Part 81

A title frequently recurring among the Greeks was that of Prytanis, which signified prince, or supreme ruler. "Even Hiero, the king or tyrant of Syracuse, is addressed by Pindar as Prytanis. At Corinth, after the abolition of the monarchy, a Prytanis, taken from the ancient house of the Bacchiadæ, was annually appointed as supreme magistrate

See CORINTH: B. C. 745-725.

… The same title was borne by the supreme magistrate in the Corinthian colony of Corcyra. … In Rhodes we find in the time of Polybius a Prytany lasting for six months."

_G. Schömann, Antiquity of Greece: The State, part 2, chapter 5._

{2614}

PSALTER OF CASHEL. PSALTER OF TARA.

See TARA, HILL AND FEIS OF.

PSEPHISM.

A decree, or enactment, in ancient Athens.

PSEUDO-ISIDORIAN DECRETALS, The.

See PAPACY: A. D. 829-847.

PTOLEMAIS, Syria.

See ACRE.

PTOLEMIES, The.

See EGYPT: B. C. 323-30.

PTOLEMY KERAUNOS, The intrigues and death of.

See MACEDONIA: B. C. 297-280; and GAULS: B. C. 280-279.

PTOLEMY SOTER, and the Wars of the Diadochi.

See MACEDONIA: B. C. 323-316, to 297-280; and EGYPT: B. C. 323-30.

PTOLEMY'S CANON.

An important chronological list of Chaldean, Persian, Macedonian and Egyptian kings, compiled or continued by Claudius Ptolemæus, an Alexandrian mathematician and astronomer in the reign of the Second Antoninus.

_W. Hales, New Analysis of Chronology, volume I, book 1._

PUANS, OR WINNEBAGOES, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SIOUAN FAMILY.

PUBLIC MEALS.

See SYSSITIA.

PUBLIC PEACE, The.

See LANDFRIEDE.

PUBLIC WEAL, League of the.

See FRANCE; A. D. 1461-1468; and 1453-1461.

PUBLICANI.

The farmers of the taxes, among the Romans.

See VECTIGAL.

PUBLICIANI, The.

See ALBIGENSES; and PAULICIANS.

PUEBLA: Capture by the French (1862).

See MEXICO: A. D. 1861-1867.

PUBLILIAN LAW OF VOLERO, The.

See ROME: B. C. 472-471.

PUBLILIAN LAWS, The.

See ROME: B. C. 340.

PUEBLOS.

The Spanish word pueblo, meaning town, village, or the inhabitants thereof, has acquired a special signification as applied, first, to the sedentary or village Indians of New Mexico and Arizona, and then to the singular villages of communal houses which they inhabit.

_D. G. Brinton, The American Race, page 113._

"The purely civic colonies of California were called pueblos to distinguish them from missions or presidios. The term pueblo, in its most extended meaning, may embrace towns of every description, from a hamlet to a city. … However, in its special significance, a pueblo means a corporate town."

_F. W. Blackmar, Spanish Institutions of the Southwest, chapter 8._

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PUEBLOS.

PUELTS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PAMPAS TRIBES.

PUERTO CAVELLO, Spanish capitulation at (1823).

See COLOMBIAN STATES: A. D. 1819-1830.

PUJUNAN FAMILY, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PUJUNAN FAMILY.

PULASKI, Fort: A. D. 1861. Threatened by the Union forces.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER: SOUTH CAROLINA—GEORGIA).

PULASKI, Fort: A. D. 1862 (February-April). Siege and capture.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (FEBRUARY-APRIL: GEORGIA-FLORIDA).

PULLANI, The.

The descendants of the first Crusaders who remained in the East and married Asiatic women are represented as having been a very despicable half-breed race. They were called the Pullani. Prof. Palmer suggests a derivation of the name from "fulani," anybodies. Mr. Keightley, on the contrary, states that before the crusading colonists overcame their prejudice against Oriental wives, women were brought to them from Apulia, in Italy. Whence the name Pullani, applied indiscriminately to an the progeny of the Latin settlers.

