Byz., s. v. 'Apúbv(a.) Herodian and Ammianus give besieged by Hannibal, and, though unassisted by the PETILIA, I. a town of Italy, in the territory of the Bruttii, on the coast of the Tarentine Gulf, and to the north of Crotona. It was fabled to have been settled by Philoctetes after the Trojan war. (Virg., En., 3, 401.) In the opinion of the most judicious and best informed topographers, it occupied the situation of the modern Strongoli. (Holsten., ad Steph. Byz., p. 307.-Romanelli, vol. 1, p. 206.) This small town, of whose earlier history we have no particulars, gave a striking proof of its fidelity to the Romans in the second Punic war, when it refused to follow the example of the other Bruttian cities in joining the Carthaginians. In consequence of this resolution, it was 2, p. 470.-Salmas., de Ann. Clim., p. 66, 353.) Ptolemy everywhere calls him 'Apxatos, and says that he and Necepsus were the authors TiÇ KALμakTapikig dywyns, that is, of the art of computing a person's nativity from an enumeration of "climacteric years," reference being also had at the same time to the posi tion of the stars. (Salmas., I. c.) was a continued sandy waste. According to Diodorus Siculus (19, 55), there was no city in this quarter in the time of Antigonus, but only a place strongly fortified by nature, and supplied with numerous caves that were used as dwellings. Here, upon a rock (él TIVOS TÉTрas), the Nabathæi were accustomed to leave their families and plunder whenever they went on distant expeditions, and this served them as a stronghold. The troops of Antigonus, on their sudden inroad into the country, found in this spot a large quantity of frankincense and myrrh, and also five hundred talents in silver. (Diod., l. c.) The incense and myrrh show that they carried on an overland traffic with the neighbouring communities, and it is to this same traffic that the city of Petra owed its origin. All subsequent wri ters speak of Petra as a city, and an important place of trade. Eckhel gives a coin, on which we find the inscription 'Adprávn Herpa Mпrpóñоhis. If the coin be genuine, it shows that in the time of the Emperor the partner of his flight. (Liv., Epit., 114.) According to Hirtius, however, Juba and Petreius having agreed to die by each others' hands, the African prince easily killed his Roman friend, who was already advanced in years; but having attempted, without effect, to slay himself, persuaded one of his own slaves to become his executioner. (Hirtius, Bell. Afric., c. 94. Compare Florus, 4, 2, 69.-Appian, Bell. Civ., 2, 100.-Senec., Suas., 7.—ld., de Provid., 2.) PETRINUM, a village in the district of Sinuessa, in Italy. (Hor., Epist., 1, 5, 5.) PETROCORII, a Gallic tribe, belonging originally to Celtic Gaul, but subsequently forming part of Gallia Aquitanica, when this last was detached from Celtica. Their territory corresponded to the modern Perigord, and their capital Petrocorii answers to the present Perigneux. Both these modern names retain manifest traces of the ancient appellation. (Cas., B. G., 7, 75.-Lemaire, Ind. Geogr. ad Cæs., s. v.) Hadrian, Petra not only belonged to the Roman sway, but had also adopted the name of its conqueror. (Dio Cass., 68, 14.) The Syrians (and the Church fathers) call this place Rhekem ('Peкéμ) which also denotes "a rock;" and Arhekeme ('Apekέun.-Josephus, Ant. Jud., 4, 7). Josephus states that Aaron died in its neighbourhood; he calls it in this passage Arke ("Apkn) by contraction. (Ant. Jud., 4, 4.) St. Jerome makes it the same with the Sela of Scripture (2 Kings, 14, 7). Traces of the Syrian name remained at a late period, and we find the place mentioned by Abulfeda under the appellation of Ar Rakim, with the remark that there were dwellings here cut out of the rock. D'Anville names it incorrectly Karak. Petra seems not to have continued a place of trade for any very long time; at least Ammianus Marcellinus is silent respecting it, though he enumerates very carefully the important places in this region. Petra lay, according to Diodorus (19, 108), at the distance of 300 stadia from the Dead Sea; and, according to Strabo (779), PETRONIUS, Titus, surnamed Arbiter, because Nero three or four days' journey, or from twelve to sixteen had named him Arbiter elegantiæ. He was born, acgeographical miles in a southern direction from Jeri- cording to some modern scholars, at Massilia (Marcho. The remains of the ancient city were for a long seille) or somewhere in its vicinity, of a good family, time undiscovered by modern travellers. Burckhardt but received his education at Rome. No one knew and Bane, at last, discovered them at Wady Moussa, better how to unite the love of letters with the most in 1812, but could not give them a close examination unrestrained desire for pleasure. His portrait has been through fear of the Arabs. In 1828, two French drawn by Tacitus with the hand of a master. It must travellers, De la Borde and Linant, visited the spot, be confessed, however, that the Petronius of Tacitus and gave a description of the ruins; but the best and has the prænomen of Caius, and the Petronius of whom fullest account is that afforded by the pages of Mr. we are now treating that of Titus. There prevails, Stephens, who was at Petra in 1836. (Incidents of indeed, much uncertainty respecting the prænomen of Travel, vol. 2, p. 50, seqq.