A CLASSICAL DICTIONARY, ETC., ETC. (continued 27)

Et lassata viris, necdum satiata, recessit.

Juvenal.—Tacitus, Annals, bk. 11, ch. 37.—Suetonius, Claudius.—Dio Cassius.――Another, called also Statilia. She was descended from a consular family, and married the consul Atticus Vistinus, whom Nero murdered. She received with great marks of tenderness her husband’s murderer and married him. She had married four husbands before she came to the imperial throne; and after the death of Nero she retired to literary pursuits and peaceful occupations. Otho courted her, and would have married her had he not destroyed himself. In his last moments he wrote her a very pathetic and consolatory letter, &c. Tacitus, Annals.

Messālīnus Marcus Valerius, a Roman officer in the reign of Tiberius. He was appointed governor of Dalmatia, and rendered himself known by his opposition to Piso, and by his attempts to persuade the Romans of the necessity of suffering women to accompany the camps on their different expeditions. Tacitus, Annals, bk. 3.――One of Domitian’s informers.――A flatterer of the emperor Tiberius.

Messāna, an ancient and celebrated town of Sicily, on the straits which separate Italy from Sicily. It was anciently called Zancle, and was founded 1600 years before the christian era. The inhabitants, being continually exposed to the depredation of the people of Cuma, implored the assistance of the Messenians of Peloponnesus, and with them repelled the enemy. After this victorious campaign, the Messenians entered Zancle, and lived in such intimacy with the inhabitants that they changed their name, and assumed that of the Messenians, and called their city Messana. Another account say that Anaxilaus tyrant of Rhegium made war against the Zancleans, with the assistance of the Messenians of Peloponnesus, and that after he had obtained a decisive victory, he called the conquered city Messana in compliment to his allies, about 494 years before the christian era. After this revolution at Zancle, the Mamertini took possession of it, and made it the capital of the neighbouring country. See: Mamertini. It afterwards fell into the hands of the Romans, and was for some time the chief of their possessions in Sicily. The inhabitants were called Messanii, Messanienses, and Mamertini. The straits of Messana have always been looked upon as very dangerous, especially by the ancients, on account of the rapidity of the currents, and the irregular and violent flowing and ebbing of the sea. Strabo, bk. 6.—Mela, bk. 2, ch. 7.—Pausanias, bk. 4, ch. 23.—Diodorus, bk. 4.—Thucydides, bk. 1, &c.—Herodotus, bk. 6, ch. 23; bk. 7, ch. 28.

Messapia, a country of Italy, between Tarentum and Brundusium. It is the same as Calabria. It received its name from Messapus the son of Neptune, who left a part of Bœotia called Messapia, and came to Italy, where he assisted the Rutulians against Æneas. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 14, li. 513.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 7, li. 691; bk. 8, li. 6; bk. 9, li. 27.

Messatis, a town of Achaia. Pausanias, bk. 7, ch. 18.

Messe, a town in the island of Cythera. Statius, bk. 1, Thebiad, bk. 4, li. 226.

Messeis, a fountain of Thessaly. Strabo, bk. 9.

Messēne, a daughter of Triopas king of Argos, who married Polycaon, son of Lelex king of Laconia. She encouraged her husband to levy troops, and to seize a part of Peloponnesus, which, after it had been conquered, received her name. She received divine honours after her death, and had a magnificent temple at Ithome, where her statue was made half of gold and half of Parian marble. Pausanias, bk. 4, chs. 1 & 13.

Messēne, or Messēna, now Maura-Matra, a city in the Peloponnesus, the capital of the country called Messenia. The inhabitants have rendered themselves famous for the war which they carried on against the Spartans, and which received the appellation of the Messenian war. The first Messenian war arose from the following circumstances. The Messenians offered violence to some Spartan women, who had assembled to offer sacrifices in a temple which was common to both nations, and which stood on the borders of their respective territories; and, besides, they killed Teleclus the Spartan king, who attempted to defend the innocence of the females. This account, according to the Spartan traditions, is contradicted by the Messenians, who observe that Teleclus, with a chosen body of Spartans, assembled at the temple before mentioned, disguised in women’s clothes, and all secretly armed with daggers. This hostile preparation was to surprise some of the neighbouring inhabitants; and in a quarrel which soon after arose, Teleclus and his associates were all killed. These quarrels were the cause of the first Messenian war, which began B.C. 743. It was carried on with vigour and spirit on both sides, and after many obstinate and bloody battles had been fought and continued for 19 years, it was at last finished by the taking of Ithome by the Spartans, a place which had stood a siege of 10 years, and been defended with all the power of the Messenians. The insults to which the conquered Messenians were continually exposed at last excited their resentment, and they resolved to shake off the yoke. They suddenly revolted, and the second Messenian war was begun 685 B.C., and continued 14 years. The Messenians at first gained some advantage, but a fatal battle in the third year of the war so totally disheartened them, that they fled to Ira, where they resolved to maintain an obstinate siege against their victorious pursuers. The Spartans were assisted by the Samians in besieging Ira, and the Messenians were at last obliged to submit to the superior power of their adversaries. The taking of Ira by the Lacedæmonians, after a siege of 11 years, put an end to the second Messenian war. Peace was re-established for some time in Peloponnesus, but after the expiration of 200 years, the Messenians attempted a third time to free themselves from the power of Lacedæmon, B.C. 465. At that time the Helots had revolted from the Spartans, and the Messenians, by joining their forces to these wretched slaves, looked upon their respective calamities as common, and thought themselves closely interested in each other’s welfare. The Lacedæmonians were assisted by the Athenians, but they soon grew jealous of one another’s power, and their political connection ended in the most inveterate enmity, and at last in open war. Ithome was the place in which the Messenians had a second time gathered all their forces, and though 10 years had already elapsed, both parties seemed equally confident of victory. The Spartans were afraid of storming Ithome, as the oracle of Delphi had threatened them with the greatest calamities if they offered any violence to a place which was dedicated to the service of Apollo. The Messenians, however, were soon obliged to submit to their victorious adversaries, B.C. 453, and they consented to leave their native country, and totally to depart from the Peloponnesus, solemnly promising that if they ever returned into Messenia, they would suffer themselves to be sold as slaves. The Messenians upon this, miserably exiled, applied to the Athenians for protection, and were permitted to inhabit Naupactus, whence some of them were afterwards removed to take possession of their ancient territories in Messenia, during the Peloponnesian war. The third Messenian war was productive of great revolutions in Greece, and though almost a private quarrel, it soon engaged the attention of all the neighbouring states, and kindled the flames of dissension everywhere. Every state took up arms as if in its own defence, or to prevent additional power and dominion from being lodged in the hands of its rivals. The descendants of the Messenians at last returned to Peloponnesus, B.C. 370, after a long banishment of 300 years. Pausanias, Messenia, &c.—Justin, bk. 3, ch. 4, &c.—Strabo, bk. 6, &c.—Thucydides, bk. 1, &c.—Diodorus, bk. 11, &c.—Plutarch, Cimon, &c.—Polyænus, bk. 3.—Polybius, bk. 4, &c.

Messēnia, a province of Peloponnesus, situate between Laconia, Elis, Arcadia, and the sea. Its chief city is Messena. See: Messena.

Mestor, a son of Perseus and Andromeda, who married Lysidice daughter of Pelops, by whom he had Hippothoe.――A son of Pterilaus.――of Priam. Apollodorus.

Mesūla, a town of Italy, in the country of the Sabines.

Metăbus, a tyrant of the Privernates. He was father of Camilla, whom he consecrated to the service of Diana, when he had been banished from his kingdom by his subjects. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 11, li. 540.

Metagitnia, a festival in honour of Apollo, celebrated by the inhabitants of Melite, who migrated to Attica. It receives its name from its being observed in the month called Metagitnion.

Metanīra, the wife of Celeus king of Eleusis, who first taught mankind agriculture. She is also called Meganira. Apollodorus, bk. 1, ch. 5.

Metapontum, a town of Lucania in Italy, founded about 1269 years B.C. by Metabus the father of Camilla, or Epeus, one of the companions of Nestor. Pythagoras retired there for some time, and perished in a sedition. Annibal made it his head-quarters when in that part of Italy, and its attachment to Carthage was afterwards severely punished by the Roman conquerors, who destroyed its liberties and independence. A few broken pillars of marble are now the only vestiges of Metapontum. Strabo, bk. 5.—Mela, bk. 2, ch. 4.—Justin, bk. 12, ch. 2.—Livy, bks. 1, 8, 25, 27, &c.

Metapontus, a son of Sisyphus, who married ♦Theano. See: ♦Theano. Hyginus, fable 166.

Metaurus, now Metro, a town with a small river of the same name, in the country of the Brutii. The river Metaurus falls into the Tyrrhene sea above Sicily.――Another, in Umbria, famous for the defeat of Asdrubal by the consuls Livy and Nero. Horace, bk. 4, ode 4, li. 38.—Mela, bk. 2, ch. 4.—Lucan, bk. 2, li. 495.

Metella, the wife of Sylla.

