district of Milyas was sometimes included in Pisidia, at other times assigned to Lycia. Some writers, indeed, considered the Pisidians as the same people with the Milyans, while others regarded them as descendants of the Solymi, but Strabo speaks of the language of the Pisidians as distinct from that of the Solymi, as well as from that of the Lydians. The whole of Pisidia is an elevated region of table-lands or upland valleys in the midst of the ranges of Mt Taurus which descends abruptly on the side of Pamphylia. It contains several small lakes, and two of large size, Bey-Sheher Lake, the ancient Karalis, and the double lake now called the Egerdir Geul, of which the ancient name was Limnai. The latter is a fresh-water lake of about 30 m. in length, situated in the north of Pisidia on the frontier of Phrygia, at an elevation of 3007 ft. Karalis is a larger body, also of fresh water, and at a distinctly higher level above the sea. The only rivers of importance are the Cestrus and the Eurymedon, both of which take their rise in the highest ranges of Mt Taurus, and flow down through deep and narrow valleys to the plain of Pamphylia, which they traverse on their way to the sea.
Notwithstanding its rugged and mountainous character, Pisidia contained in ancient times several considerable towns, the ruins of which have been brought to light by the researches of recent travellers (Arundell, Hamilton, Daniell, G. Hirschfeld, Radet, Sterrett, Lanckoronski, Ramsay, &c.), and show them to have attained under the Roman Empire to a degree of opulence and prosperity far beyond what we should have looked for in a country of predatory mountaineers. The most important of them are Termessus, near the frontier of Lycia, a strong fortress in a position of great natural strength and commanding one of the principal passes into Pamphylia; Cremna, another mountain fortress, north of the preceding, impending over the valley of the Cestrus; Sagalassus, a little farther north, a large town in a strong position, the ruins of which are among the most remarkable in Asia Minor; Selge, on the right bank of the Eurymedon, surrounded by rugged mountains, notwithstanding which it was in Strabo’s time a large and opulent city; and Antioch, known for distinction’s sake as Antioch of Pisidia, and celebrated for the visit of St Paul. This was situated in the extreme north-east of the district immediately on the frontier of Phrygia, between Lake Egerdir and the range of the Sultan Dagh and was reckoned in the Greek and earlier Roman period, e.g. by Strabo, as a city of Phrygia.
Besides these there were situated in the rugged mountain tract west of the Cestrus Cretopolis, Olbasa, Pogla, Isinda, Etenna and Comama. Pednelissus was in the upper valley of the Eurymedon above Selge. The only place in the district at the present day deserving to be called a town is Isbarta, the residence of a pasha; it stands at the northern foot of the main mass of Mt Taurus, looking over a wide and fertile plain which extends up to the northern chain of Taurus. North of this and immediately on the borders of Phrygia stood Apollonia, called also Mordiaeum. Large estates in Pisidia and the adjoining parts of Phrygia belonged to the Roman emperors; and their administration has been investigated by Ramsay and others.
We have no clue to the ethnic character and relations of the Pisidians, except that we learn from Strabo that they were distinct from the neighbouring Solymi, who were probably a Semitic race, but we find mention at an early period in these mountain districts of various other tribes, as the Cabali, Milyans, &c, of all which, as well as the neighbouring Isaurians and Lycaonians, the origin is wholly unknown, and the absence of monuments of their languages must remain so. A few short Pisidian inscriptions have been published by Ramsay in Revue des études anciennes (1895, pp. 353–362). No inscriptions in these other languages are known. (W. M. Ra.)
PISO, the name of a distinguished Roman plebeian family of the Calpurnian gens which continued in existence till the end of the 2nd century A.D. Nearly fifty of its members were prominent in Roman history, but the following deserve particular mention.
1. Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, Roman statesman, was the father-in-law of Julius Caesar. In 58 B.C., when consul, he and his colleague Aulus Gabinius entered into a compact with P. Clodius, with the object of getting Cicero out of the way. Psio’s reward was the province of Macedonia, which he administered from 57 to the beginning of 55, when he was recalled, perhaps in consequence of the violent attack made upon him by Cicero in the senate in his speech De provinciis consularibus. On his return Piso addressed the senate in his defence, and Cicero replied with the coarse and exaggerated invective known as In Pisonem. Piso issued a pamphlet by way of rejoinder, and there the matter dropped, Cicero being afraid to bring the father-in-law of Caesar to trial. At the outbreak of the civil war Piso offered his services as mediator, but when Caesar marched upon Rome he left the city by way of protest. He did not, however, definitely declare for Pompey, but remained neutral, without forfeiting the respect of Caesar. After the murder of the dictator he insisted on the provisions of his will being strictly carried out, and for a time opposed Antony. Subsequently, however, he became one of his supporters, and is mentioned as taking part in an embassy to Antony’s camp at Mutina with the object of bringing about a reconciliation.
2. Lucius Calpurnius Piso, surnamed Frugi (the worthy), Roman statesman and historian, was tribune in 149 B.C. He is known chiefly for his lex Calpurnia repetundarum, which brought about the system of quaestiones perpetuae and a new phase of criminal procedure. As praetor (136) and consul (133) Piso fought against the slaves in Sicily. He energetically opposed Gaius Gracchus, especially in connexion with his corn law.
See Annalists; C. Cichorius in Pauly-Wissowa’s Real encyclopädie (1897), vol. iii., pt. 1; H. Peter, Historicorum romanorum reliquiae (1870), vol. i.; Teuffel-Schwabe, Hist. of Roman Lit. (Eng. trans.), § 132, 4. On the lex Calpurnia, Corpus inscr. latinarum, i., No. 198, with Mommsen’s commentary; A. H. J. Greenidge, Hist. of Rome, 133–104 B.C. (1904).
3. Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, Roman statesman, was consul in 7 B.C., and subsequently governor of Spain and proconsul of Africa. In A.D. 17 Tiberius appointed him governor of Syria, with secret instructions to thwart Germanicus, to whom the eastern provinces had been assigned. The indignation of the people at the death of Germanicus, and the suspicion that Piso had poisoned him, forced Tiberius to order an investigation. Piso committed suicide, though it was rumoured that Tiberius, fearing incriminating disclosures, had put him to death.
See H. Schiller, Geschichte der römischen Kaiserzeit (1883), vol. i.
4. Gaius Calpurnius Piso, Roman statesman, orator and patron of literature in the first century A.D., is known chiefly for his share in the conspiracy of A.D. 65 against Nero (q.v.). He was one of the most popular men in Rome, partly for his skill in poetry and music, partly for his love of luxury and generosity.
It is probably the last-named who is referred to by Calpurnius Siculus under the name of Meliboeus, and he is the subject of the panegyric De laude Pisonis.
PISSARRO, CAMILLE (1831–1903), French painter, was
born at St Thomas in the Danish Antilles, of Jewish parents of Spanish extraction. He went to Paris at the age of twenty, and, as a pupil of Corot, came into close touch with the Barbizon masters. Though at first he devoted himself to subjects of the kind which will be ever associated with the name of Millet, his interest was entirely absorbed by the landscape, and not by the figures. He subsequently fell under the spell of the rising impressionist movement and threw in his lot with Monet and his friends, who were at that time the butt of public ridicule. Like Monet, he made sunlight, and the effect of sunlight on the objects of nature, the chief subjects of his paintings, whether in the country or on the Paris boulevards. About 1885 he took up the laboriously scientific method of the pointillists, but after a few years of these experiments he returned to a broader and more attractive manner. Indeed, in the closing years of his life he produced some of his finest paintings, in which he set down with admiral truth the peculiar atmosphere and colour and teeming life of the boulevards, streets and bridges of Paris and Rouen. He died in Paris in 1903.
