Part 48

"The term 'Peregrinus,' with which in early times 'Hostis' (i. e. stranger) was synonymous, embraced, in its widest acceptation, everyone possessed of personal freedom who was not a Civis Romanus. Generally, however, Peregrinus was not applied to all foreigners indiscriminately, but to those persons only, who, although not Cives, were connected with Rome."

_w. Ramsay, Manual of Roman Antiquity, chapter 3._

See, also, CIVES ROMANI.

PERGAMUM: Start--------

PERGAMUM, PERGAMUS.

This ancient city in northwestern Asia Minor, within the province of Mysia, on the north of the river Caïcus, became, during the troubled century that followed the death of Alexander, first the seat of an important principality, and then the capital of a rich and flourishing kingdom, to which it gave its name. It seems to have owed its fortunes to a great deposit of treasures—part of the plunder of Asia—which Lysimachus, one of the generals and successors of Alexander, left for safe keeping within its walls, under the care of an eunuch, named Philetærus. This Philetærus found excuses, after a time, for renouncing allegiance to Lysimachus, appropriating the treasures and using them to make himself lord of Pergamum. He was succeeded by a nephew, Eumenes, and he in turn by his cousin Attalus. The latter, "who had succeeded to the possession of Pergamum in 241 [B. C.], met and vanquished the Galatians in a great battle, which gave him such popularity that he was able to assume the title of king, and extend his influence far beyond his inherited dominion. … The court of Pergamum continued to flourish till it controlled the larger part of Asia Minor. In his long reign this king represented almost as much as the King of Egypt the art and culture of Hellenism. His great victory over the Galatians was celebrated by the dedication of so many splendid offerings to various shrines, that the Pergamene school made a distinct impression upon the world's taste. Critics have enumerated seventeen remaining types, which appear to have come from statues of that time—the best known is the so–called 'Dying Gladiator,' who is really a dying Galatian. … Perhaps the literature of the court was even more remarkable. Starting on the model of Alexandria, with a great library, Attalus was far more fortunate than the Ptolemies in making his university the home of Stoic philosophy."

_J. P. Mahaffy, Story of Alexander's Empire, chapter 20._

_en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_Gaul_

From the assumption of the crown by Attalus I. the kingdom of Pergamus existed about a century. Its last king bequeathed it to the Romans in 133 B. C. and it became a Roman province. Its splendid library of 200,000 volumes was given to Cleopatra a century later by Antony, and was added to that of Alexandria. The name of the city is perpetuated in the word parchment, which is derived therefrom. Its ruins are found at a place called Bergamah.

See, also, SELEUCIDÆ; B. C. 224-187; ALEXANDRIA: B. C. 282-246; and ROME: B. C. 47-46.

PERGAMUM: A. D. 1336. Conquest by the Ottoman Turks.

See TURKS (OTTOMAN): A. D. 1326-1359.

PERGAMUM: End--------

PERGAMUS, Citadel of.

See TROJA.

PERICLES, Age of.

See ATHENS: B. C. 466-454; and 445-429.

PERINTHUS: B. C. 340. Siege by Philip of Macedon.

See GREECE: B. C. 340.

PERIOECI, The.

See SPARTA: THE CITY.

PERIPLUS.

The term periplus, in the usage of Greek and Roman writers, signified a voyage round the coast of some sea. Example: "The Periplus of the Erythrean Sea."

PERIZZITES, The.

"The name 'Perizzites,' where mentioned in the Bible, is not meant to designate any particular race, but country people, in contradistinction to those dwelling in towns."

_F. Lenormant, Manual of Ancient History, book 6, chapter 1._

PERMANENT SETTLEMENT OF BENGAL LAND REVENUE.

See INDIA: A. D. 1785-1793.

PERONNE, The Treaty of.

See BURGUNDY: A. D. 1467-1468.

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PERPETUAL EDICT, The.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1575-1577.

PERPIGNAN: A. D. 1642. Siege and capture by the French.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1640-1642.

PERRHÆBIANS, The.

