the Romans, but was glad to accept the offered truce, and passed with his army into Sicily, where he assisted the Greeks against the Carthaginians. At first he met with brilliant success; but his attack upon Lilybæum failed. The war ended in the following year with the total defeat of Pyrrhus by the Romans under Curius Dentatus, near Beneventum. On this occasion the famous elephants of Pyrrhus rushed back upon his own army and contributed to his loss. He reached Epirus with a small remnant of his once splendid army. Nothing daunted, he again invaded Macedonia, and became its king a second time. He afterward turned his arms against Sparta, but was driven from before the walls of that city. In a night attack made upon Argos he was stunned by a tile thrown by a woman from a house-top, and being recognized by the enemy's soldiers was slain.

PYRUS, or PIRUS, a genus of fruitbearing shrubs and trees of the rose family. There are about 40 species, natives of the southern hemisphere and especially of the cool temperate parts. They have usually simple leaves, clusters of showy white, pinkish or bluish flowers after the leaves appear, and fleshy fruits (pomes). Horticulturally this is one of the most important of plant genera, since it includes the apple, pear, quince and medlar (qq.v.). The last two, however, are often separated into distinct genera. Some of the species, as crabapples, are cultivated for ornament.

PYTHAGORAS, pi-thǎg'ō-ras, Greek philosopher: b. Samos, about 582 B.C.; d. about 507. His Father, Mnesarchos, was a merchant (probably of Tyre or some other Phoenician city) who traded with Samos, where he received the rights of citizenship, and settled with his family. The biography of Pythagoras is mingled with many fables. He received his first instruction from Creophilus in his native city. He then went to the island of Scyros, and was a scholar of Pherecydes till the death of the latter; others make him also a scholar of Thales and Anaximander. Iamblichus says that Pythagoras, during his journey to Egypt, spent some time in Phoenicia in intercourse with the successors of Moschus, and other priests of the country, by whom he was initiated into their mysteries, and that he traveled through various parts of Syria in order to become acquainted with the most important religious usages and doctrines. He is said to have been recommended by Polycrates, king of Samos, to the Egyptian king Amasis. In Egypt he became acquainted with the whole range of Egyptian learning. He remained in Memphis and Thebes 22 years, and was in Egypt when that country was conquered by Cambyses. Like many others of the sages in that kingdom, he was carried captive to Babylon, where he conversed with the Persian and Chaldæan Magi; and traveled as far as India, and visited the Gymnosophists. After his return he opened a school at Samos, in which he taught his doctrines in a symbolic form, in imitation of the Egyptians. He also visited Crete, where the priests of Cybele took him to the caverns of Ida, in which Jupiter had been cradled. Here he met Epimenides, whom he initiated into the sacred mysteries of the Greeks. From Crete he went to Sparta and Elis, and from thence to Phlius, where, being asked by King Leon what

