.

PISIDIA, a division of ancient Asia Minor, N. of Pamphilia, and
traversed by the Taurus chain.

PISISTRATUS, tyrant of Athens, was the friend of Solon and a
relative; an able but an ambitious man; being in favour with the citizens
presented himself one day in the Agora, and displaying some wounds he had
received in their defence, persuaded them to give him a bodyguard of 50
men, which grew into a larger force, by means of which in 560 B.C. he
took possession of the citadel and seized the sovereign power, from which
he was shortly after driven forth; after six years he was brought back,
but compelled to retire a second time; after 10 years he returned and
made good his ascendency, reigning thereafter peacefully for 14 years,
and leaving his power in the hands of his sons Hippias and Hipparchus; he
was a good and wise ruler, and encouraged the liberal arts, and it is to
him we owe the first written collection or complete edition of the poems
of Homer (600-527 B.C.).

PISTOIA (20), a town of N. Italy, at the foot of the Apennines, 21
m. NW. of Florence, with palaces and churches rich in works of art;
manufactures iron and steel wares.

PISTOL, ANCIENT, a swaggering bully and follower of Falstaff in the
"Merry Wives of Windsor."

PISTOLE, an obsolete gold coin of Europe, originally of Spain, worth
some 16s. 2d.

PIT`AKA` (lit. a basket), the name given to the sacred books of
the Buddhists, and constituting collectively the Buddhistic code. See
TRIPITAKA.

PITAVAL, a French advocate, compiler of a famous collection of
_causes celebres_ (1673-1743).

PITCAIRN ISLAND, a small volcanic island 21/2 m. long and 1 broad,
solitary, in the Pacific, 5000 m. E. of Brisbane, where, in 1790, nine
men of H.M.S. _Bounty_ who had mutinied landed with six Tahitians and a
dozen Tahitian women; from these have sprung an interesting community of
islanders, virtuous, upright, and contented, of Christian faith, who,
having sent a colony to Norfolk Island, numbered in 1890 still 128.

PITCAIRNE, ARCHIBALD, Scottish physician and satirist, born at
Edinburgh; studied theology and law, and afterwards at Paris, medicine;
he practised in Edinburgh, and became professor at Leyden; returning, he
acquired great fame in his native city; in medicine he published a
treatise on Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood; being an
Episcopalian and Jacobite, he wrote severe satires on all things
Presbyterian, e. g. "Bab