Smith, William: A smaller dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities (London, 1871)

PUBLICUM.

315

PYTHIA.

and consisted of freemen as well as slaves,
Romans as well as provincials. The separate
branches of the public revenue in the pro-
vinces [decumae, portoria, scriptura, and the
revenues from the mines and salt-works)
were mostly leased to separate companies of
publicani ; whence they were distinguished
by names derived from that particular branch
which they had taken in farm ; e. g. decu-
mani, pecuarii or scripturarii, salinarii or
mancipes salinarum, &c. [Decumae ; Porto-
rium ; Salinae ; Scriptura.] The porti-
tores were not publicani properly so called,
but only their servants engaged in examining
the goods imported or exported, and levying
the custom-duties upon them. They belonged
to the same class as the publicans of the New
Testament.

PUBLICUM. [Publicani.]

PUGILATUS (iri)£, nvyjuj, iruyixaxia,
TTuyjiotrvi'T)), boxing, was one of the earliest
athletic games among the Greeks, and is
frequently mentioned in Homer. In the
earliest times boxers (pugiles, itukto.1) fought
naked, with the exception of a girdle (i<*>ij.a)
round their loins; but this was not used
when boxing was introduced at Olympia, as
the contests in wrestling and racing had been
carried on there by persons entirely naked
ever since 01. 15. Respecting the leathern
thongs with which pugilists surrounded their
fists, see Cestus, where its various forms are
illustrated by woodcuts. The Ionians, espe-
cially those of Samos, were at all times more
distinguished pugilists than the Dorians, and
at Sparta boxing is said to have been forbid-
den by the laws of Lycurgus. But the
ancients geneially considered boxing as a
useful training for military purposes, and a
part of education no less important than any
other gymnastic exercise.

PUGILLARES. [Tabulae.]

PUGIO (fxaxalPa), a dagger ; a two-edged
knife, commonly of bronze, with the hand in
many cases variously ornamented or enriched.

PULLARIUS. [Auspicium.]

PULPITUM. [Thkatrum.]

PULYIX AR, a couch provided with cushions
or pillows (pulvini), on which the Romans
placed the statues of the gods at the Lectis-
ternia. [Epulones ; Lectisternium.] There
was also a pulvinar, on which the images of
the gods were laid, in the Circus.

PUPILLA, PUPILLUS, the name given
to every impubes not in the power of their
father, but subject to a guardian. [Impubes ;
Tutela.]

PUPPIS. [Navis.]

PUTEAL, properly means the enclosure
surrounding the opening of a well, to protect
persons from falling into it. It was either

round or square, and seems usually to havp
been of the height of three or four feet from
the ground. It was the practice in some
cases to surround a sacred place with an en-
closure open at the top, and such enclosures,
from the great similarity they bore to puiea-
lia, were called by this name. There were
two such places in the Roman forum ; one of
these was called Putcal Libonis or Scribonia-
num, because a chapel {sacellum) in that
place had been struck by lightning, and
Scribonius Libo expiated it by proper cere-
monies, and erected a puteal around it, open
at the top, to preserve the memory of the
place. The form of this puteal is preserved
on several coins of the Scribonian gens.
This puteal seems to have been near the
atrium of Vesta, and was a common place of
meeting for usurers. The other puteal was
in the comitium, on the left side of the senate-
house, and in it were deposited the whetstone
and razor of Attus >"avius.

Puteal on a Coin of the Scribonia Gens. (British Museum.)

PUTICULI. [Funis.]

PYAXEPSIA {wvavi^ia), a festival cele-
brated at Athens every year on the seventh
of Pyanepsion, in honour of Apollo, said to
have been instituted by Theseus after his
return from Crete. The festival, as well as
the month in which it took place, are said
to have derived their names from 7n!a/xo?,
another form for Kvaixos, i. e. pulse or beans,
which were cooked at this season and carried
about.

PYLAGORAE. [Amfhictyonf.s.]

PYRA. [Funus.]

PYRRHICA. [Saltatio.]

PYTHIA (n-iifJia), one of the four great
national festivals of the Greeks. It was
celebrated in the neighbourhood of Delphi,
anciently called rytho, in honour of Apollo,
Artemis, and Leto. The place of this so-
lemnity was the Crissaean plain, which for