PASTORAL EPISTLES.—See New TESTAMENT, p. 527°, and arts. TrmoTuy, TITUs.
PATARA (τὰ Πάταρα) was a city on the Lycian coast, about 60 stadia south-east from the mouth of the river Xanthos, at the modern village Gelemish. It served as the principal harbour for the inland cities in the valley of that river, in- eluding Xanthus the city, Tlos, Araxa, etc. It was also a link in the chain of coasting trade, which had been maintained for more than a
PATE
thousand years before Christ, and which steadil grew and in the centuries immediately before an after Christ attained vast proportions. Ships sail- ing between the Algean or Italian harbours and the Levant (Cyprus, Pamphylia, Cilicia, Syria, Egypt) touched at Rhodes and then at Patara, making a straight run across the intervening sea. That is well exemplified in the account of St. Paul’s voyage (Ac 21") from Miletus and Cos by Rhodes and Patara to Syria. In Patara he found a ship bound for Pheenicia by the direct sea voyage ; and he transhipped into it with his com- pany. The ship in which he had come to Patara was not so suitable for his purposes, whether because it was bound for the continuous coasting voyage, hugging close the shore of Asia Minor, or
ssibly because it was not going farther than the
yeian harbours. Many ships engaged in the Syrian or the Egyptian trade, especially those ac were larger and stronger, stood direct across the Levant from the Lycian coast to their destina- tion, keeping west and south of the island of Cyprus. They could do this easily with the pre- vailing westerly breezes of the Levant; but the return voyage outside (i.e. south and west) of Cyprus was not easy; it could be tried from Egypt, but from Syria was hardly possible for the ancient ships. Hence, when St. Paul was coming back from Cxsarea to Rome, he had to keep inside, i.e. east and north, of Cyprus, on account of the prevailing westerly breezes, Ac27?. SeealsoMyRa, which was the next important link in the chain of trade eastward.
This situation assured to Patara considerable importance and wealth. Its coinage begins about B.C. 440, sometimes as autonomous with Lycian legends (name Pttara) or under dynasts about 430- 410. In the 4th and 8rd cents. B.c. it seems te have struck no coins, being under foreign rule ; but when the Lycian League was established (see LyctA), Patarean coinage began again, B.C. 168- 81, and it continued in bronze a the Roman empire until about A.D. 230-240. Alliance coins with Myra, under Gordian m1., attest the close relations of the two cities, as above mentioned.
The importance of Patara as a link in the con- nexion between Egypt and the Aigean harbours is shown by the fact that, when the Ptolemaic ower attained its acme in the 3rd cent., Ptolemy Phila- delphus enlarged the city and re-named it Arsinoe after his queen; but the new name disappeared with the Egyptian power.
The name of Patara in ancient times was closely connected with the cultus and the oracle of Apollo; and its later coins show Apolline types, though on its earlier coinage Athena and Hermes (Greek ideals of art and trade) are the prominent figures. The Roman poets, and the later Greeks like Lykophron, associate the epithet Patarean with Apollo, just as they call the god Delphian. The oracle spoke only duriig part of the year, viz. the Six winter months,
In the history of Christianity Patara was of small consequence. Lycia, like Pamphylia, seems to have been slow in adopting the new religion. Patara was a bishopric, and is mentioned as such in all the Notitie. There are still considerable ruins of the city, on which see Beaufort, Texier, Fellows, Spratt, and Forbes, and, above all, the splendid work of Benndorf-Niemann on Ly/ia.
W. M. Ramsay.
PATE (formed by loss of 7 from ‘plate,’ which came to be applied to the crown of the head, esp. the bald crown, from its appearance: ef. Germ. Platte, ‘a plate,’ ‘bald head,’ and vulgarly ‘the head’) occurs once in AV (Ps 7156 ‘His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing stall come down upon his own pate’) and
PATHEUS
is retained in RV, because of the distinction thus brought out between wx1 ré’sh, the usual word for ‘head,’ and p37 Kodhkodh, the ‘ crown of the head’ (which elsewhere, however, is rendered ‘crown of the head,’ Gn 49%, Dt 33”, 2S 14%, Job 27, Is 317, Jer 216 48%, or “ of the head,’ Dt 28% 33!8, or ‘scalp,’ Ps 68%), e AV tr. in Ps 716 comes from Coverdale (Wyc. has ‘nol’ in 1382, ‘necke’ in 1388) ; it is used by Knox in a tr. of the passage (Works, iii. 90), ‘The dolour whilk he intendit for me gall fall upon his own pate; and the violence whairwith he wold haif oppressit me sall cast doun his awn heid.’ Shaks. uses the word freely, and always in contempt or ridicule, which seems to accompany its use everywhere, but this is not Eroniouneed in, ¢.g., Tymme, Calvin’s Genesis on n 31” (p. 650), ‘It was a heavie and miserable sight, that Jacob... should flee away as one that had done amisse; but this was more sharpe and fearefull, that the destruction which Laban intended against him, was readie to light on his pate.’ J. HASTINGS.