Metelli [Metellus], the surname of the family of the Cæcilii at Rome, the most known of whom were:—A general who defeated the Achæans, took Thebes, and invaded Macedonia, &c.――Quintus Cæcilius, who rendered himself illustrious by his successes against Jugurtha the Numidian king, from which he was surnamed Numidicus. He took, in this expedition, the celebrated Marius as his lieutenant, and he had soon cause to repent of the confidence he had placed in him. Marius raised himself to power by defaming the character of his benefactor, and Metellus was recalled to Rome, and accused of extortion and ill-management. Marius was appointed successor to finish the Numidian war, and Metellus was acquitted of the crimes laid to his charge before the tribunal of the Roman knights, who observed that the probity of his whole life and the greatness of his exploits were greater proofs of his innocence than the most powerful arguments. Cicero, On Oratory, bk. 1, ch. 48.—Sallust, Jugurthine War.――Lucius Cæcilius, another, who saved from the flames the palladium, when Vesta’s temple was on fire. He was then high priest. He lost his sight and one of his arms in doing it, and the senate, to reward his zeal and piety, permitted him always to be drawn to the senate-house in a chariot, an honour which no one had ever before enjoyed. He also gained a great victory over the Carthaginians in the first Punic war, and led in his triumph 13 generals and 120 elephants taken from the enemy. He was honoured with the dictatorship, and the office of master of horse, &c.――Quintus Cæcilius Celer, another, who distinguished himself by his spirited exertions against Catiline. He married Clodia the sister of Clodius, who disgraced him by her incontinence and lasciviousness. He died 57 years B.C. He was greatly lamented by Cicero, who shed tears at the loss of one of his most faithful and valuable friends. Cicero, For Marcus Cæcilius.――Lucius Cæcilius, a tribune in the civil wars of Julius Cæsar and Pompey. He favoured the cause of Pompey, and opposed Cæsar when he entered Rome with a victorious army. He refused to open the gates of Saturn’s temple, in which were deposited great treasures, upon which they were broken open by Cæsar, and Metellus retired, when threatened with death.――Quintus Cæcilius, the grandson of the high priest, who saved the palladium from the flames, was a warlike general, who, from his conquest of Crete and Macedonia, was surnamed Macedonicus. He had six sons, of whom four are particularly mentioned by Plutarch.――Quintus Cæcilius, surnamed Balearicus, from his conquest of the Baleares.――Lucius Cæcilius, surnamed Diadematus, but supposed the same as that called Lucius with the surname of Dalmaticus, from a victory obtained over the Dalmatians during his consulship with Mutius Scævola.――Caius Cæcilius, surnamed Caprarius, who was consul with Carbo, A.U.C. 641.――The fourth was Marcus, and of these four brothers it is remarkable, that two of them triumphed in one day, but over what nations is not mentioned by Eutropius, ch. 4.――Nepos, a consul, &c.――Another, who accused Caius Curio, his father’s detractor, and who also vented his resentment against Cicero when going to banishment.――Another, who, as tribune, opposed the ambition of Julius Cæsar.――A general of the Roman armies against the Sicilians and Carthaginians. Before he marched he offered sacrifices to all the gods, except Vesta, for which neglect the goddess was so incensed that she demanded the blood of his daughter Metella. When Metella was going to be immolated, the goddess placed a heifer in her place, and carried her to a temple at Lanuvium, of which she became the priestess.――Lucius Cæcilius, or Quintus, surnamed Creticus, from his conquest in Crete, B.C. 66, is supposed by some to be the son of Metellus Macedonicus.――Cimber, one of the conspirators against Julius Cæsar. It was he who gave the signal to attack and murder the dictator in the senate-house.――Pius, a general in Spain, against Sertorius, on whose head he set a price of 100 talents, and 20,000 acres of land. He distinguished himself also in the Marsian war, and was high priest. He obtained the name of Pius from the sorrow he showed during the banishment of his father Metellus Numidicus, whom he caused to be recalled. Paterculus, bk. 2, ch. 5.—Sallust, Jugurthine War, ch. 44.――A consul who commanded in Africa, &c. Valerius Maximus.—Pliny.—Plutarch.—Livy.—Paterculus, bk. 2.—Florus, bk. 3, ch. 8.—Pausanias, bk. 7, chs. 8 & 13.—Cicero, Tusculanæ Disputationes, &c.—Juvenal, satire 3, li. 138.—Appian, Civil Wars.—Cæsar, Civil War.—Sallust, Jugurthine War.

Metharma, a daughter of Pygmalion king of Cyprus, and mother of Adonis by Cinyras, &c. Apollodorus, bk. 3, ch. 14.

Methīon, the father of Phorbas, &c. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 5, fable 3.

Methodius, a bishop of Tyre, who maintained a controversy against Porphyry. The best edition of his works is that of Paris, folio, 1657.

Methōne, a town of Peloponnesus, where king Philip gained his first battle over the Athenians, B.C. 360.――A town of Macedonia, south of Pella, in the siege of which, according to Justin, bk. 7, ch. 6, Philip lost his right eye.――Another in Magnesia. Homer, Iliad, bk. 2, li. 71.

Methydrium, a town of Peloponnesus, near Megalopolis. Valerius Flaccus.

Methymna (now Porto Petero), a town of the island of Lesbos, which received its name from a daughter of ♦Macareus. It is the second city of the island in greatness, population, and opulence, and its territory is fruitful, and the wines it produces excellent. It was the native place of Arion. When the whole island of Lesbos revolted from the power of the Athenians, Methymna alone remained firm to its ancient allies. Diodorus, bk. 5.—Thucydides, bk. 3.—Horace, bk. 2, satire 8, li. 50.—Virgil, Georgics, bk. 3, li. 90.

Metiadūsa, a daughter of Eupalamus, who married Cecrops, by whom she had Pandion. Apollodorus, bk. 3, ch. 15.

Metilia lex, was enacted A.U.C. 536, to settle the power of the dictator, and of his master of horse, within certain bounds.

Metilii, a patrician family, brought from Alba to Rome by Tullus Hostilius. Dionysius of Halicarnassus.

Metilius, a man who accused Fabius Maximus before the senate, &c.

Mētiŏchus, a son of Miltiades, who was taken by the Phœnicians, and given to Darius king of Persia. He was tenderly treated by the monarch, though his father had conquered the Persian armies in the plains of Marathon. Plutarch.—Herodotus, bk. 6, ch. 41.――An Athenian entrusted with the care of the roads, &c. Plutarch.

Metion, a son of Erechtheus king of Athens and Praxithea. He married Alcippe daughter of Mars and Agraulos. His sons drove Pandion from the throne of Athens, and were afterwards expelled by Pandion’s children. Apollodorus, bk. 3, ch. 15.—Pausanias, bk. 2, ch. 6.

Metis, one of the Oceanides. She was Jupiter’s first wife, celebrated for her great prudence and sagacity above the rest of the gods. Jupiter, who was afraid lest she should bring forth into the world a child more cunning and greater than himself, devoured her in the first month of her pregnancy. Some time after this adventure the god had his head opened, from which issued Minerva, armed from head to foot. According to Apollodorus, bk. 1, ch. 2, Metis gave a portion to Saturn, and obliged him to throw up the children whom he had devoured. Hesiod, Theogony, li. 890.—Apollodorus, bk. 7, ch. 3.—Hyginus.

Metiscus, a charioteer to Turnus. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 12, li. 469.

Metius Curtius, one of the Sabines who fought against the Romans, on account of the stolen virgins.――Suffetius, a dictator of Alba, in the reign of Tullus Hostilius. He fought against the Romans, and at last, finally to settle their disputes, he proposed a single combat between the Horatii and Curiatii. The Albans were conquered, and Metius promised to assist the Romans against their enemies. In a battle against the Veientes and Fidenates, Metius showed his infidelity by forsaking the Romans at the first onset, and retired to a neighbouring eminence, to wait for the event of the battle, and to fall upon whatever side proved victorious. The Romans obtained the victory, and Tullus ordered Metius to be tied between two chariots, which were drawn by four horses two different ways, and his limbs were torn away from his body, about 669 years before the christian era. Livy, bk. 1, ch. 23, &c.—Florus, bk. 1, ch. 3.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 8, li. 642.――A critic. See: Tarpa.――Carus, a celebrated informer under Domitian, who enriched himself with the plunder of those who were sacrificed to the emperor’s suspicion.

Metœcia, festivals instituted by Theseus in commemoration of the people of Attica having removed to Athens.

Meton, an astrologer and mathematician of Athens. His father’s name was Pausanias. He refused to go to Sicily with his countrymen, and pretended to be insane, because he foresaw the calamities that attended that expedition. In a book called Enneadecaterides, or the cycle of 19 years, he endeavoured to adjust the course of the sun and the moon, and supported that the solar and lunar years could regularly begin from the same point in the heavens. This is called by the moderns the golden numbers. He flourished B.C. 432. Vitruvius, bk. 1.—Plutarch, Nicias. A native of Tarentum, who pretended to be intoxicated that he might draw the attention of his countrymen, when he wished to dissuade them from making an alliance with king Pyrrhus. Plutarch, Pyrrhus.

Metŏpe, the wife of the river Sangarius. She was mother of Hecuba.――The daughter of Ladon, who married the Asopus.――A river of Arcadia.

Metra, the daughter of Eresichthon, a Thessalian prince, beloved by Neptune. When her father had spent all his fortune to gratify the canine hunger under which he laboured, she prostituted herself to her neighbours, and received for reward oxen, goats, and sheep, which she presented to Eresichthon. Some say that she had received from Neptune the power of changing herself into whatever animal she pleased, and that her father sold her continually to gratify his hunger, and that she instantly assumed a different shape, and became again his property. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 8, fable 21.

Metragryrte, one of the names of Tellus, or Cybele.

Metrobius, a player greatly favoured by Sylla. Plutarch.

Metrŏcles, a pupil of Theophrastus, who had the care of the education of Cleombrotus and Cleomenes. He suffocated himself when old and infirm. Diogenes Laërtius.

Metrodōrus, a physician of Chios, B.C. 444. He was the disciple of Democritus, and had Hippocrates among his pupils. His compositions on medicine, &c., are lost. He supported that the world was eternal and infinite, and denied the existence of motion. Diogenes Laërtius.――A painter and philosopher of Stratonice, B.C. 171. He was sent to Paulus Æmylius, who, after the conquest of Perseus, demanded of the Athenians a philosopher and a painter; the former to instruct his children, and the latter to make a painting of his triumphs. Metrodorus was sent, as in him alone were united the philosopher and the painter. Pliny, bk. 35, ch. 11.—Cicero, bk. 5, De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, ch. 1; On Oratory, bk. 4; Academica.—♦Diogenes Laërtius, Epicurus.――A friend of Mithridates, sent as ambassador to Tigranes king of Armenia. He was remarkable for his learning, moderation, humanity, and justice. He was put to death by his royal master for his infidelity, B.C. 72. Strabo.—Plutarch.――Another, of a very retentive memory.

