Page:EB1911 - Volume 21.djvu/99

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PENARTH—PENATES

changed to $6000, in perpetuity, for some years later this was raised to $10,000, and is still annually paid. This final addition was made when Province Wellesley was purchased by the East India Company for $2000 in 1798. At the time of the cession Penang was almost uninhabited. In 1796 it was made a penal settlement, and 700 convicts were transferred thither from the Andaman Islands. In 1805 Penang was made a separate presidency, ranking with Bombay and Madras; and when in 1826 Singapore and Malacca were incorporated with it. Penang continued to be the seat of government. In 1829 Penang was reduced from the rank of a presidency, and eight years later the town of Singapore was made the capital of the Settlements. In 1867 the Straits Settlements were created a Crown colony, in which Penang was included.

See Straits Settlements Blue Book 1906 (Singapore, 1907); The Straits Directory (Singapore, 1907), Sir Frank Swettenham, British Malaya (London, 1906).  (H. Cl.) 


PENARTH, an urban district and seaport in the southern parliamentary division of Glamorganshire, Wales, 166 m. by rail from London, picturesquely situated on rising ground on the south side of the mouth of the Ely opposite Cardiff, from which it is 4 m. distant by rail and 2 m. by steamer. Pop (1901), 14,228. The place derives its name from two Welsh words, “pen,” a head, and “garth,” an enclosure. Penarth was a small and unimportant village until a tidal harbour at the mouth of the Ely was opened in 1859, and a railway, 6 m. long, was made about the same time, connecting the harbour with the Taff Vale railway at Radyr. A dock, authorized in 1857, was opened in 1865, when all three undertakings, which had cost £775,000, were leased in perpetuity to the Taff Vale Railway Company. The monopoly which the Bute Docks at Cardiff had previously enjoyed in shipping coal from the valleys of the Taff and Rhondda was thus terminated. The town is frequented in summer as a bathing-place, and the Rhaetic beds at the head are of special interest to geologists. On this head there stood an old church, probably Norman, which served as a landmark for sailors. The remains of an old chantry have been converted into a barn. Besides two Established and one Roman Catholic church, the principal buildings of Penarth are its various Nonconformist chapels, intermediate and technical school (1894), custom house, dock offices, and Turner House with a private art gallery which is thrown open on certain days to the public. Three miles to the west is Dinas Powis Castle. In 1880–1883 gardens were laid out along the cliff, in 1894 a promenade and landing-pier with a length of 630 ft. were constructed, and in 1900 a marine subway open at all times for foot passengers was made under the river Ely. The dock as first constructed comprised 171/2 acres, was extended in 1884 at a cost of £250,000, and now covers 23 acres with a basin of 3 acres. It is 2900 ft in length, has a minimum depth of 26 ft., and is furnished with every modern appliance for the export of coal, of which from 20,000 to 30,000 tons can be stored in the sidings near by. The Penarth-Ely tidal harbour has a water area of 55 acres with a minimum depth of 20 ft., and a considerable import trade is carried on here mainly by coasting vessels, but as only one of its sides has wharves (about 3000 ft. along) scarcely more than 5% of the total shipping of the port is done here. It has commodious warehouses, also tanks to hold about 6000 tons of oil.

PENATES (from Lat. penus, eatables, food), Roman gods of the store-room and kitchen. The store-room over which they presided was, in old times, beside the atrium, the room which served as kitchen, parlour and bedroom in one, but in later times the store-room, was in the back part of the house. It was sanctified by the presence of the Penates, and none but pure and chaste persons might enter it, just as with the Hindus the kitchen is sacred and inviolable They had no individual names, but were always known under the general designation, Penates. Closely associated with the Penates were the Lares (q.v.) another species of domestic deity, who seem to have been the deified spirits of deceased ancestors. But while each family had two Penates it had but one Lar. In the household shrine the image of the Lar (dressed in a toga) was placed between the two images of the Penates, which were represented as dancing and elevating a drinking-horn in token of joy and plenty. The three images together were sometimes called Penates, sometimes Lares, and either name was used metaphorically for “home.” The shrine stood originally in the atrium, but when the hearth and the kitchen were separated from the atrium and removed to the back of the house, and meals were taken in an upper storey, the position of the shrine was also shifted. In the houses at Pompeii it is sometimes in the kitchen, sometimes in the rooms. In the later empire it was placed behind the house-door, and a taper or lamp was kept burning before it. But the worship in the interior of the house was also kept up even into Christian times; it was forbidden by an ordinance of Theodosius (A.D. 392). The old Roman used, in company with his children and slaves, to offer a morning sacrifice and prayer to his household gods. Before meals the blessing of the gods was asked, and after the meal, but before dessert, there was a short silence, and a portion of food was placed on the hearth and burned. If the hearth and the images were not in the eating-room, either the images were brought and put on the table, or before the shrine was placed a table on which were set a salt-cellar, food and a burning lamp. Three days in the month, viz. the Calends, Nones and Ides (i.e. the first, the fifth or seventh, and the thirteenth or fifteenth), were set apart for special family worship, as were also the Caristia (Feb. 22) and the Saturnalia in December. On these days as well as on such occasions as birthdays marriages, and safe returns from journeys, the images were crowned and offerings made to them of cakes, honey, wine, incense, and sometimes a pig. As each family had its own Penates, so the state, as a collection of families, had its public Penates. Intermediate between the worship of the public and private Penates were probably the rites (sacra) observed by each clan (gens) or collection of families supposed to be descended from a common ancestor The other towns of Latium had their public Penates as well as Rome. The sanctuary of the whole Latin league was at Lavinium. To these Penates at Lavinium the Roman priests brought yearly offerings, and the Roman consuls, praetors and dictators sacrificed both when they entered on and when they laid down their office. To them, too, the generals sacrificed before departing for their province. Alba Longa, the real mother-city of Latium, had also its ancient Penates, and the Romans maintained the worship on the Alban mount long after the destruction of Alba Longa. The Penates had a temple of their own at Rome. It was on the Velia near the Forum, and has by some been identified with the round vestibule of the church of SS. Cosma e Damiano. In this and many other temples the Penates were represented by two images of youths seated holding spears. The Penates were also worshipped in the neighbouring temple at Vesta. To distinguish the two worships it has been supposed that the Penates in the former temple were those of Latium, while those in the temple of Vesta were the Penates proper of Rome. Certainly the worship of the Penates, whose altar was the hearth and to whom the kitchen was sacred, was closely connected with that of Vesta, goddess of the domestic hearth.

The origin and nature of the Penates was a subject of much discussion to the Romans themselves. They were traced to the mysterious worship of Samothrace, Dardanus. it was said, took the Penates from Samothrace to Troy, and after the destruction of Troy, Aeneas brought them to Italy and established them at Lavinium. From Lavinium Ascanius carried the worship to Alba Longa, and from Alba Longa it was brought to Rome. Equally unsatisfactory with this attempt to connect Roman religion with Greek legend are the vague and mystic speculations in which the later Romans indulged respecting the nature of the Penates. Some said they were the great gods to whom we owe breath, body and reason, viz. Jupiter representing the middle ether, Juno the lowest air and the earth, and Minerva the highest ether, to whom some added Mercury as the god of speech (Servius, on Aen. ii. 296, Macrobius, Sat. iii. 4, 8; Arnobius, Adv. Nat. iii. 40). Others identified them with Apollo