a “day of holy convocation” on which no servile work was to be done. It was called a “fiftieth-day feast.” Pentecost or “Fiftieth” day is only a Greek equivalent of the last name (πεντηκοστή) in the Apocrypha and New Testament. The orthodox later Jews reckoned the fifty days from the 16th of Nisan, but on this there has been considerable controversy among Jews themselves. The orthodox later Jews assumed that the Sabbath in Lev. xxiii. 11, 15 is the 15th Nisan, or the first day of the feast of Maṣṣōth. Hitzig maintained that in the Hebrew calendar 14th and 21st Nisan were always Sabbaths, and that 1st Nisan was always a Sunday, which was the opening day of the year. “The morrow after the Sabbath” means, according to Hitzig, the day after the weekly Sabbath, viz. 22nd Nisan. Knobel (Comment. on Leviticus) and Kurtz agree with Hitzig’s premises but differ from his identification of the Sabbath. They identify it with the 14th Nisan. Accordingly the “day after” falls on the 15th. (See Purves’s article, “Pentecost,” in Hastings’s Dict. of the Bible, and also Ginsburg’s article in Kitto’s Cyclopaedia). Like the other great feasts, it came to be celebrated by fixed special sacrifices. The amount of these is differently expressed in the earlier and later priestly law (Lev. xxiii. 18 seq.; Num. xxviii. 26 seq.); the discrepancy was met by adding the two lists. The later Jews also extended the one day of the feast to two. Further, in accordance with the tendency to substitute historical for economic explanations of the great feasts, Pentecost came to be regarded as the feast commemorative of the Sinaitic legislation.
To the Christian Church Pentecost acquired a new significance through the outpouring of the Spirit (Acts ii.). (See Whitsunday.)
It is not easy to find definite parallels to this festival in other ancient religious cults. The Akitu festival to Marduk was a spring festival at the beginning of the Babylonian year (Nisan). It therefore comes near in time to the feast of unleavened cakes rather than to the later harvest festival in the month Sivan called “feast of weeks.” Zimmern indeed connects the Akitu festival with that of Purim on the 15th Adar (March); see K. A. T. 3 p. 514 seq. Also the Roman Cerealia of April 12th–19th rather correspond to Maṣṣōth than to Ḳāṣīr. (O. C. W.)
PENTELICUS (Βριλησσός, or Πεντελικὸν ὄρος from the deme Πεντέλη; mod. Mendeli), a mountain to the N.E. of the Athenian plain, height 3640 ft. Its quarries of white marble were not regularly worked until after the Persian wars; of this material all the chief buildings of Athens were constructed, as well as the sculpture with which they were ornamented. The ancient quarries are mostly on the south side of the mountain. The best modern quarries are on the north side. The top of Pentelicus commands a view over the plain of Marathon,
and from it the Athenian traitors gave the signal to the
Persians by a flashing shield on the day of the battle. There was a statue of Athena on the mountain.
PENTHEUS, in Greek legend, successor of Cadmus as king
of Thebes. When Dionysus, with his band of frenzied women
(Maenads) arrived at Thebes (his native place and the first city
visited by him in Greece), Pentheus denied his divinity and
violently opposed the introduction of his rites. His mother
Agave having joined the revellers on Mount Cithaeron, Pentheus
followed and climbed a lofty pine to watch the proceedings.
Being discovered he was torn to pieces by Agave and others,
who mistook him for some wild beast. His head was carried
back to Thebes in triumph by his mother. Labdacus and
Lycurgus, who offered a similar resistance, met with a like
fearful end. Some identify Pentheus with Dionysus himself
in his character as the god of the vine, torn to pieces by the
violence of winter. The fate of Pentheus was the subject of
lost tragedies by Thespis and Pacuvius.
See Euripides, Bacchae, passim; Ovid, Metam. iii. 511; Theocritus xxvi; Apollodorus iii. 5, 2; Nonnus, Dionysiaca, xliv–xlvi; on representations in art see O. Jahn, Pentheus und die Mainaden (1841).