Metrophănes, an officer of Mithridates, who invaded Eubœa, &c.

Metropŏlis, a town of Phrygia on the Mæander.――Another of Thessaly near Pharsalia.

Mettius, a chief of the Gauls, imprisoned by Julius Cæsar. Cæsar, Gallic War.

Mettus. See: Metius.

Metulum, a town of Liburnia, in besieging of which Augustus was wounded. Dio Cassius, bk. 49.

Mevania, now Bevagna, a town of Umbria, on the Clitumnus, the birthplace of the poet Propertius. Lucan, bk. 1, li. 473.—Propertius, bk. 4, poem 1, li. 124.

Mevius, a wretched poet. See: Mævius.

Mezentius, a king of the Tyrrhenians when Æneas came into Italy. He was remarkable for his cruelties, and put his subjects to death by slow tortures, or sometimes tied a man to a dead corpse face to face, and suffered him to die in that condition. He was expelled by his subjects, and fled to Turnus, who employed him in his war against the Trojans. He was killed by Æneas, with his son Lausus. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, bk. 1, ch. 15.—Justin, bk. 43, ch. 1.—Livy, bk. 1, ch. 2.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 7, li. 648; bk. 8, li. 482.—Ovid, Fasti, bk. 4, li. 881.

Micea, a virgin of Elis, daughter of Philodemus, murdered by a soldier called Lucius, &c. Plutarch, Mulierum virtutes.

Micipsa, a king of Numidia, son of Masinissa, who, at his death, B.C. 119, left his kingdom between his sons Adherbal and Hiempsal, and his nephew Jugurtha. Jugurtha abused his uncle’s favours by murdering his two sons. Sallust, Jugurthine War.—Florus, bk. 3, ch. 1.—Plutarch, Gaius Gracchus.

Micythus, a youth through whom Diomedon, by order of the Persian king, made an attempt to bribe Epaminondas. Cornelius Nepos, Epaminondas, ch. 4.――A slave of Anaxilaus of Rhegium. Herodotus, bk. 7, ch. 170.

Mĭdas, a king of Phrygia, son of Gordius, or Gorgius. In the early part of his life, according to some traditions, he found a large treasure, to which he owed his greatness and opulence. The hospitality he showed to Silenus the preceptor of Bacchus, who had been brought to him by some peasants, was liberally rewarded; and Midas, when he conducted the old man back to the god, was permitted to choose whatever recompence he pleased. He had the imprudence and the avarice to demand of the god that whatever he touched might be turned into gold. His prayer was granted, but he was soon convinced of his injudicious choice; and when the very meats which he attempted to eat became gold in his mouth, he begged Bacchus to take away a present which must prove so fatal to the receiver. He was ordered to wash himself in the river Pactolus, whose sands were turned into gold by the touch of Midas. Some time after this adventure, Midas had the imprudence to support that Pan was superior to Apollo in singing and playing upon the flute, for which rash opinion the offended god changed his ears into those of an ass, to show his ignorance and stupidity. This Midas attempted to conceal from the knowledge of his subjects, but one of his servants saw the length of his ears, and being unable to keep the secret, and afraid to reveal it, apprehensive of the king’s resentment, he opened a hole in the earth, and after he had whispered there that Midas had the ears of an ass, he covered the place as before, as if he had buried his words in the ground. On that place, as the poets mention, grew a number of reeds, which, when agitated by the wind, uttered the same sound that had been buried beneath, and published to the world that Midas had the ears of an ass. Some explain the fable of the ears of Midas by the supposition that he kept a number of informers and spies, who were continually employed in gathering every seditious word that might drop from the mouths of his subjects. Midas, according to Strabo, died of drinking hot bull’s blood. This he did, as Plutarch mentions, to free himself from the numerous ill dreams which continually tormented him. Midas, according to some, was son of Cybele. He built a town, which he called Ancyræ. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 11, fable 5.—Plutarch, de Superstitione.—Strabo, bk. 1.—Hyginus, fables 191, 274.—Maximus Tyrius, ch. 30.—Pausanias, bk. 1, ch. 4.—Valerius Maximus, bk. 1, ch. 6.—Herodotus, bk. 1, ch. 14.—Ælian, Varia Historia, bks. 4 & 12.—Cicero, De Divinatione, bk. 1, ch. 36; bk. 2, ch. 31.

Midea, a town of Argolis. Pausanias, bk. 6, ch. 20.――Of Lycia. Statius, Thebiad, bk. 4, li. 45.――Of Bœotia, drowned by the inundations of the lake Copais. Strabo, bk. 8.――A nymph, who had Aspledon by Neptune. Pausanias, bk. 9, ch. 38.――A mistress of Electryon. Apollodorus.

Milānion, a youth who became enamoured of Atalanta. He is supposed by some to be the same as Meleager or Hippomanes. Ovid, Ars Amatoria, bk. 2, li. 188.――A son of Amphidamas.

Mīlēsii, the inhabitants of Miletus. See: Miletus.

Milesiorum murus, a place of Egypt, at the entrance of one of the mouths of the Nile.

Milesius, a surname of Apollo.――A native of Miletus.

Milētia, one of the daughters of Scedasus, ravished with her sister by some young Thebans. Plutarch & Pausanias.

Milētium, a town of Calabria, built by the people of Miletus of Asia.――A town of Crete. Homer, Iliad, bk. 2, li. 154.

Mīlētus, a son of Apollo, who fled from Crete to avoid the wrath of Minos, whom he meditated to dethrone. He came to Caria, where he built a city which he called by his own name. Some suppose that he only conquered a city there called Anactoria, which assumed his name. They further say, that he put the inhabitants to the sword, and divided the women among his soldiers. Cyanea, a daughter of the Mæander, fell to his share. Strabo, bk. 14.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 9, li. 446.—Pausanias, bk. 7, ch. 2.—Apollodorus, bk. 3, ch. 1.――A celebrated town of Asia Minor, the capital of all Ionia, situate about 10 stadia south of the mouth of the river Mæander, near the sea coast on the confines of Ionia and Caria. It was founded by a Cretan colony under Miletus, or, according to others, by Neleus the son of Codrus, or by Sarpedon, Jupiter’s son. It has successively been called Lelegeis, Pithyusa, and Anactoria. The inhabitants, called Milesii, were very powerful, and long maintained an obstinate war against the kings of Lydia. They early applied themselves to navigation, and planted no less than 80 colonies, or, according to Seneca, 380, in different parts of the world. Miletus gave birth to Thales, Anaximenes, Anaximander, Hecatæus, Timotheus the musician, Pittacus, one of the seven wise men, &c. Miletus was also famous for a temple and an oracle of Apollo Didymæus, and for its excellent wool, with which were made stuffs and garments, held in the highest reputation, both for softness, elegance, and beauty. The words Milesiæ fabulæ, or Milesiaca, were used to express wanton and ludicrous plays. Ovid, Tristia, bk. 2, li. 413.—Capitolinus, Life of Albinus, ch. 11.—Virgil, Georgics, bk. 3, li. 306.—Strabo, bk. 15.—Pausanias, bk. 7, ch. 2.—Mela, bk. 1, ch. 17.—Pliny, bk. 5, ch. 29.—Herodotus, bk. 1, &c.—Seneca, de Consolatione ad Helviam.

Milias, a part of Lycia.

Milichus, a freedman who discovered Piso’s conspiracy against Nero. Tacitus, Annals, bk. 15, ch. 54.

Milinus, a Cretan king, &c.

Milionia, a town of the Samnites, taken by the Romans.

Mīlo, a celebrated athlete of Crotona in Italy. His father’s name was Diotimus. He early accustomed himself to carry the greatest burdens, and by degrees became a monster in strength. It is said that he carried on his shoulders a young bullock four years old, for above 40 yards, and afterwards killed it with one blow of his fist, and ate it up in one day. He was seven times crowned at the Pythian games, and six at Olympia. He presented himself a seventh time, but no one had the courage or boldness to enter the lists against him. He was one of the disciples of Pythagoras, and to his uncommon strength the learned preceptor and his pupils owed their life. The pillar which supported the roof of the school suddenly gave way, but Milo supported the whole weight of the building, and gave the philosopher and his auditors time to escape. In his old age Milo attempted to pull up a tree by the roots and break it. He partly effected it, but his strength being gradually exhausted, the tree, when half cleft, re-united, and his hands remained pinched in the body of the tree. He was then alone, and being unable to disentangle himself, he was eaten up by the wild beasts of the place, about 300 years before the christian era. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 15.—Cicero, de Senectute.—Valerius Maximus, bk. 9, ch. 12.—Strabo, bk. 16.—Pausanias, bk. 6, ch. 11.――Titus Annius, a native of Lanuvium, who attempted to obtain the consulship at Rome by intrigue and seditious tumults. Clodius the tribune opposed his views, yet Milo would have succeeded had not an unfortunate event totally frustrated his hopes. As he was going into the country, attended by his wife and a numerous retinue of gladiators and servants, he met on the Appian road his enemy Clodius, who was returning to Rome with three of his friends and some domestics completely armed. A quarrel arose between the servants. Milo supported his attendants, and the dispute became general. Clodius received many severe wounds, and was obliged to retire to a neighbouring cottage. Milo pursued his enemy in his retreat, and ordered his servants to despatch him. Eleven of the servants of Clodius shared his fate, as also the owner of the house who had given them a reception. The body of the murdered tribune was carried to Rome, and exposed to public view. The enemies of Milo inveighed bitterly against the violence and barbarity with which the sacred person of a tribune had been treated. Cicero undertook the defence of Milo, but the continual clamours of the friends of Clodius, and the sight of an armed soldiery, which surrounded the seat of judgment, so terrified the orator, that he forgot the greatest part of his arguments, and the defence he made was weak and injudicious. Milo was condemned and banished to Massilia. Cicero soon after sent his exiled friend a copy of the oration which he had delivered in his defence, in the form in which we have it now; and Milo, after he had read it, exclaimed, “O Cicero, hadst thou spoken before my accusers in those terms, Milo would not be now eating figs at Marseilles.” The friendship and cordiality of Cicero and Milo were the fruits of long intimacy and familiar intercourse. It was by the successful labours of Milo that the orator was recalled from banishment and restored to his friends. Cicero, For Milo.—Paterculus, bk. 2, chs. 47 & 68.—Dio Cassius, bk. 40.――A general of the forces of Pyrrhus. He was made governor of Tarentum, and that he might be reminded of his duty to his sovereign, Pyrrhus sent him as a present a chain, which was covered with the skin of Nicias the physician, who had perfidiously offered the Romans to poison his royal master for a sum of money. Polyænus, bk. 8, &c.――A tyrant of Pisa in Elis, thrown into the river Alpheus by his subjects for his oppression. Ovid, Ibis, li. 325.

