Petronius, called Arbiter (Titus), Roman Epicurean poet at the Court of Nero, in order to avoid whose resentment he opened his veins and bled to death in A.D. 66, conversing meanwhile with his friends on the gossip of the day. To him we owe the lines on superstition, beginning "Primus in orbe Deos fecit timor." Petronius is famous for his "pure Latinity." He is as plain-spoken as Juvenal, and with the same excuse, his romance being a satire on Nero and his court. Petruccelli della Gattina (Ferdinando) Italian writer, b. Naples, 1816, has travelled much and written many works. He was deputy to the Naples Parliament in '48, and exiled after the reaction. Petrus de Abano. A learned Italian physician, b. Abano 1250. He studied at Paris and became professor of medicine at Padua. He wrote many works and had a great reputation. He is said to have denied the existence of spirits, and to have ascribed all miracles to natural causes. Cited before the Inquisition in 1306 as a heretic, a magician and an Atheist, he ably defended himself and was acquitted. He was accused a second time but dying (1320) while the trial was preparing, he was condemned after death, his body disinterred and burnt, and he was also burnt in effigy in the public square of Padua. Peypers (H. F. A.), Dutch writer, b. De Rijp, 2 Jan. 1856, studied medicine, and is now M.D. at Amsterdam. He is a man of erudition and good natured though satirical turn of mind. He has contributed much to De Dageraad, and is at present one of the five editors of that Freethought monthly. Peyrard (François), French mathematician, b. Vial (Haute Loire) 1760. A warm partisan of the revolution, he was one of those who (7 Nov. 1793) incited Bishop Gobel to abjure his religion. An intimate friend of Sylvian Maréchal, Peyrard furnished him with notes for his Dictionnaire des Athées. He wrote a work on Nature and its Laws, 1793-4, and proposed the piercing of the Isthmus of Suez. He translated the works of Euclid and Archimedes. Died at Paris 3 Oct. 1822. Peyrat (Alphonse), French writer, b. Toulouse, 21 June, 1812. He wrote in the National and la Presse, and combated against the Second Empire. In '65 he founded l'Avenir National, which was several times condemned. In Feb. '71, he was elected deputy of the Seine, and proposed the proclamation of the Republic. In '76 he was chosen senator. He wrote a History of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception, '55; History and Religion, '58; Historical and Religious Studies, '58; and an able and scholarly Elementary and Critical History of Jesus, '64.