PATÆCI, in Mythology, images of gods which the Phoenicians carried on the prows of their galleys. Herodotus, lib. iv. calls them patæci. The word is Phœnician, and derived from pethica, i.e. titulus. See Bocchardt's Chanaan, lib. ii. cap. 3. But Scaliger does not agree. Morin derives it from μοκος, 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 Herodotus does not call the patæci gods; but that they obtained this dignity from the liberality of Hefschius and Suidas, and other ancient lexicographers, who place them at the stern of ships; whereas Herodotus placed them at the prow. Scaliger, Bochart, and Selden, 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 Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, tom. i.; but Mr Elsner thinks it defective in point of evidence.