a piece of policy in Cleopatra to force Ptolemy to repudiate his sister Cleopatra, to whom he was married, and take Selene instead. After reigning together not very harmoniously for several years an insurrection was excited at Alexandria against the son, whom the mother accused of a design upon her life. He fled to Cyprus and established himself there. He was not, however, inactive. Having landed in Syria, 103 b.c., with an army to support Ptolemais and Gaza against Alexander Jannæus, he defeated the latter and took possession of those cities. But Cleopatra sent an army against him, and reduced Ptolemais and Phenicia, compelling Lathyrus to retire to Cyprus, 101 b.c. In disputes between the Syrian princes mother and son took opposite sides. When Cleopatra died, and Alexander was expelled from Egypt, 89 b.c., Lathyrus was recalled and reigned over Egypt till his death. He had been absent eighteen years. In this latter part of his reign Thebes in Upper Egypt revolted, and was besieged for three years before it was taken. The conqueror reduced it to ruins. After holding the sovereignty for the period of eight years after his return, he died 81 b.c. His entire reign lasted thirty-five and a half years, from 117 to 81 b.c. Ptolemy Lathyrus seems to have been a king of mild and humane disposition. He was not energetic, bold, or warlike; but he was commonly just and upright. The kingdom was better managed by him than by his mother and brother. In one instance at least he acted wrongly, in sending troops to assist Antiochus Cyzicenus against the Jews contrary to his mother's desire. That action, more than any other, led to his expulsion from the kingdom. Like his brother he was not cruel, but he was somewhat weak, else he would not so readily have parted with his beloved wife Cleopatra.—S. D.
PTOLEMY, Claudius, the most eminent astronomer of antiquity after Hipparchus. He flourished at Alexandria during the reigns of Hadrian and Antoninus, but the exact time and place of his birth are uncertain. He is the author of a celebrated work on astronomy, entitled μαθηματικὴ σύνταξις, or the "Mathematical Syntaxis," which Theon subsequently designated by the appellation of μεγάλη σύνταξις, or "Great Syntaxis," whence the Arabic title of Almagest by which the work was generally known in the middle ages. The "Syntaxis" contains nearly all that is known respecting the ancient astronomy. It is divided into thirteen books. In the first book the author treats of the figure of the earth, which he demonstrates to be spherical, the obliquity of the ecliptic, and other fundamental elements. The second book is devoted to an investigation of the length of the day, and the position of the ecliptic with respect to the horizon in different latitudes. In book third the tropical and sidereal years are discussed, and the elements of the solar orbit are investigated. In this book Ptolemy gives a clear exposition of the circumstances upon which the equation of time depends. It is a curious fact, that subsequent astronomers continued notwithstanding to form an erroneous conception of the equation of time, until Flamsteed again explained its real nature. Books fourth and fifth are devoted to the moon. In the latter of these two books the author gives an account of his discovery of the inequality of the moon's longitude, to which modern astronomers have applied the name of the Evection. In the earlier stages of astronomy the moon's position in the celestial sphere was determined solely during the occurrence of eclipses, on which occasions the inequality of the evection vanishes, or rather is confounded with the principal inequality in longitude depending on the eccentricity of the lunar orbit. But when Ptolemy proceeded to observe the moon in quadratures with an instrument constructed for that purpose, he encountered a series of irregularities in the moon's longitude, which he was unable to account for by the principal inequality, the magnitude of which had been already determined by Hipparchus; and in this way he was led to his important discovery of the evection, an achievement which would alone suffice to secure for him a place among the great astronomers of all time. The sixth book of the "Syntaxis" is devoted to the subject of eclipses. Books seventh and eighth treat of the stars and the milky way. The former of these books contains a catalogue exhibiting the longitudes and latitudes of one thousand and twenty-two stars. The remainder of the work is devoted to the theory of the planets, which Ptolemy had the merit of first establishing upon the principles of the epicyclical theory. In the "Syntaxis" the earth is supposed to be placed immovable in the centre of the universe, while the heavenly bodies really revolve around it in the manner indicated by their apparent motions. This arrangement of the great bodies of the universe was termed in consequence the Ptolemaic system, although it is in reality of much higher antiquity than the time of Ptolemy. Besides the "Syntaxis," Ptolemy composed works on chronology and geography. The treatise on geography contains a statement of the longitudes and latitudes of all the principal places in the world known in the author's time. It continued to be the chief book of reference on the subject until the maritime discoveries of the nations of Western Europe, in the fifteenth century, led to its disuse. It may be mentioned in conclusion, that a beautiful Greek and French edition of the "Syntaxis" was published by Halma at Paris in 1813.—R. G.
