gods, and provoked them to destroy him. The poetical legends varied as to the marvellous causes through which the abode of Pelops was transferred from Sipylus to Pisa, where he won the daughter and the crown of the bloodthirsty tyrant Enomaüs as the prize of his victory in the chariotrace. The authors who, like Thucydides, saw nothing in the story but a political transaction, related that Pelops had been driven from his native land by an invasion of Ilus, king of Troy (Pausan., 2, 22, 3); and hence it has very naturally been inferred, that, in leading the Greeks against Troy, Agamemnon was merely avenging the wrongs of his ancestor. (Kruse, Hellas, vol. 1, p. 485.) On the other hand, it has PELTE, a city of Phrygia, southeast of Cotyæum, been observed that, far from giving any countenance mentioned by Xenophon in his narrative of the retreat to this hypothesis, Homer, though he records the gen- of the Ten Thousand (1, 2). He describes it as well ealogy by which the sceptre of Pelops was transmitted inhabited. Pliny (5, 27) speaks of Peltæ as belongto Agamemnon, nowhere alludes to the Asiatic ori-ing to the Conventus Juridicus of Apamea. In the nogin of the house. As little does he seem to have heard of the adventures of the Lydian stranger at Pisa. The zeal with which the Eleans maintained this part of the story, manifestly with a view to exalt the antiquity and the lustre of the Olympic games, over

PELORUS (v. is-idis, v. ias-iados), now Cape Faro, one of the three great promontories of Sicily. It lies near the coast of Italy, and is said to have received its name from Pelorus, the pilot of the ship which carried Hannibal away from Italy. This celebrated general, as it is reported, was carried by the tide into the straits between Italy and Sicily; and, as he was ignorant of the coast, and perceived no passage through (for, in consequence of the route which the vessel was pursuing, the promontories on either side seemed to join), he suspected the pilot of an intention to deliver him into the hands of the Romans, and killed him on the spot. He was soon, however, convinced of his error, and, to atone for his rashness and pay honour to his pilot's memory, he gave him a magnificent funeral, and called the promontory on the Sicilian shore after his name, having erected on it a tomb with a statue of Pelorus. (Val. Max., 9, 8.—Mela, 2, 7.—Strab., 5.- Virg., Æn., 3, 411, 687.— Ovid, Met., 5, 350; 13, 727; 15, 706.)-This whole story is fabulous; nor is that other one in any respect more worthy of belief, which makes the promontory in question to have derived its name from a colossal (æελŵpɩoç) statue of Orion placed upon it, and who was fabled to have broken through and formed the straits and promontory. (Diod. Sic., 4, 85.- Mannert, Geogr., vol. 9, pt. 2, p. 264.) The name is, in fact, much older than the days of Hannibal. Polybius, a contemporary of the Carthaginian commander, gives the appellation of Pelorius to this cape without the least allusion to the story of the pilot: Thucydides, long before the time of Hannibal, speaks of Peloris as being included in the territory of Messana (4, 25); and, indeed, it may be safely asserted that Hannibal never was in these straits.-The promontory of Pelorus is sandy, but Silius Italicus errs when he speaks of its being a lofty one (14, 79). It is a low point of land, and the sand-flats around contain some salt-meadows. nus describes them with an intermixture of fable (c. 11). The passage directly across to Italy is the shortest; but as there is no harbour here, and the current runs to the south, the route from the Italian shore is a southwestern one to Messana. The Italian promontory facing Pelorus is that of Canys. (Mannert, Geogr., vol. 9, pt. 2, p. 265.)

Soli

tices of the ecclesiastical writers it appears as the seat of a bishopric. Xenophon makes the distance between it and Celænæ ten parasangs. We must look for the site of this place to the north of the Meander, and probably in the valley and plair formed by the