_W. Besant and E. H. Palmer, Jerusalem, chapter 7._

ALSO IN: _T. Keightley, The Crusaders, chapter 2._

PULTNEY ESTATE, The.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1786-1799.

PULTOWA, Battle of (1709).

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1707-1718.

PULTUSK, Battle of (1703).

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1701-1707.

Battle of (1806).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1806-1807.

PUMBADITHA, The. School of.

See JEWS: 7TH CENTURY.

PUNCAS, OR PONCAS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SIOUAN FAMILY, and PAWNEE (CADDOAN) FAMILY.

PUNIC.

The adjective Punicus, derived from the name of the Phœnicians, was used by the Romans in a sense which commonly signified "Carthaginian,"—the Carthaginians being of Phœnician origin. Hence "Punic Wars," "Punic faith," etc., the phrase "Punic faith" being an imputation of faithlessness and treachery.

PUNIC WARS: Start--------

PUNIC WARS, The First.

When Pyrrhus quitted Italy he is said to have exclaimed, "How fair a battle–field are we leaving to the Romans and Carthaginians." He may easily have had sagacity to foresee the deadly struggle which Rome and Carthage would soon be engaged in, and he might as easily have predicted, too, that the beginning of it would be in Sicily. Rome had just settled her supremacy in the whole Italian peninsula; she was sure to covet next the rich island that lies so near to it. In fact, there was bred quickly in the Roman mind such an eagerness to cross the narrow strait that it waited only for the slenderest excuse. A poor pretext was found in the year 264 B. C. and it was so despicably poor that the proud Roman senators turned over to the popular assembly of the Comitia the responsibility of accepting it. There came to Rome from Messene, in Sicily—or Messana, as the Romans called the city—an appeal. It did not come from the citizens of Messene, but from a band of freebooters who had got possession of the town. These were mercenaries from Campania (lately made Roman territory by the Samnite conquest) who had been in the pay of Agathocles of Syracuse. Disbanded on that tyrant's death, they had treacherously seized Messene, slain most of the male inhabitants, taken to themselves the women, and settled down to a career of piracy and robbery, assuming the name of Mamertinl,—children of Mamers, or Mars. Of course, all Sicily, both Greek and Carthaginian, was roused against them by the outrages they committed. Being hard pressed, the Mamertines invoked, as Italians, the protection of Rome; although one party among them appears to have preferred an arrangement of terms with the Carthaginians. {2615} The Roman Senate, being ashamed to extend a friendly hand to the Mamertine cutthroats, but not having virtue enough to decline an opportunity for fresh conquests, referred the question to the people at large. The popular vote sent an army into Sicily, and Messene, then besieged by Hiero of Syracuse on one side and by a Carthaginian army on the other, was relieved of both. The Romans thereon proceeded, in two aggressive campaigns, against Syracusans and Carthaginians alike, until Hiero bought peace with them, at a heavy cost, and became their half-subject ally for the remainder of his life. The war with the Carthaginians was but just commenced. Its first stunning blow was struck at Agrigentum, the splendid city of Phalaris, which the Carthaginians had destroyed, B. C. 405, which Timoleon had rebuilt, and which one of the Hannibals ("son of Gisco") now seized upon for his stronghold. In a great battle fought under the walls of Agrigentum (B. C. 262) Hannibal lost the city and all but a small remnant of his army. But the successes of the Romans on land were worth little to them while the Carthaginians commanded the sea. Hence they resolved to create a fleet, and are said to