-Mannert, Geogr., vol. Petronius; Pliny (37, 7) calls the Petronius of Taci6, pt. 1, p. 137, 2d ed.)—II. A fortress of Macedo-tus, Titus; while the scholiast on Juvenal gives him nia, among the mountains beyond Libethra, the possession of which was disputed by the Perrhæbi of Thessaly and the kings of Macedonia. (Liv., 39, 26. -Id., 44, 32.) It commanded a pass which led to Pythium in Thessaly by the back of Olympus.-III. A fortress on Mount Hemus. (Liv., 40, 22.)—IV. A Corinthian borough or village, of which Eetion, the father of Cypselus, was a native. (Herod., 5, 91.)V. A rock-fortress in Sogdiana, taken by Alexander. (Quint. Curt., 7, 11.) It was also called Oxi Petra, probably from its being near the river Oxus. the name of Publius.-We will here insert the passage of the historian above mentioned, which gives so graphic a description of the character of the man: He passed his days in sleep, and his nights in business or pleasure. Indolence was at once his passion and his road to fame. What others did by vigour and industry, he accomplished by his love of pleasure and luxurious ease. Unlike the men who profess to understand social enjoyment, and ruin their fortunes, he led a life of expense without profusion; an epicure, yet not a prodigal; addicted to his appetites, but with PETRA, one of the divisions of Arabia, so called, taste and judgment; a refined and elegant voluptuary. not, as is commonly supposed, from its stony or rocky Gay and airy in his conversation, he charmed by a cercharacter (rpa, "a rock," ," "a stone"), but from its tain graceful negligence, the more engaging as it flowcelebrated emporium Petra. (Vid. Petra, I.) It was ed from the natural frankness of his disposition. With bounded on the east by Arabia Deserta, on the west all his delicacy and careless ease, he showed when he by Egypt and the Mediterranean, on the south by the was governor of Bithynia, and afterward in the year Red Sea, which here divides and runs north in two of his consulship, that vigour of mind and softness of branches, and on the north by Palestine. This coun- manners may well unite in the same person. From try contained the southern Edomites, the Amalekites, his public station he returned to his usual gratificathe Cushites, who are improperly called the Ethiopi- tions, fond of vice, or of pleasures that bordered upon ans, the Hivites, &c. Their descendants are at pres- it. His gayety recommended him to the notice of the ent known by the general name of Arabians; but it is prince. Being in favour at court, and cherished as the of consequence to notice the ancient inhabitants as they companion of Nero in all his select parties, he was alare mentioned in the text of Scripture. (Vid. Arabia.) lowed to be the arbiter of taste and elegance. WithPETREIUS, Marcus, a Roman commander. He was out the sanction of Petronius nothing was exquisite, lieutenant to the consul C. Antonius, and was intrust- nothing rare or delicious. Hence the jealousy of Tied by the latter, who feigned indisposition, with the gellinus, who dreaded a rival, in the good graces of the command of the Roman forces against the army of emperor almost his equal, in the science of luxury Catiline, whom he totally defeated." (Sall., Bell. Ćat., his superior. Tigellinus determined to work his downc. 59, seq.) Faithful to the cause of the republic, he fall, and accordingly addressed himself to the cruelty became one of Pompey's lieutenants in Spain during of the prince; that master passion to which all other the civil contest, and endeavoured, in conjunction with affections and every motive were sure to give way. Afranius, to oppose the progress of Cæsar in that coun- He charged Petronius with having lived in close intitry. They were both, however, compelled to surren-macy with Sævinus the conspirator; and, to give colder (Cæs., Bell. Civ., 1, 38, seqq.), and retired after our to that assertion, he bribed a slave to turn informthis to Greece, where they joined the army of Porn-er against his master. The rest of the domestics were pey. After the battle of Pharsalia, Petreius fled to Patræ, where Cato afforded him an asylum; and he subsequently accompanied Scipio into Africa. Here again, however, the defeat at Thapsus disappointed his hopes, and he fell, according to