Pergamus

, now Pergamo , a town of Mysia, on the banks of the Caycus. It was the capital of a celebrated empire called the kingdom of Pergamus, which was founded by Philæterus, a eunuch, whom Lysimachus, after the battle of Ipsus, had entrusted with the treasures which he had obtained in the war. Philæterus made himself master of the treasures and of Pergamus, in which they were deposited, B.C. 283, and laid the foundation of an empire, over which he himself presided for 20 years. His succe ors began to reign in the following order: His nephew Eumenes ascended the throne 263 B.C.; Attalus, 241; ♦ Eumenes  II. , 197; Attalus Philadelphus, 159; Attalus Philomator, 138, who, B.C. 133, left the Roman people heirs to his kingdom, as he had no children. The right of the Romans, however, was disputed by a usurper, who claimed the empire as his own, and Aquilius the Roman general was obliged to conquer the different cities one by one, and to gain their submi ion by poisoning the waters which were conveyed to their houses till the whole was reduced into the form of a dependent province. The capital of the kingdom of Pergamus was famous for a library of 200,000 volumes, which had been collected by the different monarchs who had reigned there. This noble collection was afterwards transported to Egypt by Cleopatra, with the permi ion of Antony, and it adorned and enriched the Alexandrian library, till it was most fatally destroyed by the Saracens, A.D. 642. Parchment was first invented and made use of at Pergamus, to transcribe books, as Ptolemy king of Egypt had forbidden the exportation of papyrus from his kingdom, in order to prevent Eumenes from making a library as valuable and as choice as that of Alexandria. From this circumstance parchment has been called charta pergamena . Galenus the physician and Apollo dor us the mythologist were born there. Æsculapius was the chief deity of the country. Pliny , bks. 5 & 15.— Isidorus , bk. 6 , ch. 11 .— Strabo , bk. 13 .— Livy , bk. 29 , ch. 11 ; bk. 31 , ch. 46 .— Pliny , bk. 10 , ch. 21 ; bk. 13 , ch. 11 .――A son of Neoptolemus and And rom ache, who, as some suppose, founded Pergamus in Asia. Pausanias , bk. 1 , ch. 11 . ♦ ‘Enmenes’ replaced with ‘Eumenes’