Milōnius, a drunken buffoon at Rome, accustomed to dance when intoxicated. Horace, bk. 2, satire 1, li. 24.

Miltas, a soothsayer, who assisted Dion in explaining prodigies, &c.

Miltiădes, an Athenian, son of Cypselus, who obtained a victory in a chariot race at the Olympic games, and led a colony of his countrymen to the Chersonesus. The causes of this appointment are striking and singular. The Thracian Dolonci, harassed by a long war with the Absynthians, were directed by the oracle of Delphi to take for their king the first man they met in their return home, who invited them to come under his roof and partake of his entertainments. This was Miltiades, whom the appearance of the Dolonci, their strange arms and garments, had struck. He invited them to his house, and was made acquainted with the commands of the oracle. He obeyed, and when the oracle of Delphi had approved a second time the choice of the Dolonci, he departed for the Chersonesus, and was invested by the inhabitants with sovereign power. The first measure he took was to stop the further incursions of the Absynthians, by building a strong wall across the isthmus. When he had established himself at home, and fortified his dominions against foreign invasion, he turned his arms against Lampsacus. His expedition was unsuccessful; he was taken in an ambuscade, and made prisoner. His friend Crœsus king of Lydia was informed of his captivity, and he procured his release by threatening the people of Lampsacus with his severest displeasure. He lived a few years after he had recovered his liberty. As he had no issue, he left his kingdom and his possessions to Stesagoras the son of Cimon, who was his brother by the same mother. The memory of Miltiades was greatly honoured by the Dolonci, and they regularly celebrated festivals and exhibited shows in commemoration of a man to whom they owed their greatness and preservation. Some time after Stesagoras died without issue, and Miltiades the son of Cimon, and the brother of the deceased, was sent by the Athenians with one ship to take possession of the Chersonesus. At his arrival Miltiades appeared mournful, as if lamenting the recent death of his brother. The principal inhabitants of the country visited the new governor to condole with him; but their confidence in his sincerity proved fatal to them. Miltiades seized their persons, and made himself absolute in Chersonesus; and to strengthen himself he married Hegesipyla, the daughter of Olorus the king of the Thracians. His prosperity, however, was of short duration. In the third year of his government his dominions were threatened by an invasion of the Scythian Nomades, whom Darius had some time before irritated by entering their country. He fled before them, but as their hostilities were but momentary, he was soon restored to his kingdom. Three years after he left Chersonesus and set sail for Athens, where he was received with great applause. He was present at the celebrated battle of Marathon, in which all the chief officers ceded their power to him, and left the event of the battle to depend upon his superior abilities. He obtained an important victory [See: Marathon] over the more numerous forces of his adversaries; and when he had demanded of his fellow-citizens an olive crown as the reward of his valour in the field of battle, he was not only refused, but severely reprimanded for presumption. The only reward, therefore, that he received for a victory which proved so beneficial to the interests of universal Greece, was in itself simple and inconsiderable, though truly great in the opinion of that age. He was represented in the front of a picture among the rest of the commanders who fought at the battle of Marathon, and he seemed to exhort and animate his soldiers to fight with courage and intrepidity. Some time after Miltiades was entrusted with a fleet of 70 ships, and ordered to punish those islands which had revolted to the Persians. He was successful at first, but a sudden report that the Persian fleet was coming to attack him, changed his operations as he was besieging Paros. He raised the siege and returned to Athens, where he was accused of treason, and ♦particularly of holding a correspondence with the enemy. The falsity of these accusations might have appeared, if Miltiades had been able to come into the assembly. A wound which he had received before Paros detained him at home, and his enemies, taking advantage of his absence, became more eager in their accusations and louder in their clamours. He was condemned to death, but the rigour of the sentence was retracted on the recollection of his great services to the Athenians, and he was put into prison till he had paid a fine of 50 talents to the state. His inability to discharge so great a sum detained him in confinement, and soon after his wounds became incurable, and he died about 489 years before the christian era. His body was ransomed by his son Cimon, who was obliged to borrow and pay the 50 talents, to give his father a decent burial. The crimes of Miltiades were probably aggravated in the eyes of his countrymen when they remembered how he made himself absolute in Chersonesus; and in condemning the barbarity of the Athenians towards a general who was the source of their military prosperity, we must remember the jealousy which ever reigns among a free and independent people, and how watchful they are in defence of the natural rights which they see wrested from others by violence and oppression. Cornelius Nepos has written the life of Miltiades the son of Cimon; but his history is incongruous and not authentic; and the author, by confounding the actions of the son of Cimon with those of the son of Cypselus, has made the whole dark and unintelligible. Greater reliance in reading the actions of both the Miltiades is to be placed on the narration of Herodotus, whose veracity is confirmed, and who was indisputably more informed and more capable of giving an account of the life and exploits of men who flourished in his age, and of which he could see the living monuments. Herodotus was born about six years after the famous battle of Marathon, and Cornelius Nepos, as a writer of the Augustan age, flourished about 450 years after the age of the father of history. Cornelius Nepos, Lives.—Herodotus, bk. 4, ch. 137; bk. 6, ch. 34, &c.—Plutarch, Cimon.—Valerius Maximus, bk. 5, ch. 3.—Justin, bk. 2.—Pausanias.――An Archon of Athens.

Milto, a favourite mistress of Cyrus the younger. See: Aspasia.

Milvius, a parasite at Rome, &c. Horace, bk. 2, satire 7.――A bridge at Rome over the Tiber, now called Pont de Molle. Cicero, Letters to Atticus, bk. 13, ltr. 33.—Sallust, Catilinæ Coniuratio, ch. 45.—Tacitus, Annals, bk. 13, ch. 47.

Milyas, a country of Asia Minor, better known by the name of Lycia. Its inhabitants, called Milyades, and afterwards Solymi, were among the numerous nations which formed the army of Xerxes in his invasion of Greece. Herodotus.—Cicero, Against Verres, bk. 1, ch. 38.

Mimallŏnes, the Bacchanals, who, when they celebrated the orgies of Bacchus, put horns on their heads. They are also called Mimallonides, and some derive their name from the mountain Mimas. Persius, bk. 1, li. 99.—Ovid, Ars Amatoria, li. 541.—Statius, Thebiad, bk. 4, li. 660.

Mimas, a giant whom Jupiter destroyed with thunder. Horace, bk. 3, ode 4.――A high mountain of Asia Minor, near Colophon. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 2, fable 5.――A Trojan, son of Theano and Amycus, born on the same night as Paris, with whom he lived in great intimacy. He followed the fortune of Æneas, and was killed by Mezentius. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 10, li. 702.

Mimnermus, a Greek poet and musician of Colophon in the age of Solon. He chiefly excelled in elegiac poetry, whence some have attributed the invention of it to him; and, indeed, he was the poet who made elegy an amorous poem, instead of a mournful and melancholy tale. In the expression of love, Propertius prefers him to Homer, as this verse shows:

Plus in amore valet Mimnermi versus Homero.

In his old age Mimnermus became enamoured of a young girl called Nanno. Some few fragments of his poetry remain, collected by Stobæus. He is supposed by some to be the inventor of the pentameter verse, which others, however, attribute to Callinus or Archilochus. The surname of Ligustiades, λιγυς (shrill-voiced), has been applied to him, though some imagine the word to be the name of his father. Strabo, bks. 1 & 14.—Pausanias, bk. 9, ch. 29.—Diogenes Laërtius, bk. 1.—Propertius, bk. 1, poem 9, li. 11.—Horace, bk. 1, ltr. 6, li. 65.

Mincius, now Mincio, a river of Venetia, flowing from the lake Benacus, and falling into the Po. Virgil was born on its banks. Virgil, Eclogues, poem 7, li. 13; Germania, ch. 3, li. 15; Æneid, bk. 10, li. 206.

Mindărus, a commander of the Spartan fleet during the Peloponnesian war. He was defeated by the Athenians, and died 410 B.C. Plutarch.

Mīnēĭdes, the daughters of Minyas or Mineus, king of Orchomenos in Bœotia. They were three in number, Leuconoe, Leucippe, and Alcithoe. Ovid calls the two first Clymene and Iris. They derided the orgies of Bacchus, for which impiety the god inspired them with an unconquerable desire of eating human flesh. They drew lots which of them should give up her son as food to the rest. The lot fell upon Leucippe, and she gave up her son Hippasus, who was instantly devoured by the three sisters. They were changed into bats. In commemoration of this bloody crime, it was usual among the Orchomenians for the high priest, as soon as the sacrifice was finished, to pursue, with a drawn sword, all the women who had entered the temple, and even to kill the first he came up to. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 4, fable 12.—Plutarch, Quæstiones Græcæ, ch. 38.