"There had dwelt in the valley of the Peneus [Thessaly] from the earliest times a Pelasgic nation, which offered up thanks to the gods for the possession of so fruitful a territory at the festival of Peloria. … Larissa was the ancient capital of this nation. But at a very early time the primitive inhabitants were either expelled or reduced to subjection by more northern tribes. Those who had retired into the mountains became the Perrhæbian nation, and always retained a certain degree of independence. In the Homeric catalogue the Perrhæbians are mentioned as dwelling on the hill Cyphus, under Olympus."

_C. O. Müller, History and Antiquity of the Doric Race, book 1, chapter 1._

Dr. Curtius is of the opinion that the Dorians were a subdivision of the Perrhæbians.

_E. Curtius History of Greece, book 1, chapter 4._

PERRY, Commodore Matthew C.: Expedition to Japan.

See JAPAN: A. D. 1852-1888.

PERRY, Commodore Oliver H.: Victory on Lake Erie.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812-1813.

PERRYVILLE, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JUNE-OCTOBER: TENNESSEE-KENTUCKY).

PERSARGADÆ.

See PERSIA., ANCIENT PEOPLE, &c.

PERSARMENIA.

While the Persians possessed Armenia Major, east of the Euphrates, and the Romans held Armenia Minor, west of that river, the former region was sometimes called Persarmenia.

PERSECUTIONS, Religious. Of Albigenses.

See ALBIGENSES.

Of Christians under the Roman Empire.

See ROME: A. D. 64-68; 96-138; 192-284; 303-305; and CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 100-312.

Of Hussites in Bohemia.

See BOHEMIA: A. D. 1419-1434, and after.

Of Jews.

See JEWS.

Of Lollards.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1360-1414.

Of Protestants in England.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1555-1558.

Of Protestants in France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1532-1547; 1559-1561 to 1598-1599; 1661-1680; 1681-1698.

Of Protestants in the Netherlands.

See NETHERLANDS: A.D. 1521-1555 to 1594-1609.

Of Roman Catholics in England.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1572-1603; 1585-1587; 1587-1588; 1678-1679.

Of Roman Catholics in Ireland.

See IRELAND: A. D.1691-1782.

Of Christians in Japan.

See JAPAN: A. D. 1549-1686.

Of the Waldenses.

See WALDENSES.

See, also, INQUISITION.

PERSEIDÆ, The.

See ARGOS.—ARGOLIS.

PERSEPOLIS: Start--------

PERSEPOLIS: Origin.

See PERSIA, ANCIENT PEOPLE.

PERSEPOLIS: B. C. 330. Destruction by Alexander.

Although Persepolis was surrendered to him on his approach to it (B. C. 331), Alexander the Great determined to destroy the city. "In this their home the Persian kings had accumulated their national edifices, their regal sepulchres, the inscriptions commemorative of their religious or legendary sentiment, with many trophies and acquisitions arising out of their conquests. For the purposes of the Great King's empire, Babylon, or Susa, or Ekbatana, were more central and convenient residences; but Persepolis was still regarded as the heart of Persian nationality. It was the chief magazine, though not the only one, of those annual accumulations from the imperial revenue, which each king successively increased, and which none seems to have ever diminished. … After appropriating the regal treasure—to the alleged amount of 120,000 talents in gold and silver (=£27,600,000 sterling) —Alexander set fire to the citadel. … The persons and property of the inhabitants were abandoned to the licence of the soldiers, who obtained an immense booty, not merely in gold and silver, but also in rich clothing, furniture, and ostentatious ornaments of every kind. The male inhabitants were slain, the females dragged into servitude; except such as obtained safety by flight, or burned themselves with their property in their own houses."

_G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 93._

PERSIA: Start--------

PERSIA: Ancient people and country.