Livy, by his own hand, after having performed the same sad office for Juba, loaded with irons. Nor was Petronius suffered to make his defence. Nero at that time happened to be on one of his excursions into Campania. Petronius had followed him as far as Cumæ, but was not allow. ed to proceed farther than that place. He seemed to linger in doubt and fear, and yet he was not in a hur of ry to leave a world which he loved. He opened his | If it were certain, as some suppose, that Terentianus veins and closed them again, at intervals losing a small Maurus was the contemporary of Martial, there would quantity of blood, then binding up the orifice, as his remain but little doubt respecting the epoch when Peown inclinations prompted. He conversed during the tronius lived, since Terentianus cites him once under whole time with his usual gayety, never changing his the name of Arbiter, and another time under that of habitual manner, nor talking sentences to show his Petronius. In 1770, a learned Neapolitan, Ignarra, contempt of death. He listened to his friends, who supported, with some new reasons, the opinion that Peendeavoured to entertain him, not with grave discour- tronius lived towards the end of the era of the Antoses on the immortality of the soul or the moral wisdom nines. It appears more than probable, he maintains, of philosophers, but with strains of poetry, and verses that the Satyricon was written in the same city in which of a gay and natural turn. He distributed presents to the scene of the banquet of Trimalcion is laid, and some of his servants, and ordered others to be chastised. that its object is to depict the mauners of the NeaHe walked out for his amusement, and even lay down politans. Many hellenisms and solecisms, some of to sleep. In his last scene of life he acted with such which still remain among the lower orders at Naples, calm tranquillity, that his death, though an act of ne- prove, he thinks, that Petronius was either born in that cessity, seemed no more than the decline of nature. city, or received his education there. As to the perIn his will, he scorned to follow the example of others, od in which he lived, he indicates it himself, according who, like himself, died under the tyrant's stroke: he to Ignarra, in the 44th, 57th, and 76th chapters, and neither flattered the emperor, nor Tigellinus, nor any elsewhere, by giving to the city of Naples the title of of the creatures of the court; but having written, under colony, or in speaking of the colonial magistrates. Ig the fictitious names of profligate men and women, a nar- narra then proceeds to show that Naples only became rative of Nero's debauchery, and his new modes of vice, a Roman colony towards the close of the reign of Com he had the spirit to send to the emperor the tablets, modus. Finally, he remarks that Petronius, in the sealed with his own seal, which he took care to break, 76th chapter, makes mention of the mathematician that, after his death, it might not be used for the destruc- Serapion, who lived under Caracalla, as appears from tion of any person whatever." (Tacitus, Ann., 16, 18, a passage in Dio Cassius (78, 4). Ignarra thinks that seqq.)-Some critics have thought that the Petronius Petronius, born under the Antonines, had, by a careful to whom this passage refers is not the same with the study of good models, appropriated to himself much of author of the work that has come down to us, entitled the elegance of the golden age, without getting entire Satyricon. Their chief argument is, that the work ly rid of the corruption of that in which he happen which, according to Tacitus, Petronius, when dying, ed to live. (De Palæstra Neapolitana, &c., p. 182, caused to be sent to Nero, was written on portable seqq.) Wyttenbach appears to favour the opinion tablets (codicilli), a circumstance that militates against Ignarra, in some of its features (Bibl. Crit., pt. 5, p. the idea of its being a production of any length. It is 84, seqq.); but many arguments might be cited against urged, moreover, that the accomplices in the tyrant's it.-Some critics, again, have thought that the auther debaucheries and crimes were named in the work, of the Satyricon was not called Petronius, but that, 25 whereas the actors in the Satyricon bear fictitious the treatise on the art of cookery was entitled Apicius, names. It is evident, indeed, that the Satyricon is and the Distichs Cato, so this Menippean Satire has not the piece of which Tacitus makes mention, and been styled Petronius by the author: this opinion, that Nero caused the latter to be destroyed; but it however, is altogether untenable.