have built a hundred ships of the quinquereme order and twenty triremes within sixty days, while rowers for them were trained by all imitative exercise on land. The first squadron of this improvised navy was trapped at Lipara and lost; the remainder was successful in its first encounter with the enemy. But where naval warfare depended on good seamanship the Romans were no match for the Carthaginians. They contrived therefore a machine for their ships, called the Corvus, or raven, by which, running straight on the opposing vessel, they were able to grasp it by the throat, so to speak, and force fighting at close quarters. That accomplished, they were tolerably sure of victory. With their corvus they half annihilated the Carthaginian fleet in a great sea-fight at Mylæ, B. C. 260, and got so much mastery of the sea that they were able to attack their Punic foes even in the island of Sardinia, but without much result. In 257 B. C. another naval battle of doubtful issue was fought at Tyndaris, and the following year, in the great battle of Ecnomus, the naval power of the Carthaginians, for the time being, was utterly crushed. Then followed the invasion of Carthaginian territory by Regulus, his complete successes at first, his insolent proposal of hard terms, and the tremendous defeat which overwhelmed him at Adis a little later, when he, himself, was taken prisoner. The miserable remnant of the Roman army which held its ground at Clypea on the African coast was rescued the next year (B. C. 255) by a new fleet, but only to be destroyed on the voyage homeward, with 260 ships, in a great storm on the south coast of Sicily. Then Carthaginians reappeared in Sicily and the war in that unhappy island was resumed. In 254 B. C. the Romans took the strong fortified city of Panormus. In 253, having built and equipped another fleet, they were robbed of it again by a storm at sea, and the Carthaginians gained ground and strength in Sicily. In 251 the Roman consul, Cæcilius Metellus, drove them back from the walls of Panormus and inflicted on them so discouraging a defeat, that they sent Regulus, their prisoner, on parole, with an embassy, to solicit peace at Rome. How Regulus advised his countrymen against peace, and how he returned to Carthage to meet a cruel death—the traditional story is familiar to all readers, but modern criticism throws doubt upon it. In 250 B. C. the Romans undertook the siege of Lilybæum, which, with the neighboring port of Drepana, were the only strongholds left to the Carthaginians. The siege then commenced was one of the most protracted in history, for when the First Punic War ended, nine years later, Lilybæum was still resisting, and the Romans only acquired it with all the rest of Sicily, under the terms of the treaty of peace. Meantime the Carthaginians won a bloody naval victory at Drepana (B. C. 249) over the Roman fleet, and the latter, in the same year, had a third fleet destroyed on the coast by relentless storms. In the year 247 B. C. the Carthaginian command in Sicily was given to the great Hamilcar, surnamed Barca, who was the father of a yet greater man, the Hannibal who afterwards brought Rome very near to destruction. Hamilcar Barca, having only a few mutinous mercenary soldiers at his command, and almost unsupported by the authorities at Carthage, established himself, first, on the rocky height of Mount Ercte, or Hercte, near Panormus, and afterwards on Mount Eryx, and harassed the Romans for six years. The end came at last as the consequence of a decisive naval victory near the Ægatian Isles, which the Romans achieved, with a newly built fleet, in March B. C. 241. The Carthaginians, discouraged, proposed peace, and purchased it by evacuating Sicily and paying a heavy war indemnity. Thus Rome acquired Sicily, but the wealth and civilization of the great island had been ruined beyond recovery.