"Persia Proper seems to have corresponded nearly to that province of the modern Iran which still bears the ancient name slightly modified, being called Farsistan or Fars. … Persia Proper lay upon the gulf to which it has given name, extending from the mouth of the Tab (Oroatis) to the point where the gulf joins the Indian Ocean. It was bounded on the west by Susiana, on the north by Media Magna, on the east by Mycia, and on the south by the sea. Its length seems to have been about 450, and its average width about 250 miles. … The earliest known capital of the region was Pasargadæ, or Persagadæ, as the name is sometimes written, of which the ruins still exist near Murgab, in latitude 30° 15', longitude 53° 17'. Here is the famous tomb of Cyrus. … At the distance of thirty miles from Pasargadæ, or of more than forty by the ordinary road, grew up the second capital, Persepolis. … The Empire, which, commencing from Persia Proper, spread itself, toward the close of the sixth century before Christ, over the surrounding tracts, [extended from the Caspian Sea and the Indian Desert to the Mediterranean and the Propontis]. … The earliest appearance of the Persians in history is in the inscriptions of the Assyrian kings, which begin to notice them about the middle of the ninth century, B. C. At this time Shalmanezer II. [the Assyrian king] found them in south-western Armenia, where they were in close contact with the Medes, of whom, however, they seem to have been wholly independent. … It is not until the reign of Sennacherib that we once more find them brought into contact with the power which aspired to be mistress of Asia. At the time of their re-appearance they are no longer in Armenia, but have descended the line of Zagros and reached the districts which lie north and north-east of Susiana. … It is probable that they did not settle into an organized monarchy much before the fall of Nineveh. … The history of the Persian 'Empire' dates from the conquest of Astyages [the Median king] by Cyrus, and therefore commences with the year B. C. 558 [or, according to Sayce, B. C. 549 —see below]."

_G. Rawlinson, Five Great Monarchies: Persia, chapters 1 and 7._

ALSO IN: _A. R. Sayce, Ancient Empires of the East, appendix 5._

See, also, ARIANS; IRAN; and ACHÆMENIDS.

PERSIA: The ancient religion.

See ZOROASTRIANS.

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PERSIA: B. C. 549-521. The founding of the empire by Cyrus the Great, King of Elam. His conquest of Media, Persia, Lydia, and Babylonia. The restoration of the Jews. Conquest of Egypt by Kambyses.

"It was in B. C. 549 that Astyages was overthrown [see MEDIA]. On his march against Kyros [Cyrus] his own soldiers, drawn probably from his Aryan subjects, revolted against him and gave him into the hands of his enemy. 'The land of Ekbatana and the royal city' were ravaged and plundered by the conqueror; the Aryan Medes at once acknowledged the supremacy of Kyros, and the empire of Kyaxares was destroyed. Some time, however, was still needed to complete the conquest; the older Medic population still held out in the more distant regions of the empire, and probably received encouragement and promises of help from Babylonia. In B. C. 546, however, Kyros marched from Arbela, crossed the Tigris, and destroyed the last relics of Median independence. … The following year saw the opening of the campaign against Babylonia [see BABYLONIA: B. C. 625-539]. But the Babylonian army, encamped near Sippara, formed a barrier which the Persians were unable to overcome; and trusting, therefore, to undermine the power of Nabonidos by secret intrigues with his subjects, Kyros proceeded against Krœsos. A single campaign sufficed to capture Sardes and its monarch, and to add Asia Minor to the Persian dominions [see LYDIANS, and ASIA MINOR: B. C. 724-539]. The Persian conqueror was now free to attack Babylonia. Here his intrigues were already bearing fruit. The Jewish exiles were anxiously expecting him to redeem them from captivity, and the tribes on the sea coast were ready to welcome a new master. In B. C. 538 the blow was struck. The Persian army entered Babylonia from the south. The army of Nabonidos was defeated at Rata in June; on the 14th of that month Sippara opened its gates, and two days later Gobryas, the Persian general, marched into Babylon itself 'without battle and fighting.' … In October Kyros himself entered his new capital in triumph."