47

was his profession, he replied that he was a philosopher (or lover of wisdom), declaring that the name of sage (sophos) belonged solely to the Divinity. With augmented knowledge he returned home, where he now founded a philosophical school with great success. He laid claim to supernatural powers, and his extraordinary qualities gained over great numbers of the noble and wealthy classes. Three hundred of these were formed into a select fraternity or order, which has been frequently compared with the still more famous order founded by Loyola in modern times. The members were bound by a vow to Pythagoras and each other, for the purpose of cultivating the religious rites and ascetic observances of their master, and of studying his system of philosophy. They thus formed at once a philosophical school and a religious order, which in time also assumed the character and exercised the influence of a political association. This influence, which became very considerable, was constantly exerted in the interest of the aristocratic party. The democratic party (perhaps, also, at times, an unfriendly aristocratic faction) reacted against the growing power of the order. At the head of this opposition party in Crotona was Cylon, a rich and respectable citizen, whose enmity Pythagoras had excited by refusing to receive him among his scholars. In revenge Cylon once attacked the house of Milo, where a number of Pythagoreans were assembled, surrounded it with his partisans and set it on fire. Forty persons perished, and but few escaped. Pythagoras was probably not in the house. Other authorities set down this event long after the death of Pythagoras, who, they say, was simply banished by Cylon to Metapontum. He fled to the Locrians, and when these refused to receive him, to Metapontum, where, according to tradition, he perished from hunger. For his system of philosophy see PYTHAGOREANISM. Consult Burnet, J., Early Greek Philosophy> (2d ed., London 1908); id., 'Greek Philosophy' (London 1914); Cantor, M., 'History of Mathematics (Leipzig 1900); Fink, K., Brief History of Mathematics) (Chicago 1900); Gomperz T., Greek Thinkers) (London 1901-05); Gow, J., Short History of Greek Mathematics' (New York 1884); Milhaud, 'La Science Grecque'; id., 'Philosophes géomètres'; Ueberweg, F., History of Philosophy from Thales to the Present Time' (2 vols., New York 1884); Windelband, W., History of Ancient Philosophy (New York 1899); Zeller, E., 'Die Philosophie der Griechen in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklungen) (5th ed., Leipzig 1892; English trans. by Alleyne, S. F., of 4th ed., 2 vols., London 1881).

PYTHAGORAS OF RHEGIUM, rē'jiům, Greek sculptor: b. Samos toward the end of the 5th century before Christ. He was noted for his skill in giving the finest and justest proportions to his statues which often represented the human body in attitudes most difficult to represent. Such were his 'Limping Philoctetes' (in bronze); his 'Apollo in Combat with the Dragon'; his 'Duel of Eteocles and Polynices'; 'Europa and the Bull. His favorite subjects were victors in the public games, and it was his habit as an artist to elaborate the details of his figures; he was learned as an anatomist, and in his statues the hair, sinews, and even

veins were represented with life-like distinctness and individuality.

PYTHAGOREAN THEOREM, the 47th proposition of the first book of Euclid's Elements, which shows that in any right-angled triangle the square on the hypothenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides.

PYTHAGOREANISM, the philosophical doctrine of the Pythagoreans, or followers of Pythagoras (q.v.). The system of the Pythagoreans was comprehensive and included a theory of being, that is, a religious cult; a metaphysic; a cosmological theory, and a mathematical theory.

Pythagorean Cult.- The Pythagoreans believed in immortality and the transmigration of souls. As they consequently considered all animals to partake of human nature, they forbade the eating of flesh, and even that of beans, which they somehow associated with flesh. They formed a close corporation, and it was considered sinful to reveal any imperfections in the mathematical work of the school to those outside.

Pythagorean Metaphysics.- The Pytha goreans taught that the essence of all things was number; that everything in its final analysis could be resolved into number. This statement, which is recorded in Aristotle's Metaphysics, where he is enumerating the Greek schools of philosophy, has occasioned much dispute. We may perhaps see in this doctrine the basis of the 10 antitheses of Pythagorean teaching, especially that of the opposites, odd and even, the definite and indefinite, which are placed first in the list. Number was also an idea in which these opposites were each included, and was, therefore, sometimes spoken of as harmony. But other interpretations of the Pythagorean number make unity and duality as the root notion, and pronounce that these terms may be reduced to the opposition of the spiritual and corporeal, of form and of substance, of the Supreme Being and the material world. The Deity is the one, the Original Unity, the Infinite, out of which all finite things have come. The opposition between the limited or finite and the unlimited or infinite is by some philosophers regarded as the fundamental idea in the Pythagorean number. It is possible that the doctrine was from the first propounded as a vague generalization which might be and was interpreted in different ways by different members of the school. It is evident that nothing can exist without number, as is stated in the apocryphal Book of Wisdom, in some respects a product of Alexandrian Neo-Pythagoreanism. The numbers themselves are divisible into odd and even, thus suggesting the contrast between the limited and unlimited, the conditioned and the unconditioned, the relative and the absolute, matter and spirit, man and God. On the other hand, it is possible that the Pythagorean number was not arithmetical but geometrical. The great disciple of Pythagoras in the time of Socrates was Philolaus, but of the writings in which he expounded his views only fragments survive, and these are of doubtful authenticity. Philolaus may have been under the influence of Democritus, and his theory of number have been based on geometrical axioms and the intervals in the sounds struck from the seven

