a Spartan surrender as inconceivable, and to Sparta their loss was so serious that the Athenians might have concluded the war on very favourable terms had they so wished. Though Pylos should have been ceded to Sparta under the terms of the peace of Nicias (421 B.C.) it was retained by the Athenians until the Spartans recaptured it early in 409 B.C. (Diodorus xiii. 64).
In the middle ages the name Pylos was replaced by that of Avarino (Ἀβαρῖνος) or Navarino, derived from a body of Avars who settled there; the current derivation from the Navarrese Company, who entered Greece in 1381 and built a castle at this spot, cannot now be maintained (Eng. Hist. Review, xx. 307, xxi. 106; Hermathena, xxxi. 430 sqq.). From 1498 to 1821 Navarino was in the hands of the Turks, save at two periods when it was held by the Venetians, who named it Zonklon. In 1821 the Greeks captured the town, situated near the southern extremity of the bay, but in 1825 they had to retire before Ibrahim Pasha. On the 20th of October 1827, however, his fleet of 82 vessels was annihilated in the Bay of Navarino by 26 British, French and Russian ships under Admiral Codrington (see Navarino, the Battle of).
See W. M. Leake, Travels in the Morea, i. 398 sqq. (London, 1830), and Peloponnesiaca, 190 sqq. (London, 1846); E. Curtius, Peloponnesos, ii. 173 sqq. (Gotha, 1852); C. Bursian, Geographie von Griechenland, ii. 175 sqq. (Leipzig, 1868); Pausanias iv. 36, and the commentary in J. G. Frazer, Pausanias's Description of Greece, iii. 456 sqq., v. 608 sqq. (London, 1898); W. G. Clark, Peloponnesus, 214 sqq. (London, 1858); W. Vischer, Erinnerungen und Eindrücke aus Griechenland, 431 sqq. (Basel, 1857); G. Grote, History of Greece, pt. ii. ch. 52; G. Busolt, Griechische Geschichte, iii. 1086 sqq.; F. M. Cornford, Thucydides mythistoricus, 82 sqq. (London, 1907). The operations at Pylos, described by Thucydides iv. 2–41, have been discussed on the basis of personal observation by Dr G. B. Grundy (Journal of Hellenic Studies, xvi. 1 sqq.; Classical Review, x. 371 sqq., xi. 155 q., 448; J.H.S., xviii. 282 sqq.) and Professor R. M. Burrows (J.H.S., xvi. 55 sqq.; C.R. xi. 1 sqq.; J.H.S., xviii. 147 sqq., 345 sqq.; C.R. xix. 129 sqq.). Though differing on many points, they agree in thinking (1) that the island of Sphagia is the ancient Sphacteria, Palaeokastro the ancient Coryphasium or Pylos; (2) that in 425 B.C. the lagoon of Osman Aga was navigable and communicated by a navigable channel with the Bay of Navarino; (3) that Thucydides, if the MS. reading is correct, underestimates the length of the island, which he gives as 15 stades instead of 24 (nearly 3 m.), and also the breadth of the southern channel between it and the mainland. Cf. J.H.S., xx. 14 sqq., xxvii. 274 sqq., and Frazer's summary (op. cit. v. 608 sqq.). (M. N. T.)
PYM, JOHN (1584–1643), English statesman, was the son and heir of Alexander Pym, of Brymore, Somersetshire, a member of an ancient family which had held this seat in direct male descent from the time of Henry III. He matriculated as a commoner at Broadgates Hall (now Pembroke College), Oxford, in 1599, and entered the Middle Temple in 1602. He acquired a sound knowledge of the law, and became receiver-general of the king's revenue for Wilts., thus gaining a valuable insight
into business and finance. He was returned to parliament as member for Calne in 1614 and again in 1621. He at once became conspicuous in the struggle between Crown and parliament.
To the committee appointed to consider the state of religion he
made his first great speech on the 28th of November IOZI.
