Bibliography.—E. Flandin and P. Coste, Voyage en Perse (1843–1847); F. Stolze, Die Achaemenidischen und Sassanidischen Denkmäler und Inschriften von Persepolis, &c. (1882); G. Perrot and C. Chipiez, Histiore de l'art dans l’antiquité, v. (1890). See also Darius; Persia: Ancient History; and Caliphate. (Th. N.; A. H. S.)
PERSEUS, in Greek legend, son of Danaë and Zeus. When Perseus was grown to manhood Polydectes, king of Seriphus, cast his eye on Danae, and, in order to rid himself of the son, exacted of him a promise that he would bring him the head of the Gorgon Medusa. The Gorgons dwelt with their sisters the Graeae (the grey women) by the great ocean, far away in the west. Guided by Hermes and Athena, Perseus came to the Graeae. They were three hags, with but one eye and one tooth between them. Perseus stole the eye and the tooth, and would not restore them till the Graeae had guided him to the Nymphs, from whom he received the winged sandals, a wallet (κίβισις, resembling a gamekeeper’s bag) and the helmet of Hades, which rendered him invisible. Thus equipped and armed by Hermes with a sharp sword like a sickle, he came upon the Gorgons as they slept, and cut off Medusa’s head, while with averted eyes he looked at her reflection which Athena showed him in the mirror of her shield. Perseus put the Gorgon’s head in his wallet and fled, pursued by Medusa’s sisters, to Ethiopia, where he delivered and married Andromeda (q.v.). With her he returned to Seriphus in time to rescue his mother and Dictys from Polydectes, whom he turned to stone with all his court by showing them the Gorgon’s head. The island itself was turned to stone, and the very frogs of Seriphus (so ran the proverb) were dumb (Aelian, Nat. anim. iii. 37). Perseus then gave the head of Medusa to Athena, and, with Danaë and Andromeda, hastened to Argos to see his grandfather, Acrisius, once more. But before his arrival Acrisius, fearing the oracle, had fled to Larissa in Thessaly. Thither Perseus followed him, and at some funeral games held in honour of the king of that country unwittingly slew his grandfather by the throw of a quoit, which struck him on the foot. Ashamed to return to Argos, Perseus gave his kingdom to Megapenthes (Acrisius’s nephew), and received from him Tiryns in exchange. There he reigned and founded Mideia and Mycenae, and became the ancestor of the Persides, amongst whom were Eurystheus and Heracles.
The legend of Perseus was localized in various places. Italy claimed that the chest containing Danaë and Perseus drifted ashore on the Italian coast (Virgil, Aen.. vii. 372, 410). The Persian kings were said to have been descended from Perses a son of Perseus, and, according to Pausanias of Damascus,[1] he taught the Persians to worship fire, and founded the Magian priesthood. His cult was transferred to the kings of Pontus, for on coins of Amisus he is represented with the features of Mithradates Eupator. Like Andromeda, Hesione, the daughter of Laomedon, king of Troy, was rescued by Heracles from a sea-monster, and both stories have been interpreted of the sun slaying the darkness, Andromeda and Hesione being the moon, which the darkness is about to devour. In one version of the story of Hesione, Heracles is said to have spent three days, like Jonah, in the belly of the beast, and it is noteworthy that the Greek representations of Andromeda’s monster were models for Jonah’s fish in early Christian art. Its bones and Andromeda’s chains were shown on a rock at Joppa. Perseus appears on coins of Pontus and Cappadocia, and of Tarsus in Cilicia, which he was said to have founded. The legend of St George was influenced by the traditions current regarding Perseus in Syria and Asia Minor.
For the slaying of the Medusa, see F. H. Knatz, Quomodo Persei fabulam artifices graeci et romani tractaverint (1893); and, on the whole story, E. S. Hartland, The Legend of Perseus (1894–1896).