stringed lyre. Probably he was an atomist. The individual atom would in that case represent to him a material spatial point, two of which made a line, three a surface, four a solid; of these solids, represented always by even numbers, the constitutents of earth were cubical; those of fire tetrahedral, those of water icosahedral, etc. From the use of numbers as the ontological basis of things the passage was easy enough to the wild and fanciful application of them as mere symbols. Thus the later Pythagoreans made the soul correspond with the number six, while seven was the counterpart of reason and health. The imagination here stepped in and with curious ingenuity labored to give a rational basis to these axioms. Hence the famous oppositions of this philosophical sect; namely (1) limited and unlimited; (2) even and odd; (3) one and many; (4) right and left; (5) male and female; (6) rest and motion; (7) straight and crooked; (8) light and darkness; (9) good and evil; (10) square and rectangle. It will be perceived that in these oppositions the idea of completeness, as represented by an even number, and incompleteness by an odd number is the ruling element, and in the idea of incompleteness is implied the potentiality of indefinite extension, multiplication or variation. From the very beginning of Pythagoreanism many semi-mystical, semi-scientific speculations were made concerning square numbers; triangular numbers, of the form X2+3x+2

2

representing triangular regularly spaced aggregates of points; and rectangular numbers of the form X+X, representing rectangular aggregates of points.

Pythagorean Cosmology.- Pythagoras, or at least the Pythagoreans, had some vague idea of a heliocentric solar system. They taught that the universe had as its centre a fire round which the earth and stars revolved. This central fire was not identified with the sun; the stars were luminous from reflecting its light. They taught that this fire was not visible from the earth; that there was a counter earth which made up with the five known planets, the fixed stars, sun and moon, 10 celestial phenomena. The distance of the spheres from the central fire was determined according to simple numerical relationships. The harmony of the spheres was a melodious sound resulting from the revolution of the heavenly bodies in accordance with the intervals of their distance from the central fire. The Pythagoreans discovered the connection between the length of the string in a lyre and the character of the note which was sounded on percussion, and developed a theory of the musical scale. Indeed this seems to have been the source of their medical and mathematical researches.

now

Pythagorean Geometry.- The Ionic school of Greek philosophy imported geometry from Egypt into the Greek world of intellectual activity. Its early development in Europe was mainly due to the followers of Pythagoras, who himself enunciated the theorem known as the 47th proposition of the first book of Euclid, which says that the square of the hypothenuse of a right angled triangle is the sum of the squares on its legs. The three propositions, arithmetical, geometrical and harmonical, were known to them, having been intro

duced into Greece by Pythagoras, who learned them from the inventors, the Babylonians. (See NEO-PYTHAGOREANS; PYTHAGORAS). Consult Burnet, Greek Philosophy (Part I, London 1914); Gomperz, 'Greek Thinkers (tr. New York 1901); Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklungen) (5th ed., Leipzig 1892; tr. London 1881).