_A. H. Sayee, The Ancient Empires of the East: Herodotus 1-3. Appendix 5._

"The history of the downfall of the great Babylonian Empire, and of the causes, humanly speaking, which brought about a restoration of the Jews, has recently been revealed to us by the progress of Assyrian discovery. We now possess the account given by Cyrus himself, of the overthrow of Nabonidos, the Babylonian king, and of the conqueror's permission to the captives in Babylonia to return to their homes. The account is contained in two documents, written, like most other Assyrian and Babylonian records, upon clay, and lately brought from Babylonia to England by Mr. Rassam. One of these documents is a tablet which chronicles the events of each year in the reign of Nabonidos, the last Babylonian monarch, and continues the history into the first year of Cyrus, as king of Babylon. The other is a cylinder, on which Cyrus glorifies himself and his son Kambyses, and professes his adherence to the worship of Bel-Merodach, the patron-god of Babylon. The tablet-inscription is, unfortunately, somewhat mutilated, especially at the beginning and the end, and little can be made out of the annals of the first five years of Nabonidos, except that he was occupied with disturbances in Syria. In the sixth year the record becomes clear and continuous. … The inscriptions … present us with an account of the overthrow of the Babylonian Empire, which is in many important respects very different from that handed down to us by classical writers. We possess in them the contemporaneous account of one who was the chief actor in the events he records, and have ceased to be dependent upon Greek and Latin writers, who could not read a single cuneiform character, and were separated by a long lapse of time from the age of Nabonidos and Cyrus. Perhaps the first fact which will strike the mind of the reader with astonishment is that Cyrus does not call himself and his ancestors kings of Persia, but of Elam. The word used is Anzan or Ansan, which an old Babylonian geographical tablet explains as the native name of the country which the Assyrians and Hebrews called Elam. This statement is verified by early inscriptions found at Susa and other places in the neighbourhood, and belonging to the ancient monarchs of Elam, who contended on equal terms with Babylonia and Assyria until they were at last conquered by the Assyrian king Assur-bani-pal, and their country made an Assyrian province. In these inscriptions they take the imperial title of 'king of Anzan.' The annalistic tablet lets us see when Cyrus first became king of Persia. In the sixth year of Nabonidos (B. C. 549) Cyrus is still king of Elam; in the ninth year he has become king of Persia. Between these two years, therefore, he must have gained possession of Persia either by conquest or in some peaceable way. When he overthrew Astyages his rule did not as yet extend so far. At the same time Cyrus must have been of Persian descent, since he traces his ancestry back to Teispes, whom Darius, the son of Hystaspes, in his great inscription on the sacred rock of Behistun, claims as his own forefather. … The fact that Susa or Shushan was the original capital of Cyrus explains why it remained the leading city of the Persian Empire; and we can also now understand why it is that in Isaiah xxi. 2, the prophet bids Elam and Media, and not Persia and Media, 'go up' against Babylon. That Cyrus was an Elamite, however, is not the only startling revelation which the newly-discovered inscriptions have made to us. We learn from them that he was a polytheist who worshipped Bel-Merodach and Nebo, and paid public homage to the deities of Babylon. We have learned a similar fact in regard to his son Kambyses from the Egyptian monuments. These have shown us that the account of the murder of the sacred bull Apis by Kambyses given by Herodotus is a fiction; a tablet accompanying the huge granite sarcophagus of the very bull he was supposed to have wounded has been found with the image of Kambyses sculptured upon it kneeling before the Egyptian god. The belief that Cyrus was a monotheist grew out of the belief that he was a Persian, and, like other Persians, a follower of the Zoroastrian faith; there is nothing in Scripture to warrant it. Cyrus was God's shepherd only because he was His chosen instrument in bringing about the restoration of Israel. … The first work of Cyrus was to ingratiate himself with the conquered population by affecting a show of zeal and piety towards their gods, and with the nations which had been kept in captivity in Babylonia, by sending them and their deities back to their homes. {2511} Among these nations were the Jews, who had perhaps assisted the king of Elam in his attack upon Nabonidos. Experience had taught Cyrus the danger of allowing a disaffected