Mĭnerva, the goddess of wisdom, war, and all the liberal arts, was produced from Jupiter’s brain without a mother. The god, as it is reported, married Metis, whose superior prudence and sagacity above the rest of the gods, made him apprehend that the children of such a union would be of a more exalted nature, and more intelligent than their father. To prevent this, Jupiter devoured Metis in her pregnancy, and some time after, to relieve the pains which he suffered in his head, he ordered Vulcan to cleave it open. Minerva came all armed and grown up from her father’s brain, and immediately was admitted into the assembly of the gods, and made one of the most faithful counsellors of her father. The power of Minerva was great in heaven; she could hurl the thunders of Jupiter, prolong the life of men, bestow the gift of prophecy, and, indeed, she was the only one of all the divinities whose authority and consequence were equal to those of Jupiter. The actions of Minerva are numerous, as well as the kindnesses by which she endeared herself to mankind. Her quarrel with Neptune concerning the right of giving a name to the capital of Cecropia deserves attention. The assembly of the gods settled the dispute by promising the preference to whichever of the two gave the most useful and necessary present to the inhabitants of the earth. Neptune, upon this, struck the ground with his trident, and immediately a horse issued from the earth. Minerva produced the olive, and obtained the victory by the unanimous voice of the gods, who observed that the olive, as the emblem of peace, is far preferable to the horse, the symbol of war and bloodshed. The victorious deity called the capital Athenæ, and became the tutelar goddess of the place. Minerva was always very jealous of her power, and the manner in which she punished the presumption of Arachne is well known. See: Arachne. The attempts of Vulcan to offer her violence, are strong marks of her virtue. Jupiter had sworn by the Styx to give to Vulcan, who had made him a complete suit of armour, whatever he desired. Vulcan demanded Minerva, and the father of the gods, who had permitted Minerva to live in perpetual celibacy, consented, but privately advised his daughter to make all the resistance she could to frustrate the attempts of her lover. The prayers and force of Vulcan proved ineffectual, and her chastity was not violated, though the god left on her body the marks of his passion, and, from the impurity which proceeded from this scuffle, and which Minerva threw down upon the earth, wrapped up in wool, was born Erichthon, an uncommon monster. See: Erichthonius. Minerva was the first who built a ship, and it was her zeal for navigation, and her care for the Argonauts, which placed the prophetic tree of Dodona behind the ship Argo, when going to Colchis. She was known among the ancients by many names. She was called Athena, Pallas [See: Pallas], Parthenos, from her remaining in perpetual celibacy; Tritonia, because worshipped near the lake Tritonis; Glaucopis, from the blueness of her eyes; Agorea, from her presiding over markets; Hippia, because she first taught mankind how to manage the horse; Stratea and Area, from her martial character; Coryphagenes, because born from Jupiter’s brain; Sais, because worshipped at Sais, &c. Some attributed to her the invention of the flute, whence she was surnamed Andon, Luscinia, Musica, Salpiga, &c. She, as it is reported, once amused herself in playing upon her favourite flute before Juno and Venus, but the goddesses ridiculed the distortion of her face in blowing the instrument. Minerva, convinced of the justness of their remarks by looking at herself in a fountain near mount Ida, threw away the musical instrument, and denounced a melancholy death to him who found it. Marsyas was the miserable proof of the veracity of her expressions. The worship of Minerva was universally established; she had magnificent temples in Egypt, Phœnicia, all parts of Greece, Italy, Gaul, and Sicily. Sais, Rhodes, and Athens particularly claimed her attention, and it is even said that Jupiter rained a shower of gold upon the island of Rhodes, which had paid so much veneration and such an early reverence to the divinity of his daughter. The festivals celebrated in her honour were solemn and magnificent. See: Panathenæa. She was invoked by every artist, and particularly such as worked in wool, embroidery, painting, and sculpture. It was the duty of almost every member of society to implore the assistance and patronage of a deity who presided over sense, taste, and reason. Hence the poets have had occasion to say,

Tu nihil invitâ dices faciesve Minervâ,

and,

Qui bene placârit Pallada, doctus erit.

Minerva was represented in different ways, according to the different characters in which she appeared. She generally appeared with a countenance full more of masculine firmness and composure, than of softness and grace. Most usually she was represented with a helmet on her head, with a large plume nodding in the air. In one hand she held a spear, and in the other a shield, with the dying head of Medusa upon it. Sometimes this Gorgon’s head was on her breastplate, with living serpents writhing round it, as well as round her shield and helmet. In most of her statues she is represented as sitting, and sometimes she holds in one hand a distaff, instead of a spear. When she appeared as the goddess of the liberal arts she was arrayed in a variegated veil, which the ancients called peplum. Sometimes Minerva’s helmet was covered at the top with the figure of a cock, a bird which, on account of his great courage, is properly sacred to the goddess of war. Some of her statues represented her helmet with a sphinx in the middle, supported on either side by griffins. In some medals, a chariot drawn by four horses, or sometimes a dragon or a serpent, with winding spires, appear at the top of her helmet. She was partial to the olive tree; the owl and the cock were her favourite birds, and the dragon among reptiles was sacred to her. The functions, offices, and actions of Minerva seem so numerous, that they undoubtedly originate in more than one person. Cicero speaks of five persons of this name; a Minerva, mother of Apollo; a daughter of the Nile, who was worshipped at Sais, in Egypt; a third, born from Jupiter’s brain; a fourth, daughter of Jupiter and Coryphe; and a fifth, daughter of Pallas, generally represented with winged shoes. This last put her father to death because he attempted her virtue. Pausanias, bks. 1, 2, 3, &c.—Horace, bk. 1, ode 16; bk. 3, ode 4.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 2, &c.—Strabo, bks. 6, 9, & 13.—Philostratus, Imagines, bk. 2.—Ovid, Fasti, bk. 3, &c.; Metamorphoses, bk. 6.—Cicero, de Natura Deorum, bk. 1, ch. 15; bk. 3, ch. 23, &c.—Apollodorus, bk. 1, &c.—Pindar, Olympian, poem 7.—Lucan, bk. 9, li. 354.—Sophocles, Œdipus.—Homer, Iliad, &c.; Odyssey; Hymn to Pallas Athena.—Diodorus, bk. 5.—Hesiod, Theogony.—Aeschylus, Eumenides.—Lucian, Dialogues.—Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, bk. 2.—Orpheus, Hymns, poem 31.—Quintus Smyrnæus, bk. 14, li. 448.—Apollonius, bk. 1.—Hyginus, fable 168.—Statius, Thebiad, bk. 2, li. 721; bk. 7, &c.—Callimachus, Hymn to Demeter.—Ælian, Varia Historia, bk. 12.—Cornelius Nepos, Pausanias.—Plutarch, Lycurgus, &c.—Thucydides, bk. 1.—Herodotus, bk. 5.

Minervæ Castrum, a town of Calabria, now Castro.――Promontorium, a cape at the most southern extremity of Campania.

Mĭnervālia, festivals at Rome in honour of Minerva, celebrated in the months of March and June. During this solemnity scholars obtained some relaxation from their studious pursuits, and the present, which it was usual for them to offer to their masters, was called Minerval, in honour of the goddess Minerva, who patronized over literature. Varro, de Re Rustica, bk. 3, ch. 2.—Ovid, Tristia, bk. 3, li. 809.—Livy, bk. 9, ch. 30.

Mĭnio, now Mignone, a river of Etruria, falling into the Tyrrhene sea. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 10, li. 183.――One of the favourites of Antiochus king of Syria.

Minnæi, a people of Arabia, on the Red sea. Pliny, bk. 12, ch. 14.

Minoa, a town of Sicily, built by Minos when he was pursuing Dædalus, and called also Heraclea.――A town of Peloponnesus.――A town of Crete.

Minois, belonging to Minos. Crete is called Minoia regna, as being the legislator’s kingdom. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 6, li. 14.――A patronymic of Ariadne. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 8, li. 157.

Minos, a king of Crete, son of Jupiter and Europa, who gave laws to his subjects, B.C. 1406, which still remained in full force in the age of the philosopher Plato. His justice and moderation procured him the appellation of the favourite of the gods, the confidant of Jupiter, the wise legislator, in every city of Greece; and, according to the poets, he was rewarded for his equity, after death, with the office of supreme and absolute judge in the infernal regions. In this capacity, he is represented sitting in the middle of the shades and holding a sceptre in his hand. The dead plead their different causes before him, and the impartial judge shakes the fatal urn, which is filled with the destinies of mankind. He married Ithona, by whom he had Lycastes, who was the father of Minos II. Homer, Odyssey, bk. 19, li. 178.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 6, li. 432.—Apollodorus, bk. 3, ch. 1.—Hyginus, fable 41.—Diodorus, bk. 4.—Horace, bk. 1, ode 28.

Minos II., was a son of Lycastes, the son of Minos I. king of Crete. He married Pasiphae the daughter of Sol and Perseis, and by her he had many children. He increased his paternal dominions by the conquest of the neighbouring islands, but he showed himself cruel in the war which he carried on against the Athenians, who had put to death his son Androgeus. See: Androgeus. He took Megara by the treachery of Scylla [See: Scylla], and, not satisfied with a victory, he obliged the vanquished to bring him yearly to Crete seven chosen boys, and the same number of virgins, to be devoured by the Minotaur. See: Minotaurus. This bloody tribute was at last abolished when Theseus had destroyed the monster. See: Theseus. When Dædalus, whose industry and invention had fabricated the labyrinth, and whose imprudence, in assisting Pasiphae in the gratification of her unnatural desires, had offended Minos, fled from the place of his confinement with wings [See: Dædalus], and arrived safe in Sicily, the incensed monarch pursued the offender, resolved to punish his infidelity. Cocalus king of Sicily, who had hospitably received Dædalus, entertained his royal guest with dissembled friendship; and that he might not deliver to him a man whose ingenuity and abilities he so well knew, he put Minos to death. Some say that it was the daughters of Cocalus who put the king of Crete to death, by detaining him so long in a bath till he fainted, after which they suffocated him. Minos died about 35 years before the Trojan war. He was father of Androgeus, Glaucus, and Deucalion, and two daughters, Phædra and Ariadne. Many authors have confounded the two monarchs of this name, the grandfather and the grandson, but Homer, Plutarch, and Diodorus prove plainly that they were two different persons. Pausanias, Achaia, ch. 4.—Plutarch, Theseus.—Hyginus, fable 41.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 8, li. 141.—Diodorus, bk. 4.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 6, li. 21.—Plutarch, Parallela minora.—Athenæus.—Flaccus, bk. 14.