PYTHEAS, pith'e-as, Greek navigator: b. Massilia (Marseilles) in the 4th century B.C. He made two yoyages of discovery along the western coast of Europe from Gibraltar to Iceland. The first voyage extended along the western coast of Europe, through the English Channel, and after somewhat extensive explorations in Britain he proceeded northward and reached Thule, which seems identical with Iceland. Here he was deterred from farther advance by dense fogs and considered himself to have reached the point where the earth ended. He described the fog as a molluscous substance, in which earth, air and sea mingled and in which the universe was suspended. His second voyage seems to have extended along the coast of Denmark and to the Baltic. His accounts of his voyages were received as fables by the ancients, and though celebrated as a navigator and mathematician, little is known of him excepting through the brief and adverse criticism of later writers, among whom are Strabo and Pliny. His accounts were without doubt in the main correct, but the loss of his works makes it difficult to ascertain his real status. He was said to have been the first to determine the sun's meridian altitude at Marseilles at the summer solstice by means of a gnomon. The scanty fragments remaining of his writings were published by Arvedson (1824); Mullenhoff, 'Deutsche Alterthumskunde (Berlin 1870).

PYTHIAN GAMES, in ancient Greece, a name given one of the four national festivals of games, instituted in early times in honor of Apollo, the conqueror of the python. They were celebrated in the neighborhood of Delphi (formerly called Pytho), in the Crissæan fields, which for this purpose contained a hippodrome or race-course; a stadium of 1,000 feet in length, and a theatre, in which the musical contests took place. According to the popular mythological legend the Pythian Games were instituted by Apollo himself. They seem to have been originally only a musical contest, which consisted in singing a hymn to the Pythian god. Until about 586 B.C. they were under the management of the Delphians and took place at the end of every eighth year; but after that date they were conducted by the Amphictyons and were celebrated at the end of every fourth year and prizes were added for flute-playing, athletic sports and horse and chariot racing. Eventually contests in tragedy and other kinds of poetry, painting, sculpture and historical narratives were introduced. At first the prizes were silver or gold, but afterward they consisted of the laurel wreath and the symbolic palm-branch. The statues of the victors were erected in the Crissæan plain. They continued to be celebrated, it is believed, until the end of the 4th century. Consult Gardiner, 'Greek Festivals and Sports' (1910). PYTHIAS, pith'i-as. See DAMON AND PHINTIAS.

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PYTHIAS, Knights of. See KNIGHTS OF PYTHIAS.

PYTHON, in Greek mythology, was the son of Gæa, an enormous serpent which was produced from the mud after the flood of Deucalion. It lived in a cave on Mount Parnassus and was slain a few days after its birth by Apollo. Python really represents the fogs and vapor-clouds which arise from ponds and marshes and are dispersed by Apollo with his shafts the rays of the sun. Consult Pascal, C., 'Studii di antichità e mitologia) (1896).

PYTHON, a serpent of the subfamily Pythonine of the boa family. Pythons differ little from boas (see BOIDE), but, except a small, aberrant species in Mexico, are found in Africa, India and eastward to Australia. They rival the boas (q.v.) in size and strength and have similar habits, hanging motionless from trees by their prehensile tails or lurking in the grass or in water where animals are likely to come or at the drinking places. They are especially fond of rocky places, affording snug retreats and are generally known in Africa as "rock-snakes." Hence they pounce on their victims, which are instantly enveloped in folds of their flexuous and muscular bodies and crushed and rolled into a compact mass. Greatly exaggerated stories are told of the huge creatures these serpents are able to swallow, but, although a tiger or an ox might be killed by the great Indian python, a crushed dog or goat (horns and all) is the limit of its power to eat. The process of swallowing is very slow and many weeks may elapse before another meal is desired. In fact, however, small rodents and birds form the greater part of their fare and these are more frequently caught. These great serpents are justly dreaded by the natives of the regions they inhabit and the literature of travel, ancient and modern, abounds in narratives of their terrible deeds, and many legends and superstitions have clustered about them, especially in the Orient. Few trustworthy records exist of their having attacked human beings, however, and most of the species are readily tamable. They are nocturnal in disposition, hiding in holes or shady tree-tops during the day.

All pythons lay from 50 to 100 eggs on the ground in some dry, grassy place, and the female coils about them, guarding and warming them for about two months when they hatch. The boas, on the contrary, bring forth their young alive.

