PATÆCI, in Mythology, images of gods which the Phœnicians carried on the prows of their gallees. Herodotus, lib. iv. calls them παταικας. The word is Phœnician, and derived from pethica, i. e. titulus. See Bocchart's Chanaan, lib. ii. cap. 3. But Scaliger does not agree. Morin derives it from παικας, monkey, this animal having been an object of worship among the Egyptians, and hence might have been honoured by their
knighthood. For at this juncture, he had such a tremor upon him, that instead of laying the sword upon the shoulder of the person to be knighted, he frequently would be observed almost to thrust the point of it into the face of the party: which occasioned those about him to assist him in the direction of his hand.
their neighbours. Mr Elsner has observed, that He-
Patagonia rodotus does not call the pateci gods; but that they
obtained this dignity from the liberality of Hesychius
and Suidas, and other ancient lexicographers, who
place them at the stern of ships; whereas Herodotus
placed them at the prow. Scaliger, Bochart, and Sel-
den, have taken some pains about this subject.—M.
Morin has also given us a learned dissertation on this
head, in the Memoires de l'Acad. des Inscrip. et Belles
Lettres, tom. i.; but Mr Elsner thinks it defective in
point of evidence.