-The Satyricon of would seem that the critics who advocate this opinion Petronius is written in the Varronian or Menippean go too far when they deny also the identity of the wri- style of satire. We have merely a fragment of it, or, ters. What is there to prevent our supposing that to speak more correctly, a succession of fragments, Petronius, having now no measure to keep with the which some lover of loose and indecent reading would world, amused himself with tracing on his testament- seem to have selected from the work in the middle ary tablets the scandalous lives of the individuals, ages, for it is said that the Satyricon existed entire in whose general manners he was content with depict the twelfth century. The fragments that remain form ing in his larger work? Those critics, on the other so many episodes: the most witty of these is the wellhand, who do not see in the author of the Satyricon known history of the Ephesian Matron; but the longthe friend and intimate companion of Nero, are divided est, and the one most descriptive of the manners of in opinion as to the period when he lived. Some car- the day, is the Banquet of Trimalcion, a ridiculous per ry him up as high as the era of Augustus, while others sonage, intended, as some think, to represent the Emplace him under the Antonines, or even in the fourth peror Claudius. This fragment was found in the 17th century. Both parties ground their respective argu-century at Trau in Dalmatia, in the library of a certain ments on his style. The former discover in it the Nicolaus Cippius, and was published for the first time purity of the golden age, while the latter find it mark- at Padua, in 1662. It gave rise to a very warm coned with many low and trivial expressions, and with many solecisins that indicate the decline of the language. Without wishing to throw the blame of some of these faults on the manuscript itself, which is in so deplorable a state that many passages remain incapable of being deciphered, notwithstanding all the efforts of the commentators, may we not suppose that these pretended solecisms have been purposely put by the author in the mouths of individuals of the lower class, and that the unusual words employed by him only appear such to us, because we are unacquainted with the language of debauchery and intoxication among the Romans?Some critics, surprised that Seneca makes no mention of Petronius, think that this silence is owing to the circumstance of that philosopher's believing himself to be alluded to in the following lines aimed by Petronius against the Stoics: "Ipsi qui cynica traducunt tempora scena, Nonnunquam nummis vendere verba solent.” test among the scholars of the day. Adrien de Valois and Wagenseil attacked its authenticity, which was defended in its turn by Petit, the celebrated physician, in a treatise in which he assumed the name of Marinus Statileius. The manuscript was sent to Rome and examined by some of the first critics of the day. It passed after this into the library of the King of France. At present there is no doubt as to its au thenticity. The noise which this discovery made in the literary world induced a French officer named Nodot to attempt an imposture, which did not, however, answer his hopes. He published, in 1693, at Rotterdam, a pretended Petronius, complete in all its parts, which he said had been found at Belgrade, in 1688, by a certain Dupin. At first, some members of the academies of Nimes and Arles suffered themselves to be imposed upon; the fraud, however, was soon discov ered. We must not confound with this last-mentioned individual a Spaniard named Marchena, who, in 1800, amused himself with publishing a new fragment of Petronius, found, according to him, in the library at St. Gall. (Repertoire de Litter. Anc., vol. 1, p. 239.)-A poem in 295 verses, on the fall of the Roman republic, forms a fine episode to the Satyricon of Petronius. The Satyricon itself, it may be remarked, in concluding, is admirable for the truth with which the author delineates the characters of his personages. It contains many pleasing pictures, full of irony; and it is characterized by great spirit and gayety of manner; but it is to be regretted that the author has employed his abilities on a subject so truly immoral and disgusting. The style is rich, picturesque, and energetic; but often obscure and difficult, either from the unusual words which we meet with in it, or by reason of the corrupt state of the text. The best edition is that of Burman, 4to, Ultraj., 1709; to which may be added that of Reinesius, 1731, 8vo, and that of C. G. Anton, Lips., 1781, 8vo. (Schöll, Hist. Lit. Rom., | vol. 2, p. 416, seqq.-Bähr, Gesch. Röm. Lit., vol. 1, p. 577, seqq.) suade one of his friends, Alcibiades or Crito, to redeem him. From that time Phædon applied himself diligently to the study of moral philosophy under Socrates; and to the last adhered to his master with the most affectionate attachment. He instituted a school at Elis after the Socratic model, which was continued by Plistanus, an Elian, and afterward by Menedemus of Eretria. One of the dialogues of Plato is named after Phædon, namely, the celebrated one respecting the immortality of the soul. (Diog. Laert., 2, 106.