The biggest pythons are those of southern Asia, the first place belonging to the netted python (Python reticulatur) of Indo-China and the Malay Archipelago, which sometimes exceeds 30 feet in length and is perhaps the largest kind of serpent known. It is light yellowish brown with squarish black markings and its skin glitters in the sunlight with splendid prismatic hues. It abounds in hot, low-lying regions and has a savage disposition. Its rate of growth is slow and it probably lives to a great age. The adigar (P. molurus) of all India, Ceylon and Malaya, reaches nearly the same length and is of heavier build; it varies from yellowish to dark brown in ground-color, with elongate, irregular dark blotches. The three African species known as

"rock-snakes," are smaller, none exceeding 18 feet long. One of them, the royal python (P. regia), dark brown, with a row of light spots along the back, is the species most often seen in traveling menageries. Another (P. seba) is called "fetch-snake," on account of the superstitious regard paid it by the negroes of the West Coast. It is marked with many dark zig-zag cross-bars and a dark line along the spine. Australia possesses several pythons, which are smaller and more active than the tropical species. Two, the carpet-python and the diamond snake, are common and well known; they are pests of the poultry-yard, but useful as destroyers of rats and rabbits.

ERNEST INGERSOLL.

PYTHONINÆ. See BOIDE; PYTHON. PYTHONOMORPHA, a suborder of fossil marine reptiles whose remains are found in Cretaceous rocks of Europe, the Americas, New Zealand and South Africa. There are about 120 vertebrae in the vertebral column, The skull was long and much resembled that of the lizard. The two pairs of limbs were used as paddles in swimming. The mouth permitted these reptiles to seize large prey which they held by means of their stout conical teeth. Kansas has yielded many well-preserved specimens from its chalk-beds. Complete skeletons measuring 30 feet in length have been found. The chief divisions of the Pythonomorpha are Tylosaurus, Platecarpus, Clidastes and Mosasaurus. The last named was the largest member of the group, sometimes reaching a length of 40 feet. Consult Osborn, Henry Fairfield, 'A Complete Monasaur Skeleton (in 'Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. I, part iv, New York 1899); Von Zittel and Eastman, Textbook of Palæontology) (Vol. II, New York 1902); Williston, 'On Monasaurs, etc.) (in Kansas University Quar

terly, Vol. II, Lawrence 1893); id., in 'University Geological Survey of Kansas) (Vol. IV, Topeka 1898); Williston and Case, Kansas Monasaurs (in Kansas University Quarterly, Vol. I, Lawrence 1892).

PYX, anciently any casket and in particular a jewel-case. The present significations of the word are: (1) The vessel, of gold or silver, in which, in Catholic churches, the blessed sacrament is reserved; called also ciborium; and the small silver-gilt vessel in which the host is carried to the sick for administration at their homes. In former times the pyx had the form of a dove and was suspended above the altar; in present usage it is reserved in the tabernacle or shrine above the high altar. (2) The box or chest in which, at the English mint, specimens of the coinage are deposited, to be tested by a jury of goldsmiths about once in three years; this test is called the "trial of the pyx."

PYXIE. The pyxie, or flowering moss (Pyxidanthera barbulata), is one of the most beautiful and early-flowering plants of the moist, sandy, pine-barren regions of New Jersey and North Carolina. It is found only in certain localities even in this restricted district, but is abundant in its chosen haunts, blooming in April. The pyxie belongs to the Diapensia family, very closely related to the heather tribe, and is a small, evergreen, shrubby plant, lying, cushion-like, flat on the sand, and having long, tapering branches trailing in all directions. The small, rigid, pointed leaves are tinged with red at blossoming time and are very numerous, but are nearly hidden by the profusion of waxen, symmetrical, five-lobed flowers, coral-tinted in the bud, creamy white when open. The twin anther-cells of the five anthers are globose and transversely valved, whence the Greek generic name, meaning box-anther.