PERSEUS, in astronomy, a constellation of the northern hemisphere, called after the Greek legendary hero. it is mentioned by Eudoxus (4th century B.C.) and Aratus (3rd century B.C.); Ptolemy and Tycho Brahe catalogued 29 stars, Hevelius 46. The most important member of this constellation is β Persei or Algol (q.v.), a famous variable star. θ Persei is a triple star, composed of one 4th magnitude star and two of the 10th magnitude; ρ Persei is an irregular variable, with a range in magnitude of 3.4 to 4.1. Nova Persei is a “new” star discovered in 1887 and subsequently recognized on Harvard plates by Mrs Fleming in 1895; another new star was discovered by Anderson on the 21st of February 1901, which, after increasing in magnitude, gradually became fainter and ultimately disappeared. There is a nebula surrounding Nova Persei (1901) which was photographed at Yerkes observatory in September 1901; a pair of star clusters, appearing as a bright patch in the Milky Way; and the meteoric swarm named the Perseids, which appear in August and have their radiant in Perseus. (See Meteor.)
PERSEUS OF MACEDONIA (b. c. 212 B.C.), the last king of Macedonia, eldest son of Philip V. He had his brother Demetrius killed, and thus cleared his way to the throne in 179. War broke out with Rome in 171 B.C. when P. Licinius Crassus was sent to attack him. Perseus defeated Crassus at Callinicus in Thessaly, but in 168 he was annihilated at Pydna by L. Aemilius Paulus. He was led in triumph through Rome, and died in captivity at Alba Fucens. (See Macedonia.)
PERSHORE, a market town in the Evesham parliamentary division of Worcestershire, England, 113 m. W.N.W.of London and 7 S.E. of Worcester by the Great Western railway. Pop. (1901), 3348. The station is 1½ m. from the town. Market gardening and fruit-growing (especially plums) are carried on and agricultural implements are manufactured. The churches of the two parishes of Holy Cross and St Andrew face one another across a road. Holy Cross is a remnant of a mitred abbey of Benedictines, said to have been founded about 970 by King Edgar, on the site of a Mercian religious settlement. There remain only the fine Early English choir, with Decorated additions, the Norman south transept and the majestic Decorated tower; while slight fragments of a Norman nave are seen.
PERSIA, a kingdom of western Asia, bounded on the N. by the Caspian Sea and the Russian Transcaucasian and Transcaspian territories, on the E. by Afghanistan and Baluchistan, on the S. by the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf, and on the W. by Turkish territory. Long before the Christian era the satrapies of Darius comprehended roughly an immense range of territory, from the Mediterranean to the Indus and from the Caucasian chain and Jaxartes to the Persian Gulf and Arabian Ocean. In the 17th and 18th centuries A.D. the conquests of ‛Abbas and Nadir kept up these boundaries more or less on the east, but failed to secure them on the west, and were limited to the Caucasus and Oxus on the north. Persia of the present day is not only, in the matter of geographical definition, far from the vast empire of Sacred Writ and remote history, but it is not even the less extensive dominion of the Safawi kings and Nadir Shah. It may be said, however, to comprise now quite as much settled and consolidated territory as at any period of its political existence of which we can speak with authority.
Boundaries.—The region of Ararat presents a good starting
point for the definition of the western and northern frontiers
of Persia. A line 20 m. in length from a point
on the river Aras, in 39° 45′ N. and 44° 40′ E. to
Mt Ararat, in the south-westerly direction, divides
Western
Frontier.
Persia from Russia. Southwards from Mt Ararat the
Perso-Turkish frontier extends about 700 m. to the mouth of the
Shatt el Arab in the Persian Gulf in 30° N. and 48° 40′ E.,
but is undefined with the exception of the western boundary of
the little district of Kotur. A mixed commission was appointed
in 1843 for the settlement of the Perso-Turkish frontier. The
labours of this commission resulted in the Erzerum treaty of
1847, by which both powers abandoned some lands and agreed
to appoint commissioners to define the frontier. The
commissioners met in 1849, 1850 and 1851 at Bagdad and Muhamrah
without arriving at any result. In 1851 Lord Palmerston
proposed that the general line of frontier should be traced by the
agents of Turkey and Persia at Constantinople, assisted by the
- ↑ Author of a history of Antioch; he is quoted by John Malalas, Chronographia. pp. 37–38, ed. Bonn (1831) Nothing further is known of him (see C. W. Müller. Fragmenta historicorum graecorum, iv, 467).