_R. B. Smith, Carthage and the Carthaginians, chapters 4-7._

ALSO IN: _W. Ihne, History of Rome, book 4, chapter 3._

_Polybius, Histories, book l._

_A. J. Church, The Story of Carthage, part 4, chapters 1-3._

See, also, ROME: B. C. 264-241.

PUNIC WARS: The Second.

Between the First Punic War and the Second there was an interval of twenty-three years. Carthage, meantime, had been brought very near to destruction by the Revolt of the Mercenaries and had been saved by the capable energy of Hamilcar Barca.

See CARTHAGE: B. C. 241-238.

Then the selfish faction which hated Hamilcar had regained power in the Punic capital, and the Barcine patriot could do no more than obtain command of an army which he led, on his own responsibility, into Spain, B. C. 237. The Carthaginians had inherited from the Phœnicians a considerable commerce with Spain, but do not seem to have organized a control of the country until Hamilcar took the task in hand. Partly by pacific influences and partly by force, he established a rule, rather personal than Carthaginian, which extended over nearly all southern Spain. With the wealth that he drew from its gold and silver mines he maintained his army and bought or bribed at Carthage the independence he needed for the carrying out of his plans. He had aimed from the first, no doubt, at organizing resources with which to make war on Rome. Hamilcar was killed in battle, B. C. 228, and his son-in-law, Hasdrubal, who succeeded him, lived only seven years more. Then Hannibal, the son of Hamilcar, in his twenty–sixth year, was chosen to the command in Spain. {2616} He waited two years, for the settling of his authority and for making all preparations complete, and then he threw down a challenge to the Romans for the war which he had sworn to his father that he would make the one purpose of his life. The provocation of war was the taking of the city of Saguntum, a Greek colony on the Spanish coast, which the Romans had formed an alliance with. It was taken by Hannibal after a siege of eight months and after most of the inhabitants had destroyed themselves, with their wealth. When Rome declared war it was with the expectation, no doubt, that Spain and Africa would be the battle grounds. But Hannibal did not wait for her attack. He led his Spanish army straight to Italy, in the early summer of B. C. 218, skirting the Pyrenees and crossing the Alps. The story of his passage of the Alps is familiar to every reader. The difficulties he encountered were so terrible and the losses sustained so great that Hannibal descended into Italy with only 20,000 foot and 6,000 horse, out of 50,000 of the one and 9,000 of the other which he had led through Gaul. He received some reinforcement and co-operation from the Cisalpine Gauls, but their strength had been broken by recent wars with Rome and they were not efficient allies. In the first encounter of the Romans with the dread invader, on the Ticinus, they were beaten, but not seriously. In the next, on the Trebia, where Scipio, the consul, made a determined stand, they sustained an overwhelming defeat. This ended the campaign of B. C. 218. Hannibal wintered in Cisalpine Gaul and passed the Apennines the following spring into Etruria, stealing a march on the Roman army, under the popular consul Flaminius, which was watching to intercept him. The latter pursued and was caught in ambush at Lake Trasimene, where Flaminius and 15,000 of his men were slain, while most of the survivors of the fatal field were taken prisoners and made slaves. Rome then seemed open to the Carthaginian, but he knew, without doubt, that his force was not strong enough for the besieging of the city, and he made no attempt. What he aimed at was the isolating of Rome and the arraying of Italy against her, in a great and powerfully handled combination of the jealousies and animosities which he knew to exist. He led his troops northward again, after the victory of Lake Trasimene, across the mountains to the Adriatic coast, and rested them during the summer. When cooler weather came he moved southward along the coast into Apulia. The Romans meantime had chosen a Dictator, Q. Fabius Maximus, a cautious man, whose plan of campaign was to watch and harass and wear out the enemy, without risking a battle. It was a policy which earned for him the name of "The Cunctator," or Lingerer. The Roman people were discontented with it, and next year (B. C. 216) they elected for one of the consuls a certain Varro who had been one of the mouth-pieces of their discontent. In opposition to his colleague, Æmilius Paullus, Varro soon forced a battle with Hannibal at Cannæ, in Apulia, and brought upon his countrymen the most awful disaster in war that they ever knew. Nearly 50,000 Roman citizens were left dead on the field, including eighty senators, and half the young nobility of the state. From the spoils of the field Hannibal was said to have sent three bushels of golden rings to Carthage, stripped from the fingers of Roman knights. Rome reeled under the blow, and yet haughtily refused to ransom the 20,000 prisoners in Hannibal's hands, while she met the discomfited Varro with