— | Aul. Gell., 2, 18.) PHEDRA, a daughter of Minos and Pasiphae, who married Theseus, by whom she became mother of Acamas and Demophöon. (Vid. Hippolytus I.) PHEDRUS (or PHÆDER, for the genitive Phadri admits of either of these forms being the nominative), a Latin fabulist. All that we know respecting him is obtained from his own productions, for no ancient writer down to the time of Avienus has made mention of him, except, perhaps, on one occasion, Martial. AviPEUCE, a name applied to the land insulated by the enus speaks of him in the preface to his own Fables, two principal arms of the Danube at its mouth. The and his authority can only be combated by the erroancient appellation still partly remains in that of Pic-neous assertion, that the Fables of this latter writer zina. It was called Peuce from TEKη, a pine-tree, himself are the productions of more modern times. with which species of tree it abounded. From this (Christ. Prolus., de Phædro, p. 8.-Compare, on the island the Peucini, who dwelt in and adjacent to it, de- opposite side of the question, the Nachträge zu Sulrived their name. We find them reappearing in the zer, p. 36, seqq.) Martial also alludes to a Phædrus Lower Empire, under the names of Pieziniges and in one of his epigrams (3, 10), where some very erroPatzinacites. (Lucan, 3, 202.—Plin., 4, 12.) neously refer the name to an Epicurean philosopher, PEUCETIA, a region of Apulia, on the coast, below one of Cicero's early instructers (Christ. Prolus., p. Daunia. The Peucetii, according to Dionysius of 6), and others to a certain writer of mimes. (Farnab. Halicarnassus, derived their name from Peucetius, son ad Martial., l. c.-Hülsemann, de Cod. Fab. Avian., of Lycaon, king of Arcadia, who, with his brother Eno- Gött., 1807.) The whole question turns on the true trus, migrated to Italy seventeen generations before force of the epithet "improbus," as applied by Martial the siege of Troy. But modern critics have felt little to Phædrus, and this has been well discussed by Adry, disposed to give credit to a story, the improbability of who decides in favour of the Fabulist. (Dissertation which is so very apparent, whether we look to the sur les quatre MSS. de Phèdre, p. 195.—Phædrus, country whence these pretended settlers are said to ed. Lemaire, vol. 1.) Phædrus is generally supposed have come, or the state of navigation at so remote a to have been a Thracian by birth; and two passages period. (Freret, Mem. de l'Acad., &c., vol. 18, p. in his writings (Prol., lib. 3, 17, and 54) would seem 87.) Had the Peucetii and the Enotri really been of to indicate this. Some of the later editors make him Grecian origin, Dionysius might have adduced better a Macedonian, but he can only be called so as far as evidence of the fact than the genealogies of the Arca- the term Macedonian comprises that of Thracian also. dian chiefs, cited from Pherecydes. The most re-(Schwabe, Vit. Phadr.) The year of his birth is unspectable authority he could have brought forward on this point would unquestionably have been that of Antiochus the Syracusan; but this historian is only quoted by him in proof of the antiquity of the Enotri, not of their Grecian descent. (Dion. Hal., 1, 2.—Strabo, 283.-Plin., 3, 11.) The Peucetii are always spoken of in history, even by the Greeks themselves, as barbarians, who differed in no essential respect from the Daunii, Iapyges, and other neighbouring nations. (Cramer's Anc. Italy, vol. 2, p. 296.) PEUCINI. Vid. Peuce. PHACUSA, a town of Egypt, on the Pelusiac arm of the Nile. The ruins are found near the modern Tell Phakus (hill of Phacusa). (Steph. Byz., s. v.) known: it is not ascertained either whether he was born in slavery, or whether some event deprived him of his freedom. The year that Cicero was proconsul in Asia, C. Octavius, the father of Augustus, and proprætor in Macedonia, gained a victory over some Thracian clans. It has been conjectured that Phædrus, still an infant, was among the captives taken on this occasion; but, if this be true, then Phædrus will have written a portion of his fables at the age of more than seventy years; which appears contrary to a passage in his work (lib. 4, epil. 8), in which he prays one of his patrons not to put off his favours to a period when, having reached an advanced age, he would be no longer able to enjoy them. However this may be, Pha drus was brought to Rome at a very early age, where he learned the Latin tongue, which became as familPHEACIA, the Homeric name for the island of Cor-iar to him as his native language. Augustus gave cyra. (Vid. Corcyra.) When visited by Ulysses, Al-him his freedom, and the means of living comfortably cinous was its king, and his gardens are beautifully described by the poet. The Phracians are represented as an easy-tempered and luxurious race, but remarkable for their skill in navigation. They were fabled to have derived their name from Phæax, a son of Neptune. (Hom, Od., 6, 1, seqq.