Minōtaurus, a celebrated monster, half a man and half a bull, according to this verse of Ovid, Ars Amatoria, bk. 2, li. 24,

Semibovemque virum, semivirumque bovem.

It was the fruit of Pasiphae’s amour with a bull. Minos refused to sacrifice a white bull to Neptune, an animal which he had received from the god for that purpose. This offended Neptune, and he made Pasiphae the wife of ♦Minos enamoured of this fine bull, which had been refused to his altars. Dædalus prostituted his talents in being subservient to the queen’s unnatural desires, and, by his means, Pasiphae’s horrible passions were gratified, and the Minotaur came into the world. Minos confined in the labyrinth a monster which convinced the world of his wife’s lasciviousness and indecency, and reflected disgrace upon his family. The Minotaur usually devoured the chosen young men and maidens, whom the tyranny of Minos yearly extracted from the Athenians. Theseus delivered his country from this shameful tribute, when it had fallen to his lot to be sacrificed to the voracity of the Minotaur, and, by means of Ariadne, the king’s daughter, he destroyed the monster, and made his escape from the windings of the labyrinth. The fabulous traditions of the Minotaur, and of the infamous commerce of Pasiphae with a favourite bull, have been often explained. Some suppose that Pasiphae was enamoured of one of her husband’s courtiers, called Taurus, and that Dædalus favoured the passion of the queen by suffering his house to become the retreat of the two lovers. Pasiphae, some time after, brought twins into the world, one of whom greatly resembled Minos, and the other Taurus. In the natural resemblance of their countenance with that of their supposed fathers originated their name, and consequently the fable of the Minotaur. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 8, fable 2.—Hyginus, fable 40.—Plutarch, Theseus.—Palæphatus.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 6, li. 26.

Minthe, a daughter of Cocytus, loved by Pluto. Proserpine discovered her husband’s amour, and changed his mistress into an herb, called by the same name, mint. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 10, li. 729.

Minturnæ, a town of Campania, between Sinuessa and Formiæ. It was in the marshes, in its neighbourhood, that Marius concealed himself in the mud, to avoid the partisans of Sylla. The people condemned him to death, but when his voice alone had terrified the executioner, they showed themselves compassionate, and favoured his escape. Marica was worshipped there; hence Maricæ regna applied to the place. Strabo, bk. 2.—Mela, bk. 2, ch. 4.—Livy, bk. 8, ch. 10; bk. 10, ch. 21; bk. 27, ch. 38.—Paterculus, bk. 2, ch. 14.—Lucan, bk. 2, li. 424.

Mĭnŭtia, a vestal virgin, accused of debauchery on account of the beauty and elegance of her dress. She was condemned to be buried alive because a female supported the false accusation, A.U.C. 418. Livy, bk. 8, ch. 15.――A public way from Rome to Brundusium. See: Via.

Mĭnŭtius Augurinus, a Roman consul slain in a battle against the Samnites.――A tribune of the people, who put Mælius to death when he aspired to the sovereignty of Rome. He was honoured with a brazen statue for causing the corn to be sold at a reduced price to the people. Livy, bk. 4, ch. 16.—Pliny, bk. 18, ch. 3.――Rufus, a master of horse to the dictator Fabius Maximus. His disobedience to the commands of the dictator was productive of an extension of his prerogative, and the master of the horse was declared equal in power to the dictator. Minutius, soon after this, fought with ill success against Annibal, and was saved by the interference of Fabius; which circumstance had such an effect upon him, that he laid down his power at the feet of his deliverer, and swore that he would never act again but by his directions. He was killed at the battle of Cannæ. Livy.—Cornelius Nepos, Hannibal.――A Roman consul who defended Coriolanus from the insults of the people, &c.――Another, defeated by the Æqui, and disgraced by the dictator Cincinnatus.――An officer under Cæsar, in Gaul, who afterwards became one of the conspirators against his patron. Cæsar, Gallic War, bk. 6, ch. 29.――A tribune who warmly opposed the views of Caius Gracchus.――A Roman, chosen dictator, and obliged to lay down his office, because, during the time of his election, the sudden cry of a rat was heard.――A Roman, one of the first who were chosen questors.――Felix, an African lawyer, who flourished 207 A.D. He has written an elegant dialogue in defence of the christian religion, called Octavius, from the principal speaker in it. This book was long attributed to Arnobius, and even printed as an eighth book (Octavus), till Balduinus discovered the imposition in his edition of Felix, 1560. The two last editions are that of Davies, 8vo, Cambridge, 1712; and of Gronovius, 8vo, Leiden, 1709.

Minyæ, a name given to the inhabitants of Orchomenos in Bœotia, from Minyas king of the country. Orchomenos the son of Minyas gave his name to the capital of the country, and the inhabitants still retained their original appellation, in contradistinction to the Orchomenians of Arcadia. A colony of Orchomenians passed into Thessaly and settled in Iolchos; from which circumstance the people of the place, and particularly the Argonauts, were called Minyæ. This name they received, according to the opinion of some, not because a number of Orchomenians had settled among them, but because the chief and noblest of them were descended from the daughters of Minyas. Part of the Orchomenians accompanied the sons of Codrus when they migrated to Ionia. The descendants of the Argonauts, as well as the Argonauts themselves, received the name of Minyæ. They first inhabited Lemnos, where they had been born from the Lemnian women who had murdered their husbands. They were driven from Lemnos by the Pelasgi about 1160 years before the christian era, and came to settle in Laconia, from whence they passed into Calliste with a colony of Lacedæmonians. Hyginus, fable 14.—Pausanias, bk. 9, ch. 6.—Apollonius, bk. 1, Argonautica.—Herodotus, bk. 4, ch. 145.

Mĭnyas, a king of Bœotia, son of Neptune and Tritogenia the daughter of Æolus. Some make him the son of Neptune and Callirrhoe, or of Chryses, Neptune’s son, and Chrysogenia the daughter of Halmus. He married Clytodora, by whom he had Presbon, Periclymenus, and Eteoclymenus. He was father of Orchomenos, Diochithondes, and Athamas, by a second marriage with Phanasora the daughter of Paon. According to Plutarch and Ovid, he had three daughters, called Leuconoe, Alcithoe, and Leucippe. They were changed into bats. See: Mineides. Pausanias, bk. 9, ch. 36.—Plutarch, Quæstiones Græcæ, ch. 38.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 4, lis. 1 & 468.

Miny̆cus, a river of Thessaly, falling into the sea near Arene, called afterwards Orchomenus. Homer, Iliad, bk. 11.—Strabo, bk. 8.

Minyeides. See: Mineides.

Minyia, a festival observed at Orchomenus, in honour of Minyas the king of the place. The Orchomenians were called Minyæ, and the river upon whose banks their town was built, Mynos.――A small island near Patmos.

Minytus, one of Niobe’s sons. Apollodorus.

Miraces, a eunuch of Parthia, &c. Flaccus, bk. 6, li. 690.

Misēnum, or Misenus. See: Misenus.

Misēnus, a son of Æolus, who was piper to Hector. After Hector’s death he followed Æneas to Italy, and was drowned on the coast of Campania, because he had challenged one of the Tritons. Æneas afterwards found his body on the sea-shore, and buried it on a promontory which bears his name, now Miseno. There was also a town of the same name on the promontory, at the west of the bay of Naples, and it had also a capacious harbour, where Augustus and some of the Roman emperors generally kept stationed one of their fleets. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 3, li. 239; bk. 6, lis. 164 & 234.—Strabo, bk. 5.—Mela, bk. 2, ch. 4.—Livy, bk. 24, ch. 13.—Tacitus, Histories, bk. 2, ch. 9; Annals, bk. 15, ch. 51.

Misitheus, a Roman celebrated for his virtues and his misfortunes. He was father-in-law to the emperor Gordian, whose counsels and actions he guided by his prudence and moderation. He was sacrificed to the ambition of Philip, a wicked senator who succeeded him as prefect of the pretorian guards. He died A.D. 243, and left all his possessions to be appropriated for the good of the public.

Mithras, a god of Persia, supposed to be the sun, or, according to others, Venus Urania. His worship was introduced at Rome, and the Romans raised him altars, on which was this ♦inscription, Deo Soli Mithræ, or Soli Deo invicto Mithræ. He is generally represented as a young man, whose head is covered with a turban, after the manner of the Persians. He supports his knee upon a bull that lies on the ground, and one of whose horns he holds in one hand, while with the other he plunges a dagger into his neck. Statius, Thebiad, bk. 1, li. 720.—Curtius, bk. 4, ch. 13.—Claudian, de consulatu Stilichonis, bk. 1.

Mithracenses, a Persian who fled to Alexander after the murder of Darius by Bessus. Curtius, bk. 5.

Mithradātes, a herdsman of Astyages, ordered to put young Cyrus to death. He refused, and educated him at home as his own son, &c. Herodotus.—Justin.

Mithrēnes, a Persian who betrayed Sardes, &c. Curtius, bk. 3.

