Pallădium

, a celebrated statue of Pallas. It was about three cubits high, and represented the godde as sitting and holding a pike in her right hand, and in her left a distaff and a spindle. It fell down from heaven near the tent of Ilus, as that prince was building the citadel of Ilium. Some, neverthele , suppose that it fell at Pe inus in Phrygia, or, according to others, Dardanus received it as a present from his mother Electra. There are some authors who maintain that the Palladium was made with the bones of Pelops by Abaris; but Apollo dor us seems to say that it was no more than a piece of clock-work, which moved of itself. However discordant the opinions of ancient authors be about this famous statue, it is universally agreed that on its preservation depended the safety of Troy. This fatality was well known to the Greeks during the Trojan war, and therefore Uly es and Diomedes were commi ioned to steal it away. They effected their purpose; and if we rely upon the authority of some authors, they were directed how to carry it away by Helenus the son of Priam, who proved in this unfaithful to his country, because his brother Deiphobus, at the death of Paris, had married Helen, of whom he was enamoured. Minerva was displeased with the violence which was offered to her statue, and, according to Virgil, the Palladium itself appeared to have received life and motion, and by the flashes which started from its eyes, and its sudden springs from the earth, it seemed to show the resentment of the godde . The true Palladium, as some authors observe, was not carried away from Troy by the Greeks, but only one of the statues of similar size and shape, which were placed near it, to deceive whatever sacrilegious persons attempted to steal it. The Palladium, therefore, as they say, was conveyed safe from Troy to Italy by Æneas, and it was afterwards preserved by the Romans with the greatest secrecy and veneration, in the temple of Vesta, a circumstance which none but the vestal virgins knew. Herodian , bk. 1 , ch. 14 , . — Ovid , Fasti , bk. 6 , li. 442 , . ; Metamorphoses , bk. 13 , li. 336 .— Dictys Cretensis , bk. 1 , ch. 5 .— Apollo dor us , bk. 3 , ch. 12 .— Dionysius of Halicarna us , bk. 1 , . — Homer , Iliad , bk. 10 .— Virgil , Æneid , bk. 2 , li. 166 ; bk. 9 , li. 151 .— Plutarch , Parallel a minor a .— Lucan , bk. 9 .— Dares Phrygius. — Juvenal , satire 3, li. 139 .