—Id. ib., 7, 1, seqq. Völcker, Homerische Geographie, p. 66.) PHACUSSA, one of the Sporades, now Gaiphonisi. (Plin., 4, 12.-Steph. Byz., s. v. Þákovoσa.) without the necessity of exertion. Under the reign of Tiberius he was persecuted by Sejanus, who became his accuser and effected his condemnation. The cause of Sejanus's hatred, and the pretext for the accusation, are equally unknown. Some commentators, and, in particular, Brotier, think they have discovered the mo tive for this persecution in the sixth fable of the first PHEDON, a native of Elis, and the founder of the book, on the marriage of the sun. They have sup Eliac school. He was descended from an illustrious posed that by the sun Phædrus meant to designate Sefamily; but had the misfortune early in life to be de- janus, who aspired to the hand of Livilla, widow of the prived of his patrimony, and sold as a slave at Athens. son of Tiberius; but in this fable the allusion is to a It happened that Socrates, as he passed by the house marriage, not to a project of marriage. It is more where Phædon lived, remarked in his countenance tra- probable that, in order to render the poet suspected by ces of an ingenuous mind, which induced him to per-Tiberius, some one had persuaded the tyrant, who, since his retirement to the island of Capreæ, was be- Jitate; and the discovery that was made, at the begin come an object of general contempt, that Phædrus ning of the 18th century, of the manuscripts of the meant him, in the second fable of the first book, by fables of Perotti, cleared up at once the whole mysthe log given to the frogs as their king. But, if Pha-tery. One of the titles of this MS. is as follows: drus has indeed represented Tiberius under the alle- "Nicolai Perotti Epitome Fabularum Esopi, Avieni, gory of a log, the hydra, which takes its place, will in- et Phædri," &c.; and to this are subjoined some dicate the successor of the monarch, unless we sup- verses, in which Perotti openly declares that the fables pose Sejanus to be intended by the reptile: this inter- are not his, but taken from Esop, Avienus, and Phepretation, however, appears extremely forced. Titze drus. The fables taken from Phædrus in this collec thinks that Phædrus may have been at first a favourite tion are the 6th, 7th, and 8th of the first book, toof Sejanus, and afterward involved in his disgrace; gether with the epilogue; a large number of the sec and that Eutychus, in the reign of Caligula, had given ond book; from the 19th to the 24th of the fourth him hopes of a restoration to imperial patronage. This book, and the first five of the 5th book. Perotti, theretheory, however, is contradicted by the prologue to the fore, is by no means the plagiarist some suppose him third book of the fables (v. 4.-Titze, Introduct. in to be, since he names the authors from whom he bor Phædr.-Id., de Phædri vita, scriptis, et usu). rows. Two other arguments may also be adduced in Phædrus composed five books of fables, containing, in favour of the opinion which makes the fables of Pheall, ninety fables, written in Iambic verse. He has the drus much earlier than Perotti's time: one is afforded merit of having first made the Romans acquainted with by a monumental inscription, found at Apulum, in Dathe fables of Esop; not that all his own fables are cia, and consisting of a verse of one of the fables of merely translations of those of the latter, but because Phædrus (3, 17.-Mannert, Res Trajani ad Danub, the two thirds of them that appear original, or, at least, etc., p. 78); the other argument is deduced from the with the originals of which we are unacquainted, are age of the MSS., which is much earlier than the ers written in the manner of Esop. Phædrus deserves of the Bishop of Manfredonia, and falls in the ninth the praise of invention for the way in which he has ar- or tenth century. It has been conjectured, and with ranged them; and he is quite as original a poet as great appearance of probability, that the fables of Fontaine, who, like him, has taken from other sources Phædrus were frequently taken by the writers of the besides the fables of sop the materials for a large twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, and conportion of his own. He is distinguished for a precis-verted into prose, and in this way we are to account ion, a gracefulness, and a naïveté of style and manner for the great destruction of MSS.