amongst the ancients, were priests whose office it was to carry the images, along with the shrines, of the gods, at solemn festivals, when they prayed to them for rain, fair weather, or the like. In Sylla's time, the Greeks had a college of this order of priests. The cells or apartments near the temples, where the pastophori lived, were called pastophoria; and there were several lodging rooms for the priests of a similar kind in the temple of Jerusalem.

PATIA ISLE, one of the small Soooloo Islands, lying due north from Soooloo. It is inhabited, and contains a good stock of cattle; and it has also pits of saltpetre.

PATÆCI, in Mythology, images of gods which the Phoenicians carried upon the prows of their galleys. Herodotus denominates them παταξικοί. The word is Phoenician, and derived from petheia, signifying titulus. But Scaliger does not agree in this, and Morin derives it from στράτης, monkey, an animal which had been an object of worship amongst the Egyptians, and might therefore have been honoured by their neighbours. Mr Elsner has observed, however, that Herodotus does not call the pataeci gods; but that they obtained this dignity from the liberality of Hecyphius, 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 bestowed some pains upon this subject; and Morin has likewise inserted a learned dissertation concerning it, in the Mémoires de l'Acad. des Inscrip. et des Belles Lettres; but Mr Elsner thinks it defective in point of evidence.