=Pródȋcus=: of Ceos, sophist and rhetorical teacher; a contemporary of Plato and a frequent visitor to Athens. His bodily weakness was notorious. =Prométheus=: mythical semi-deity, gifted with great foresight; a benefactor of mankind by giving them fire stolen from heaven (an offence for which he was cruelly punished by Zeus), and by the invention of the civilizing arts. His name was commonly interpreted ‘Fore-thinker’. =Ptolemy=: (1) Ptolemy II (Philadelphus), king of Egypt 285-247 B.C. (2) Ptolemy III (Euergetes), king of Egypt 247-222 B.C. (3) Ptolemy IV (Philopator), king 222-205 B.C.; a vicious and sensual monarch, ruled by his minister Sosibius. (4) Ptolemy V (Epiphanes), king 205-181 B.C. See _Aristomenes_. It was in the early part of his reign that Egypt became a Roman protectorate. He came to the throne at the age of four. =Publius Nigidius=: contemporary of Cicero; a man of great scientific and mathematical learning, as became a Pythagorean. =Pūpius Piso=: Roman orator, and consul in 61 B.C.; a supporter of Clodius and therefore hostile to Cicero. =Pyrrhus=: king of Epirus, called in by the people of Tarentum against the Romans. After a dearly won victory in 280 B.C. he sent his eloquent minister to Rome to offer humiliating terms of peace. These were rejected, and after a practically equal contest he retired from Italy. =Pythagoras=: of Samos, _fl._ _c._ 540-520 B.C. He had apparently travelled in the East and acquired, besides mathematical knowledge (in which he made some advances), mystical theological views and probably also his doctrine of the transmigration of souls. He migrated to Croton in South Italy, and there became the founder of a close and aristocratic philosophical brotherhood, to whom the word of the master was sufficient (_ipse dixit_). Many legends gathered about him and a mystical interpretation was put upon his rather compressed maxims. =Pythian=: = ‘belonging to Pytho’, i.e. to Delphi, the seat of the chief oracle of Apollo. =Rhium=: the promontory on the south side of the mouth of the Corinthian Gulf, the north promontory being Antirrhium. =Rusticus=: L. Junius Arulenus Rusticus, a Roman noble of the Stoic school and champion of liberty, so far as that was possible under the Roman emperors. Put to death by Domitian (emperor A.D. 81-96). =Samius=: lyrist and writer of epigrams at the Macedonian court, _c._ 300 B.C. =Scipio=: (1) P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus Major; the brilliant and almost ideal Roman general who conquered Hannibal in 202 B.C. (2) P. Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus Minor, who completed the conquest of Carthage 146 B.C.; a student of letters and philosophy. =Scirōn=: a spot on the Sacred Way from Athens to Eleusis. =Scyros=: island in the Aegean off north-east of Euboea. Here Achilles was for a time hidden by his mother in woman’s dress, and occupied in feminine tasks to keep him from the dangers of Troy.