-There is, however, that have never been surpassed. The air of simplicity another question connected with this subject. The which characterizes his pieces is the surest guarantee manuscript of Perotti, to which we have just alluded as of their authenticity, which some critics have contest- having been discovered near the beginning of the eighted. His diction is at the same time remarkable for eenth century, had, by some fatality or other, been its elegance, though this occasionally is pushed rather again lost, and remained so until 1808, when it was too far into the regions of refinement. The manu- rediscovered at Naples, and in 1809 a supplement of scripts of Phædrus are extremely rare. The one from 32 new fables of Phædrus (as they were styled) was which Pithou (Pithoeus) published, in 1596, the editio published by Casitto and Jannelli. A literary warfare princeps of the fables, passed eventually, by marriage, immediately arose respecting the authenticity of these into the hands of the Lepelletier family; and is now productions, in which several eminent scholars took in the library of M. Lepelletier de Rosanbo (De Xi-part; and the opinion is now very generally enter vrey, ad. Phædr., p. 23, seqq.—Id. ib., p. 40, seqq.). tained, that they are not, as was at first supposed, the A second manuscript, which Rigalt used in his edition composition of Perotti, but of some writer antecedent of 1617, was destroyed by fire at Rheims in 1774; to his time, though by no means from the pen of Phe but we have remaining of this a very accurate colla- drus himself. (Consult Adry, Examen des nouvelles tion. A third one, or, rather, the remains of one, is fables de Phedre, Paris, 1812.-Phædrus, ed. Le now in the Vatican library, and is said to contain from maire, vol. 1, p. 197, seqq.)-It remains but to add the first to the twenty-first fable of the first book. a few words in relation to the time when Phædrus (Notit. Literar. de Codd. MSS., Phædri, No. 3, de published his fables. The main difficulty here arises Cod. Danielis.) This rarity of manuscripts is one from the words of Seneca, already quoted, and which cause of the doubts that have been entertained by some expressly state that the Romans had never attempted respecting the authenticity of the fables ascribed to to compose after the manner of the Esopic fabies. him, and even the very existence of the poet. Some Brotier thinks that Seneca makes no mention of Pheother circumstances lend weight to these doubts: the drus, because the latter was a barbarian, not Romansilence, namely, of the ancient writers concerning Pha- born. This reason, although given also by Fabricius drus, and the positive declaration of Seneca, who re- and Vossius, is very unsatisfactory. What would we marks (Consol. ad Polyb., c. 27) that the Romans had say of a writer who, having to speak of the Latin never attempted to compose after the manner of the comic poets, should omit all mention of Terence beEsopic fables. ("Non audeo te usque eo producere, ut cause he was a native of Africa? Vavasseur thinks, fabellas quoque et Esopeos logos, intentatum Romanis that, as Phædrus expresses himself with great freeingeniis opus, solita tibi venustate connectas.") An- dom, his fables were suppressed under Tiberius, Caother argument on this same side of the question is as ligula, Claudius, and Nero, so that Seneca had never follows: Nicolas Perotti, who, about the middle of heard of them. Perhaps," he adds, "it was an act the 15th century, was archbishop of Manfredonia, and of pure forgetfulness on his part ;" and he seems alone of the patrons of Greek literature in Italy, cites most induced to believe, that Seneca, through jealousy in his Cornu Copia a fable which he says he took in towards an author who had written with so much simpli his early days from the fables of Avienus. ("Allusit city, and so unlike his own affected manner, has purposead fabulam, quam nos ex Avieno in fabellas nostras ly passed him over in silence. Desbillons, dissatisfied adolescentes lambico carmine transtulimus." Cornu with both these reasons, believes that Phædrus, who Cop, p. 963, 34, seqq., ed. Basil, 1532, fol.) The survived Sejanus, lived to the third year of the reign fable, however, is not in the collection of Avienus, but of Claudius, a period when Seneca, writing his work on forms the 17th of the 3d book of Phædrus; and from "Consolation," might easily say, that the Romans this inaccuracy of citation, which was regarded as a had not as yet any fabulist, since the productions of falsehood, some concluded that Perotti was a plagia- Phædrus might not yet have been published. This rist, while others regarded Phædrus as a supposititious explanation is not devoid of probability.-The best author. Both these opinions were a little too precip-editions of Phædrus are, that of Burmann, Amst., 1698, |