He held fast to the Elizabethan principle that the Roman
Catholics should be subjected to disabilities, not because of
their religion, but because of their politics. He, therefore, moved
that a special commission for the suppression of recfisancy should
be appointed, and that an association, after the model of those
formed under Elizabeth, should be entered into for defence of
the king's person and for the execution of the laws concerning
religion. Pym supported Sir Edward Coke in the remonstrance
on the prevailing discontents, and was a chief promoter of the
petition which incurred James's violent displeasure, and of the
Commons' answer defending their privileges, which was afterwards
torn from the records by the king's own hand. On the
dissolution of parliament which immediately followed, Pym,
with other “ill-tempered spirits,” was arrested in January
1622, and was confined first to his house in London, and then
to Brymore, He associated himself with the party of Francis,
4th earl of Bedford, was returned for Tavistock in 1624, and
represented this borough in all the ensuing parliaments. He
supported Eliot in urging war against Spain for the defence of
Protestantism and the Palatinate, and showed throughout his
career, as far as his attention was ever directed to foreign policy,
a steady inclination in favour of France.
In the parliament of 1625 he continued his campaign against the Roman Catholics, and drew up with Sir Edwin Sandys the articles against them, and the petition to the king for the direct execution of the penal laws. In the parliament of 1626 he was the chief mover, in April, in the prosecution of Richard Montagu, who had advocated Romish doctrines. On the 8th of May he was manager of Buckingham's impeachment, when it was his special duty to press articles ix., x., xi., relating to the improper distribution of rewards and honours. In the third parliament of Charles I., in 1628, Pym overruled Eliot in deciding that Buckingham's impeachment should now be subordinated to the struggle on general grievances. He zealously pushed on the Petition of Right, resisting on the 20th of May the clause added by the Lords to safeguard the king's “sovereign power,” declaring that “he knew not what it was.” On the 9th of June he carried up to the Lords the impeachment of Roger Manwaring, and delivered a famous speech in which he expounded the fundamental principles which guided his policy.
“Histories,” he said, “are full of the calamities of whole states and nations. . . . [when] one part seeks to uphold the old form of government and the other part to introduce a new . . . But it is equally true that time must needs bring about some alterations. . . . Those things only are eternal which are constant and uniform. Therefore it is observed by the best writers on this subject, that those commonwealths have been most durable and perpetual which have often reformed and recompensed themselves according to their first institution and ordinance.”
On the 11th of June he joined in the attack upon Buckingham, whom he regarded as the “cause of all these grievances.” On the 27th of January 1629 he was reporter of the committee on religion, and declared that convocation was dependent upon parliament. He again, in February 1629, differed from Eliot, who treated the dispute about tonnage and poundage as a point of privilege, declaring that “the liberties of this house are inferior to the liberties of the kingdom,” and desiring to deal with it on higher ground as a breach of law and the constitution. He took no part in the subsequent disturbance in the house, and his name is not mentioned as actively resisting Charles's arbitrary government during the eleven years which followed the dissolution. At this period the state of public affairs may well have appalled the most hopeful and the most patriotic, but there seems no sufficient authority for the belief that Pym, with Hampden and Cromwell, actually embarked for New England and were prevented from sailing by orders from the government. An allusion, however, to a similar plan formed “by some very considerable personages,” “diverted by a miraculous providence,” is made in a sermon by Thomas Cave in 1642. Pym himself was directly interested in the colonies, being patentee of Connecticut and Providence, and of the latter company also treasurer, and there can be little doubt that like other leaders of the opposition during this period, he regarded America as a possible refuge. On the assembly of the Short Parliament on the 13th of April 1640, Pym was the acknowledged leader. “Whilst men gazed upon each other,” says Clarendon (Hist. ii. 68), “looking who should begin (much the greater part having never before sat in parliament), Mr Pym, a man of good reputation . . . who had been as long in these assemblies as any man there living, broke the ice.” On the 17th of April he made a great speech of nearly two hours, in which he enumerated the national grievances, deplored almost in the words of Bacon “the interruption of that sweete communion which ought to be betwixt the king and his people in matters of grant and supply,” pointed out the practical injury inflicted on commerce and every sort of enterprise including colonial expansion by illegal and arbitrary taxation, and concluded by asking the Lords to join in finding out causes and remedies. His words made a deep impression. On the 27th of April he resisted the grant of supply, and when the Lords passed a resolution that supply should precede the