PUBLICOLA. See Valerius.
PUBLIUS SYRUS, a dramatic writer and moralist, was a native of Syria, and was brought to Rome in his boyhood in the condition of a slave. His master, charmed with his wit and agreeable manners, gave him a good education and enfranchised him. He then began to write mimes or burlettas, in which mimicry and grimace supplied the place of a regularly developed plot. Coming to Rome about the year 44 b.c., he challenged all the dramatic poets to a literary contest, and in the judgment of Julius Cæsar triumphed over them all. About the time of his death nothing is known. His mimes are lost, but a collection of his sentences, or moral maxims, extracted from them, is still extant; it is usually printed with Phædrus' Fables. His writings were highly valued for centuries. Seneca speaks of them in terms of strong eulogy, and St. Jerome states that they were read in his time in the public schools of the empire.—T. A.
PUFFENDORF, Samuel, one of the most eminent jurists and moral philosophers of Germany, was the son of a Lutheran clergyman, and born in 1632, probably in Fleb, a village near Chemnitz, of which the father was pastor. His father and grandfather, as well as his uncles both on the father and mother side, were ministers of the Lutheran church. Samuel was also educated for the profession which had been adorned by so many members of his family. Having acquired a certain amount of elementary knowledge at Grimma, one of the schools founded by the elector of Saxony in 1550, he entered the university of Leipsic as a theological student. In the course of a few years his distaste for the ministry became so confirmed, that he resolved upon relinquishing his purpose. The fame of Erhard Weighel as a mathematical professor, attracted Puffendorf to Jena. During the whole of 1657 he devoted himself, under the tuition of Weighel, to the study of natural philosophy and mathematics. The professor soon discovered that his pupil possessed not only the precision, strength, and fixedness of mind requisite for grappling with the abstruse calculations of the exact sciences, but in addition to these gifts, a remarkable talent for that large and synthetic reasoning, by which alone probable evidence may be made contributory to science. Weighel was the first to recommend him to devote his mind to the study of jurisprudence. That this suggestion was carried out so fully and so well, is owing very much to the mere accident of Puffendorf's imprisonment, which happened in this manner. In the year 1658 M. Coyel, a Swedish gentleman of rank, represented Sweden in the capital of Denmark as its accredited ambassador. Puffendorf having obtained the appointment of governor and tutor to the ambassador's children, quitted Jena for Copenhagen. Soon after joining the legation, war broke out between the two kingdoms; the capital of the northern crown was invested by the Swedes; the whole family and attendants of the ambassador, including Puffendorf, were taken prisoners and kept eight months in close confinement. Not being allowed to see any one, he sought to mitigate the oppressive dulness of continued solitude by meditating on the writings of Grotius and Hobbes, and elaborating out of those materials a system of his own. From this time forth the mind of Puffendorf was devoted principally to the moral and juridical sciences. The little treatise which he wrote during his imprisonment was not originally designed for publication; but some years afterwards, while residing in Holland, Puffendorf read it to a friend, and upon his advice revised t he whole work and published it in 1660 at the Hague. The author called it "Elementa Jurisprudentiæ Universalis." The happy influences of his early mathematical training, are conspicuous in the severity of his reasoning and the unity of his system. It was an attempt to adapt the geometrical method to the science of jurisprudence by deducing in unbroken sequence from axiomatic principles and with the concession of a few