Mithridātes I., was the third king of Pontus. He was tributary to the crown of Persia, and his attempts to make himself independent proved fruitless. He was conquered in a battle, and obtained peace with difficulty. Xenophon calls him merely a governor of Cappadocia. He was succeeded by Ariobarzanes, B.C. 363. Diodorus.—Xenophon.

Mithridātes II., king of Pontus, was grandson to Mithridates I. He made himself master of Pontus, which had been conquered by Alexander, and had been ceded to Antigonus at the general division of the Macedonian empire among the conqueror’s generals. He reigned about 26 years, and died at the advanced age of 84 years, B.C. 302. He was succeeded by his son Mithridates III. Some say that Antigonus put him to death, because he favoured the cause of Cassander. Appian, Mithridatic Wars.—Diodorus.

Mithridātes III., was son of the preceding monarch. He enlarged his paternal possessions by the conquest of Cappadocia and Paphlagonia, and died after a reign of 36 years. Florus.

Mithridātes IV., succeeded his father Ariobarzanes, who was the son of Mithridates III.

Mithridātes V., succeeded his father Mithridates IV., and strengthened himself on his throne by an alliance with Antiochus the Great, whose daughter Laodice he married. He was succeeded by his son Pharnaces.

Mithridātes VI., succeeded his father Pharnaces. He was the first of the kings of Pontus who made alliance with the Romans. He furnished them with a fleet in the third Punic war, and assisted them against Aristonicus, who had laid claim to the kingdom of Pergamus. This fidelity was rewarded; he was called Evergetes, and received from the Roman people the province of Phrygia Major, and was called the friend and ally of Rome. He was murdered B.C. 123. Appian, Mithridatic Wars.—Justin, bk. 37, &c.

Mithridātes VII., surnamed Eupator and The Great, succeeded his father Mithridates VI., though only at the age of 11 years. The beginning of his reign was marked by ambition, cruelty, and artifice. He murdered his own mother, who had been left by his father co-heiress of the kingdom, and he fortified his constitution by drinking antidotes against the poison with which his enemies at court attempted to destroy him. He early inured his body to hardship, and employed himself in many manly exercises, often remaining whole months in the country, and making the frozen snow and the earth the place of his repose. Naturally ambitious and cruel, he spared no pains to acquire himself power and dominion. He murdered the two sons whom his sister Laodice had had by Ariarathes king of Cappadocia, and placed one of his own children, only eight years old, on the vacant throne. These violent proceedings alarmed Nicomedes king of Bithynia, who married Laodice the widow of Ariarathes. He suborned a youth to be king of Cappadocia, as the third son of Ariarathes, and Laodice was sent to Rome to impose upon the senate, and assure them that her third son was still alive, and that his pretensions to the kingdom of Cappadocia were just and well grounded. Mithridates used the same arms of dissimulation. He also sent to Rome Gordius, the governor of his son, who solemnly declared before the Roman people, that the youth who sat on the throne of Cappadocia was the third son and lawful heir of Ariarathes, and that he was supported as such by Mithridates. This intricate affair displeased the Roman senate, and finally to settle the dispute between the two monarchs, the powerful arbiters took away the kingdom of Cappadocia from Mithridates, and Paphlagonia from Nicomedes. These two kingdoms, being thus separated from their original possessors, were presented with their freedom and independence; but the Cappadocians refused it, and received Ariobarzanes for king. Such were the first seeds of enmity between Rome and the king of Pontus. See: Mithridaticum bellum. Mithridates never lost an opportunity by which he might lessen the influence of his adversaries; and the more effectually to destroy their power in Asia, he ordered all the Romans that were in his dominions to be massacred. This was done in one night, and no less than 150,000, according to Plutarch, or 80,000 Romans, as Appian mentions, were made, at one blow, the victims of his cruelty. This universal massacre called aloud for revenge. Aquilius, and soon after Sylla, marched against Mithridates with a large army. The former was made prisoner, but Sylla obtained a victory over the king’s generals, and another decisive engagement rendered him master of all Greece, Macedonia, Ionia, and Asia Minor, which had submitted to the victorious arms of the monarch of Pontus. This ill fortune was aggravated by the loss of about 200,000 men, who were killed in the several engagements that had been fought; and Mithridates, weakened by repeated ill success by sea and land, sued for peace from the conqueror, which he obtained on condition of defraying the expenses which the Romans had incurred by the war, and of remaining satisfied with the possessions which he had received from his ancestors. While these negotiations of peace were carried on, Mithridates was not unmindful of his real interests. His poverty, and not his inclinations, obliged him to wish for peace. He immediately took the field, with an army of 140,000 infantry and 16,000 horse, which consisted of his own forces and those of his son-in-law Tigranes king of Armenia. With such a numerous army, he soon made himself master of the Roman provinces in Asia; none dared to oppose his conquests, and the Romans, relying on his fidelity, had withdrawn the greatest part of their armies from the country. The news of his warlike preparations was no sooner heard, than Lucullus the consul marched into Asia, and without delay blocked up the camp of Mithridates, who was then besieging Cyzicus. The Asiatic monarch escaped from him, and fled into the heart of his kingdom. Lucullus pursued him with the utmost celerity, and would have taken him prisoner after a battle, had not the avidity of his soldiers preferred the plundering of a mule loaded with gold, to the taking of a monarch who had exercised such cruelties against their countrymen, and shown himself so faithless to the most solemn engagements. After this escape, Mithridates was more careful about the safety of his person, and he even ordered his wives and sisters to destroy themselves, fearful of their falling into the enemy’s hands. The appointment of Glabrio to the command of the Roman forces, instead of Lucullus, was favourable to Mithridates, and he recovered the greatest part of his dominions. The sudden arrival of Pompey, however, soon put an end to his victories. A battle, in the night, was fought near the Euphrates, in which the troops of Pontus laboured under every disadvantage. The engagement was by moonlight, and, as the moon then shone in the face of the enemy, the lengthened shadows of the arms of the Romans having induced Mithridates to believe that the two armies were close together, the arrows of his soldiers were darted from a great distance, and their efforts rendered ineffectual. A universal overthrow ensued, and Mithridates, bold in his misfortunes, rushed through the thick ranks of the enemy, at the head of 800 horsemen, 500 of which perished in the attempt to follow him. He fled to Tigranes, but that monarch refused an asylum to his father-in-law, whom he had before supported with all the collected forces of his kingdom. Mithridates found a safe retreat among the Scythians, and, though destitute of power, friends, and resources, yet he meditated the destruction of the Roman empire, by penetrating into the heart of Italy by land. These wild projects were rejected by his followers, and he sued for peace. It was denied to his ♦ambassadors, and the victorious Pompey declared that, to obtain it, Mithridates must ask it in person. He scorned to trust himself into the hands of his enemy, and resolved to conquer or to die. His subjects refused to follow him any longer, and they revolted from him, and made his son Pharnaces king. The son showed himself ungrateful to his father, and even, according to some writers, he ordered him to be put to death. This unnatural treatment broke the heart of Mithridates; he obliged his wife to poison herself, and attempted to do the same himself. It was in vain; the frequent antidotes he had taken in the early part of his life strengthened his constitution against the poison, and, when this was unavailing, he attempted to stab himself. The blow was not mortal; and a Gaul, who was then present, at his own request, gave him the fatal stroke, about 63 years before the christian era, in the 72nd year of his age. Such were the misfortunes, abilities, and miserable end of a man, who supported himself so long against the power of Rome, and who, according to the declaration of the Roman authors, proved a more powerful and indefatigable adversary to the capital of Italy, than the great Annibal, and Pyrrhus, Perseus, or Antiochus. Mithridates has been commended for his eminent virtues, and censured for his vices. As a commander he deserves the most unbounded applause, and it may create admiration to see him waging war with such success during so many years against the most powerful people on earth, led to the field by a Sylla, a Lucullus, and a Pompey. He was the greatest monarch that ever sat on a throne, according to the opinion of Cicero; and, indeed, no better proof of his military character can be brought, than the mention of the great rejoicings which happened in the Roman armies and in the capital at the news of his death. No less than 12 days were appointed for public thanksgivings to the immortal gods, and Pompey, who had sent the first intelligence of his death to Rome, and who had partly hastened his fall, was rewarded with the most uncommon honours. See: Ampia lex. It is said that Mithridates conquered 24 nations, whose different languages he knew, and spoke with the same ease and fluency as his own. As a man of letters he also deserves attention. He was acquainted with the Greek language, and even wrote in that dialect a treatise on botany. His skill in physic is well known, and even now there is a celebrated antidote which bears his name, and is called Mithridate. Superstition, as well as nature, had united to render him great; and if we rely upon the authority of Justin, his birth was accompanied by the appearance of two large comets, which were seen for 70 days successively, and whose splendour eclipsed the mid-day sun, and covered the fourth part of the heavens. Justin, bk. 37, ch. 1, &c.—Strabo.—Diodorus, bk. 14.—Florus, bk. 3, ch. 5, &c.—Plutarch, Sulla; Lucullus; Caius Marius; & Pompey.—Valerius Maximus, bk. 4, ch. 6, &c.—Dio Cassius, bk. 30, &c.—Appian, Mithridatic Wars.—Pliny, bk. 2, ch. 97; bk. 7, ch. 24; bk. 25, ch. 2; bk. 33, ch. 3, &c.—Cicero, On Pompey’s Command, &c.—Paterculus, bk. 2, ch. 18.—Eutropius, bk. 5.—Josephus, bk. 14.—Orosius, bk. 6, &c.