people to live in the country of their conquerors. He therefore reversed the old policy of the Assyrian and Babylonian kings, which consisted in transporting the larger portion of a conquered population to another country, and sought instead to win their gratitude and affection by allowing them to return to their native lands. He saw, moreover, that the Jews, if restored from exile, would not only protect the southwestern corner of his empire from the Egyptians, but would form a base for his intended invasion of Egypt itself. … The number of exiles who took advantage of the edict of Cyrus, and accompanied Zerubbabel to Jerusalem, amounted to 42,360. It is probable, however, that this means only the heads of families; if so, the whole body of those who left Babylon, including women and children, would have been about 200,000. … The conquest of Babylonia by Cyrus took place in the year 538 B. C. He was already master of Persia, Media, and Lydia; and the overthrow of the empire of Nebuchadnezzar extended his dominions from the mountains of the Hindu Kush on the east to the shores of the Mediterranean on the west. Egypt alone of the older empires of the Oriental world remained independent, but its doom could not be long delayed. The career of Cyrus had indeed been marvellous. He had begun as the king only of Anzan or Elam, whose power seemed but 'small' and contemptible to his neighbour the great Babylonian monarch. But his victory over the Median king Astyages and the destruction of the Median Empire made him at once one of the most formidable princes in Western Asia. Henceforth the seat of his power was moved from Susa or Shushan to Ekbatana, called Achmetha in Scripture, Hagmatan in Persian, the capital of Media. … The conquest of Media was quickly followed by that of Persia, which appears to have been under the government of a collateral branch of the family of Cyrus. Henceforward the king of Elam becomes also the king of Persia. The empire of Lydia, which extended over the greater part of Asia Minor, fell before the army of Cyrus about B. C. 540. … The latter years of the life of Cyrus were spent in extending and consolidating his power among the wild tribes and unknown regions of the Far East. When he died, all was ready for the threatened invasion of Egypt. This was carried out by his son and successor Kambyses, who had been made 'king of Babylon' three years before his father's death, Cyrus reserving to himself the imperial title of 'King of the world.' … As soon as Kambyses became sole sovereign, Babylon necessarily took rank with Shushan and Ekbatana. It was the third centre of the great empire, and in later days the Persian monarchs were accustomed to make it their official residence during the winter season. … Kambyses was so fascinated by his new province that he refused to leave it. The greater part of his reign was spent in Egypt, where he so thoroughly established his power and influence that it was the only part of the empire which did not rise in revolt at his death. … Soon after his father's death he stained his hands with the blood of his brother Bardes, called Smerdis by Herodotus, to whom Cyrus had assigned the eastern part of his empire. Bardes was put to death secretly at Susa, it is said. … A Magian, Gaumata or Gomates by name, who resembled Bardes in appearance, came forward to personate the murdered prince, and Persia, Media, and other provinces at once broke into rebellion against their long-absent king. When the news of this revolt reached Kambyses he appointed Aryandes' satrap of Egypt, and, if we may believe the Greek accounts, set out to oppose the usurper. He had not proceeded far, however, before he fell by his own hand. The false Bardes was now master of the empire. Darius, in his inscription on the rock of Behistun, tells us that 'he put to death many people who had known Bardes, to prevent its being known that he was not Bardes, son of Cyrus.' At the same time he remitted the taxes paid by the provinces, and proclaimed freedom for three years from military service. But he had not reigned more than seven months before a conspiracy was formed against him. Darius, son of Hystaspes, attacked him at the head of the conspirators, in the land of Nisæa in Media, and there slew him, on the 10th day of April, B. C. 521. Darius, like Kambyses, belonged to the royal Persian race of Akhæmenes."

_A. H. Sayce, Introduction to the Books of Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther, chapters 1 and 3._

ALSO IN: _A. H. Sayce, Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments, chapter 7._

_Z. A. Ragozin, The Story of Media, Babylon and Persia, chapter 10-12._

PERSIA: B. C. 521-493. The reign of Darius I. His Indian and Scythian expeditions. The Ionian revolt and its suppression. Aid given to the insurgents by Athens.