The Facts on File Dictionary of Allusions - Green Valley High School

Pylades and Orestes
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in central Asia and were fi rst recorded in the writings
of Homer (c. eighth century b.c.). <strong>The</strong> word
itself comes from the Greek pygme, a mea sure of
length equivalent to the distance from a person’s
elbow to the knuckles. When hercules went into
battle with the pygmies he overcame them by rolling
them up in his lion skin. <strong>The</strong> name was subsequently
applied to certain peoples of equatorial
Africa characterized by their small stature, although
they are considerably larger than the pygmies of
classical legend, who used miniature hatchets to
cut individual ears of corn and had to wage war
annually against the cranes that fed on them.
Although a signifi cant player in the home market, the
company is a pygmy on the international stage.
Pylades and Orestes (pilaydeez, oresteez)
Archetypes of devoted friendship. Pylades and
Orestes appear in the writings of Homer (c. eighth
century b.c.) as a model of perfect friendship.
Orestes was the son of Agamemnon, while Pylades
was Agamemnon’s nephew. Like Pylades and Orestes,
they would have done anything for each other.
pylon A steel structure supporting high- tension
electrical cables or other equipment. <strong>The</strong> original
pylons were the monumental gateways that were a
chief feature of ancient Egyptian temples. Most electrical
companies today try to put their cables underground
rather than hoist them up in the air on long
chains of pylons running across the countryside.
Pyramids See eighth wonder of the world.
Pyramus and Thisbe (pirbmbs, thizbee) Archetypal
tragic lovers of classical legend. Pyramus and
Thisbe were two lovers who defi ed their parents’
opposition to their match and arranged to meet in
a remote place where Thisbe, arriving fi rst, was
attacked by a lion. Thisbe fl ed, and when Pyramus
arrived, all he found was her bloody scarf. Assuming
she was dead, he killed himself, only for Thisbe
to fi nd his body and commit suicide in turn. When
she found his apparently lifeless body, the young woman
swooned on the spot, a virtual modern reenactment of
Pyramus and Thisbe.
Pyrrhic victory (pirik) A hollow victory; a victory
so costly that its benefi ts are relatively insignifi
cant. Pyrrhus (312–272 b.c.) was a king of
Epirus, in western Greece, who waged a lengthy
campaign against Rome. Following the battle of
Asculum (279), which he won narrowly and only
at the cost of many of his men, he is said to have
exclaimed, “One more such victory and we are
undone!” By the time he returned to Epirus he had
lost two- thirds of his army. Such a victory may also
be called a Cadmean victory in allusion to the
Greek legend of Prince Cadmus, who fought and
killed a dragon, but a host of armed men subsequently
sprang up from the dragon’s teeth, which
Cadmus had planted in the ground. Cadmus threw
a stone into their midst and all but fi ve died in the
ensuing mayhem (hence the phrase). Pleased though
they were to secure the house after such a long struggle,
it was a Pyrrhic victory, for there would be very little left
in the kitty after they had met the dramatically infl ated
purchase price. See also sow dragon’s teeth.
Pythagorean theorem (pbthagbreebn) Mathematical
rule that the square of the length of the
hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of
the lengths of the other two sides of a right triangle.
Pythagoras (c. 580–c. 500 b.c.) was a Greek
phi los o pher and mathematician. It seems that this
theorem was familiar to ancient Egyptian surveyors
and the Babylonians at least 100 years before
Pythagoras. Children are expected to have mastered the