PENTHIÈVRE, COUNTS OF. In the 11th and 12th Centuries the countship of Penthièvre in Brittany (dep. of Côtes-du-Nord) belonged to a branch of the sovereign house of Brittany. Henry d’Avaugour, heir of this dynasty, was dispossessed of the countship in 1235 by the duke of Brittany, Pierre Mauclerc, who gave it as dowry to his daughter, Yolande, on her marriage in 1238
to Hugh of Lusignan, count of La Marche. Duke John I.
of Brittany, Yolande’s brother, seized the count ship on her death in 1272. In 1337 Joan of Brittany brought Penthièvre to her husband, Charles de Chatillon-Blois. In 1437 Nicole de Blois, a descendant of this family, married Jean de Brosse, and was deprived of Penthièvre by the duke of Brittany, Francis II., in 1465. The countship, which was restored to Sebastian of Luxemburg, heir of the Brosses through his mother, was erected for him into a duchy in the peerage of France (duché-pairie) in 1569, and was afterwards held by the duchess of Mercœur, daughter of the first duke of Penthièvre, and then by her daughter, the duchess of Vendôme. The duchess of Vendôme’s grandson, Louis Joseph, inherited Penthièvre in 1669, but it was taken from him by decree in 1687 and adjudged to Anne Marie de Bourbon, princess of Conti. In 1696 it was sold to the count of Toulouse, whose son bore the title of duke of Penthièvre. This title passed by inheritance to the house of Orleans.
PENTHOUSE, a sloping roof attached to a building either to serve as a porch or a covering for an arcade, or, if supported
by walls, as a shed, a “lean-to.” In the history of siegecraft,
the word is particularly applied to the fixed or movable constructions
used to protect the besiegers when mining, working battering-rams,
catapults, &c., and is thus used to translate Lat.
vinea and pluteus, and also testudo the shelter of locked shields
of the Romans. The Mid. Eng. form of the word is pentis, an
adaptation of O. Fr. apentis, Med. Lat. appenditium or appendicium,
a small structure attached to, or dependent on, another
building, from appendere, to hang on to. The form “penthouse”
is due to a supposed connexion with “house” and Fr.
pente, sloping roof. The more correct form “pentice” is now
frequently used.
PENTSTEMON, in botany, a genus of plants (nat. order
Scrophulariaceae), chiefly natives of North America, with
showy open-tubular flowers. The pentstemon of the florist
has, however, sprung from P. Hartwegii and P. Cobaea, and
possibly some others. The plants endure English winters
unharmed in favoured situations. They are freely multiplied
by cuttings, selected from the young side shoots, planted early
in September, and kept in a close cold frame till rooted. They
winter safely in cold frames, protected by mats or litter during
frost. They produce seed freely, new kinds being obtained
by that means. When special varieties are not required true
from cuttings, the simplest way to raise pentstemons is to sow
seed in heat (65° F.) early in February, afterwards pricking
the seedlings out and hardening them off, so as to be ready
for the open air by the end of May. Plants formerly known
under the name of Chelone (e.g. C. barbata, C. campanulata)
are now classed with the pentstemons.
PENUMBRA (Lat. paene, almost, umbra, a shadow), in astronomy, the partial shadow of a heavenly body as cast by the sun. It is defined by the region in which the light of the sun is partially but not wholly cut off through the interception of a dark body. (See Eclipse.)
PENZA, a government of eastern Russia, bounded N. by the government of Nizhniy-Novgorod, E. by Simbirsk, and S. and W. by Saratov and Tambov; area 14,992 sq. m.; pop. (est. 1906) 1,699,000. The surface is undulating, with deep valleys and ravines, but does not exceed 900 ft. above sea-level. It is principally made up of Cretaceous sandstones, sands, marls and chalk, covered in the east by Eocene deposits. Chalk, potter’s clay, peat and iron are the chief mineral products in the north. The soil is a black earth, more or less mixed with clay and sand; marshes occur in the Krasnoslobodsk district; and expanses of sand in the river valleys. There are extensive forests in the north, but the south exhibits the characteristic features of a steppeland. The government is drained by the Moksha, the Sura (both navigable), and the Khoper, belonging to the Oka, Volga and Don systems. Timber is floated down
