PERICLES. Greatest of Athenian statesmen. A pupil of Anaxagoras. He was nicknamed 'Olympian.' Lucian mentions his funeral speech, delivered in 431 B.C., and his intercourse with the famous Milesian courtesan Aspasia, by whom he had a son Pericles. PERIPATETICS. Aristotle of Stagira (385-323 B.C.), the founder of this school of philosophers, studied for twenty years under Plato. In 335 B.C. he began teaching independently in the Lyceum, a public garden at Athens. The name Peripatetic refers to his habit of walking about while lecturing. Forty-six of his works remain, though perhaps only in the form of notes. They are remarkable for the rigidly systematic treatment applied to all subjects alike, to Ethics and Poetry, not less than to Zoology and Mechanics. Most notable of his doctrines is that which refers all definable things to four Causes, viz., Matter, the existence of which is Potentiality, and the Moving, Final, and Formal Causes, whose operation is included under the general term Energy; the combination of Potentiality and Energy resulting in the perfection of the completed thing. The _summum bonum_, according to Aristotle, is Eudaemonia (Happiness); and each virtue is the mean between the excess and defect of some quality. The virtuous mean between avarice and profuseness, or between luxury and asceticism, might perhaps involve that respect for money with which Lucian reproaches the Peripatetics. The ten Categories, or Predicaments, were an attempt to classify all existing things; among them were Substance, Quality, Quantity, Relation, Time, and Place. PERSEPHONE. Daughter of Zeus and Demeter. Pluto, with the permission of Zeus, carried her down to Hades. Demeter, discovering the truth after a long search, left Heaven in anger, and took up her abode on earth. Zeus now ordered Pluto to restore Persephone: as, however, she had partaken of food in the lower world, she was compelled to return thither for one-third of each year. PERSEUS. His story is given under DANAE, GORGONS, and ANDROMEDA. PHAEACIANS. A fabulous people described in the Odyssey as inhabiting Scheria. Alcinous was their king. PHAEDRA. Daughter of Minos of Crete, and wife of Theseus. _See_ HIPPOLYTUS. PHAEDRUS. A character in two of the dialogues of Plato, whose friend he was. PHAETHON. Son of Helius and Clymene. Being allowed on one occasion to drive the chariot of the sun, he lost control of the horses, and almost consumed the earth with fire. Zeus slew him with a thunderbolt, and cast him into the river Eridanus. His sisters, changed into poplars on its banks, wept tears of amber for his loss. PHALARIS. Tyrant of Agrigentum in Sicily, 570-564 B.C. For the brazen bull in which he is said to have burnt many victims alive, see _Phalaris I_. PHAON. An ugly old boatman at Mytilene, with whom Sappho is said to have fallen in love, after he had been made young and beautiful by Aphrodite as a reward for carrying her across the sea without payment.