Praetextata
(Fabula) Praetextata
Roman tragedies about native subjects. Named because heroes wore the toga praetexta edged with purple of Roman magistrates.
Prandium
The Romans' second morning meal.
Praxiteles
One of the most Greek sculptors, born about 390 B.C.
Priam
Last king of Troy, son of Laomedon and Strymo.
Priapeia
A collection of about 80 indecent Latin poems in various meters, on Priapus.
Priapus
Probably the son of Dionysus and Aphrodite, a fertility god.
Procne
Sister of Philomela and married to Thracian prince Tereus who betrayed her. When he was on the verge of killing her, she and her sister were turned into birds, one a nightingale and the other a swallow. Tereus was turned into a hoopee or hawk.
Procris
Daughter of Erectheus; wife of Cephalus.
Promachus
Fighter in the front rank; An epithet of Athena.
Prometheus
Son of Titan Iapetus and ocean nymph Clymene, brother of Atlas, Menoetius, and Epimetheus. Father of Deucalion. He brought fire to man.
Pronaos
Entrance hall to the temple (naos).
Propertius
Romanelegiac poet from Umbria; probably born about 50 B.C.
Propylaea
Building at the west entrance of the Acropolis.
Protagoras
Born about 480 B.C. Protagoras was a Greek sophist from Abdera.
Protesilaus
Son of Iphiclus, king of Phylace, in Thessaly, the first Greek to leap on Trojan soil although he knew that to do so meant he must die.
Proteus
A sea god with the girt of prophecy and shape-shifting.
Psyche
Personification of the human soul and wife of Eros.
Psychopompos
Pubilius Syrus
(Fl. 43 B.C.) A Syrian writer of mimes.
Pudicitia
Roman goddess of modesty and chastity.
Pyanepsia
Festival celebrated in Athens on the seventh day of Pyanepsion (end of October) in honor of departing summer god, Apollo.
Pygmalion
King of Cyprus who fell in love with a statue he was sculpting. Aphrodite brought it to life. They married and had a son Paphos.
Pyramus And Thisbe
Two Babylonian lovers from hostile families.
Pyrrha
Daughter of Epimetheus, wife of Deucalion.
Pythagoras
Greek philosopher from Samos from about 580 B.C. Said to have been the first to style himself a philosopher.
Pythia
The oracle for Apollo at Delphi.
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