proud thanks, because "he had not despaired of the Republic." Capua now opened its gates to Hannibal and became the headquarters of his operations. The people of Southern Italy declared generally in his favor; but he had reached and passed, nevertheless, the crowning point of his success. He received no effective help from Carthage; nor from his brother in Spain, who was defeated by the elder Scipios, that same year (B. C. 216) at Ibera, just as he had prepared to lead a fresh army into Italy. On the other hand, the energies of the Romans had risen with every disaster. Their Latin subjects continued faithful to them; but they lost at this time an important ally in Sicily, by the death of the aged Hiero of Syracuse, and the Carthaginians succeeded in raising most of the island against them. The war in Sicily now became for a time more important than that in Italy, and the consul Marcellus, the most vigorous of the Roman generals, was sent to conduct it. His chief object was the taking of Syracuse and the great city sustained another of the many dreadful sieges which it was her fate to endure. The siege was prolonged for two years, and chiefly by the science and the military inventions of the famous mathematician, Archimides. When the Romans entered Syracuse at last (B. C. 212) it was to pillage and slay without restraint, and Archimides was one of the thousands cut down by their swords. Meantime, in Italy, Tarentum had been betrayed to Hannibal, but the Romans still held the citadel of the town. They had gained so much strength in the field that they were now able to lay siege to Capua and Hannibal was powerless to relieve it. He attempted a diversion by marching on Rome, but the threat proved idle and Capua was left to its fate. The city surrendered soon after (B. C. 211) and the merciless conquerors only spared it for a new population. For three or four years after this the war in Italy was one of minor successes and reverses on both sides, but Hannibal lost steadily in prestige and strength. In Spain, Hannibal's brother, Hasdrubal, had opportunely beaten and slain (B. C. 212) both the elder Scipios; but another and greater Scipio, P. Cornelius, son of Publius, had taken the field and was sweeping the Carthaginians from the peninsula. Yet, despite Scipio's capture of New Carthage and his victories, at Bæcula, and elsewhere, Hasdrubal contrived, in some unexplained way, in the year 208, B. C., to cross the Pyrenees into Gaul and to recruit reinforcements there for a movement on Italy. The next spring he passed the Alps and brought his army safely into Cisalpine Gaul; but his dispatches to Hannibal fell into the hands of the Romans and revealed his plans. The swift energy of one of the consuls, C. Claudius Nero, brought about a marvellous concentration of Roman forces to meet him, and he and his army perished together in an awful battle fought on the banks of the Metaurus, in Umbria. The last hopes of Hannibal perished with them; but he held his ground in the extreme south of Italy and no Roman general dared try to dislodge him. When Scipio returned next year (B. C. 206) and reported the complete conquest of Spain, he was chosen consul with the understanding that he would carry the war into Africa, though the senate stood half opposed. {2617} He did so in the early months of the year 204 B. C. crossing from Sicily with a comparatively small armament and laying siege to Utica. That year he accomplished nothing, but during the next winter he struck a terrible blow, surprising and burning the camps of the Carthaginians and their Numidian allies and slaughtering 40,000 of their number. This success was soon followed by another, on the Great Plains, which lie 70 or 80 miles to the southwest of Carthage. The Numidian king, Syphax, was now driven from his throne and the kingdom delivered over to an outlawed prince, Massinissa, who became, thenceforth, the most useful and unscrupulous of allies to the Romans. Now pushed to despair, the Carthaginians summoned Hannibal to their rescue. He abandoned Italy at the call and returned to see his own land for the first time since as a boy he left it with his father. But even his genius could not save Carthage with the means at his command. The long war was ended in October of the year 202 B. C. by the battle which is called the battle of Zama, though it was fought at some distance westward of that place. The Carthaginian army was routed utterly, and Hannibal himself persuaded his countrymen to accept a peace which stripped them of their ships and their trade, their possessions in Spain and all the islands, and their power over the Numidian states, besides wringing from them a war indemnity of many millions. On those hard terms, Carthage was suffered to exist a few years longer.

_R. B. Smith, Carthage and the Carthaginians._

ALSO IN: _T. Arnold, History of Rome, chapters 43-47._

_H. G. Liddell, History of Rome, chapters 31-34._

_T. A. Dodge, Hannibal, chapters 11-39._

See, also, ROME: B. C. 218-211, to 211-202.

PUNIC WARS: The Third.

See CARTHAGE: B. C. 146; and ROME: B. C. 151-146.

PUNIC WARS: End--------

PUNJAB, PUNJAUB, PANJAB, The.