Mithridātes, a king of Parthia, who took Demetrius prisoner.――A man made king of Armenia by Tiberius. He was afterwards imprisoned by Caligula, and set at liberty by Claudius. He was murdered by one of his nephews, and his family were involved in his ruin. Tacitus, Annals.――Another, king of Armenia.――A king of Pergamus, who warmly embraced the cause of Julius Cæsar, and was made king of Bosphorus by him. Some supposed him to be the son of the great Mithridates by a concubine. He was murdered, &c.――A king of Iberia.――Another of Comagena.――A celebrated king of Parthia, who enlarged his possessions by the conquest of some of the neighbouring countries. He examined with a careful eye the constitution and political regulations of the nations he had conquered, and framed from them, for the service of his own subjects, a code of laws. Justin.—Orosius.――Another, who murdered his father, and made himself master of the crown.――A king of Pontus, put to death by order of Galba, &c.――A man in the armies of Artaxerxes. He was rewarded by the monarch for having wounded Cyrus the younger; but, when he boasted that he had killed him, he was cruelly put to death. Plutarch, Artaxerxes.――A son of Ariobarzanes, who basely murdered Datames. Cornelius Nepos, Datames.

Mithridātĭcum bellum, begun 89 years B.C., was one of the longest and most celebrated wars ever carried on by the Romans against a foreign power. The ambition of Mithridates, from whom it receives its name, may be called the cause and origin of it. His views upon the kingdom of Cappadocia, of which he was stripped by the Romans, first engaged him to take up arms against the republic. Three Romans officers, Lucius Cassius the proconsul, Marcus Aquilius, and Quintus Oppius, opposed Mithridates with the troops of Bithynia, Cappadocia, Paphlagonia, and Gallo-græcia. The army of these provinces, together with the Roman soldiers in Asia, amounted to 70,000 men and 6000 horse. The forces of the king of Pontus were greatly superior to these; he led 250,000 foot, 40,000 horse, and 130 armed chariots into the field of battle, under the command of Neoptolemus and Archelaus. His fleet consisted of 400 ships of war, well manned and provisioned. In an engagement the king of Pontus obtained the victory, and dispersed the Roman forces in Asia. He became master of the greatest part of Asia, and the Hellespont submitted to his power. Two of the Roman generals were taken, and Marcus Aquilius, who was principally entrusted with the conduct of the war, was carried about in Asia, and exposed to the ridicule and insults of the populace, and at last put to death by Mithridates, who ordered melted gold to be poured down his throat, as a slur upon the avidity of the Romans. The conqueror took every possible advantage; he subdued all the islands of the Ægean sea, and, though Rhodes refused to submit to his power, yet all Greece was soon overrun by his general Archelaus, and made tributary to the kingdom of Pontus. Meanwhile the Romans, incensed against Mithridates on account of his perfidy, and of his cruelty in massacring 80,000 of their countrymen in one day all over Asia, appointed Sylla to march into the east. Sylla landed in Greece, where the inhabitants readily acknowledged his power; but Athens shut her gates against the Roman commander, and Archelaus, who defended it, defeated, with the greatest courage, all the efforts and operations of the enemy. This spirited defence was of short duration. Archelaus retreated into Bœotia, where Sylla soon followed him. The two hostile armies drew up in a line of battle near Chæronea, and the Romans obtained the victory, and of the almost innumerable forces of the Asiatics, no more than 10,000 escaped. Another battle in Thessaly, near Orchomenos, proved equally fatal to the king of Pontus. Dorylaus, one of his generals, was defeated, and he soon after sued for peace. Sylla listened to the terms of accommodation, as his presence at Rome was now become necessary to quell the commotions and cabals which his enemies had raised against him. He pledged himself to the king of Pontus to confirm him in the possession of his dominions, and to procure him the title of friend and ally of Rome; and Mithridates consented to relinquish Asia and Paphlagonia, to deliver Cappadocia to Ariobarzanes, and Bithynia to Nicomedes, and to pay to the Romans 2000 talents to defray the expenses of the war, and to deliver into their hands 70 galleys, with all their rigging. Though Mithridates seemed to have re-established peace in his dominions, yet Fimbria, whose sentiments were contrary to those of Sylla, and who made himself master of the army of Asia by intrigue and oppression, kept him under continual alarms, and rendered the existence of his power precarious. Sylla, who had returned from Greece to ratify the treaty which had been made with Mithridates, rid the world of the tyrannical Fimbria; and the king of Pontus, awed by the resolution and determined firmness of his adversary, agreed to the conditions, though with reluctance. The hostile preparations of Mithridates, which continued in the time of peace, became suspected by the Romans, and Muræna, who was left as governor of Asia in Sylla’s absence, and who wished to make himself known by some conspicuous action, began hostilities by taking Comana and plundering the temple of Bellona. Mithridates did not oppose him, but he complained of this breach of peace before the Roman senate. Muræna was publicly reprimanded; but, as he did not cease from hostilities, it was easily understood that he acted by the private directions of the Roman people. The king upon this marched against him, and a battle was fought, in which both the adversaries claimed the victory. This was the last blow which the king of Pontus received in this war, which is called the second Mithridatic war, and which continued for about three years. Sylla at that time was made perpetual dictator at Rome, and he commanded Muræna to retire from the kingdom of Mithridates. The death of Sylla changed the face of affairs; the treaty of peace between the king of Pontus and the Romans, which had never been committed to writing, demanded frequent explanations, and Mithridates at last threw off the mask of friendship, and declared war. Nicomedes, at his death, left his kingdom to the Romans, but Mithridates disputed their right to the possessions of the deceased monarch, and entered the field with 120,000 men, besides a fleet of 400 ships in his ports, 16,000 horsemen to follow him, and 100 chariots armed with scythes. Lucullus was appointed over Asia, and entrusted with the care of the Mithridatic war. His valour and prudence showed his merit; and Mithridates, in his vain attempts to take Cyzicum, lost no less than 300,000 men. Success continually attended the Roman arms. The king of Pontus was defeated in several bloody engagements, and with difficulty saved his life, and retired to his son-in-law Tigranes king of Armenia. Lucullus pursued him; and, when his applications for the person of the fugitive monarch had been despised by Tigranes, he marched to the capital of Armenia, and terrified, by his sudden approach, the numerous forces of the enemy. A battle ensued. The Romans obtained an easy victory, and no less than 100,000 foot of the Armenians perished, and only five men of the Romans were killed. Tigranocerta, the rich capital of the country, fell into the conqueror’s hands. After such signal victories, Lucullus had the mortification to see his own troops mutiny, and to be dispossessed of the command by the arrival of Pompey. The new general showed himself worthy to succeed Lucullus. He defeated Mithridates, and rendered his affairs so desperate, that the monarch fled for safety into the country of the Scythians; where, for a while, he meditated the ruin of the Roman empire, and, with more wildness than prudence, secretly resolved to invade Italy by land, and march an army across the northern wilds of Asia and Europe to the Apennines. Not only the kingdom of Mithridates had fallen into the enemy’s hands, but also all the neighbouring kings and princes were subdued, and Pompey saw prostrate at his feet Tigranes himself, that king of kings, who had lately treated the Romans with such contempt. Meantime, the wild projects of Mithridates terrified his subjects; and they, fearful to accompany him in a march of above 2000 miles across a barren and uncultivated country, revolted, and made his son king. The monarch, forsaken in his old age, even by his own children, put an end to his life [See: Mithridates VII.], and gave the Romans cause to rejoice, as the third Mithridatic war was ended in his fall, B.C. 63. Such were the unsuccessful struggles of Mithridates against the power of Rome. He was always full of resources, and the Romans had never a greater or more dangerous war to sustain. The duration of the Mithridatic war is not precisely known. According to Justin, Orosius, Floras, and Eutropius, it lasted 40 years; but the opinion of others, who fix its duration to 30 years, is far more credible; and, indeed, by proper calculation, there elapsed no more than 26 years from the time that Mithridates first entered the field against the Romans, till the time of his death. Appian, Mithridatic Wars.—Justin, bk. 37, &c.—Florus, bk. 2, &c.—Livy.—Plutarch, Lucullus, &c.—Orosius.—Paterculus.—Dionysius of Halicarnassus.

Mithridātis, a ♦daughter of Mithridates the Great. She was poisoned by her father.

Mithrobarzānes, a king of Armenia, &c.――An officer sent by Tigranes against Lucullus, &c. Plutarch.――The father-in-law of Datames.

Mĭty̆lēne and Hĭty̆lĕnæ, the capital city of the island of Lesbos, which receives its name from Mitylene the daughter of Macareus, a king of the country. It was greatly commended by the ancients for the stateliness of its buildings and the fruitfulness of its soil, but more particularly for the great men whom it produced. Pittacus, Alcæus, Sappho, Terpander, Theophanes, Hellenicus, &c., were all natives of Mitylene. It was long a seat of learning, and, with Rhodes and Athens, it had the honour of having educated many of the great men of Rome and Greece. In the Peloponnesian war the Mityleneans suffered greatly for their revolt from the power of Athens; and, in the Mithridatic wars, they had the boldness to resist the Romans, and disdain the treaties which had been made between Mithridates and Sylla. Cicero, On the Agrarian Law.—Strabo, bk. 13.—Mela, bk. 2, ch. 7.—Diodorus, bks. 3 & 12.—Paterculus, bk. 1, ch. 4.—Horace, bk. 1, ode 7, &c.—Thucydides, bk. 3, &c.—Plutarch, Pompey, &c.

Mitys, a man whose statue fell upon his murderer, and crushed him to death, &c. Aristotle, bk. 10, Poetics.――A river of Macedonia.

Mizæi, a people of Elymais.

Mnasalces, a Greek poet, who wrote epigrams. Athenæus.—Strabo.

Mnasias, an historian of Phœnicia.――Another of Colophon.――A third of Patræ, in Achaia, who flourished 141 B.C.

Mnasicles, a general of Thymbro, &c. Diodorus, ♦bk. 18.

Mnasīlus, a youth who assisted Chromis to tie the old Silenus, whom they found asleep in a cave. Some imagine that Virgil spoke of Varus under the name of Mnasilus. Virgil, Eclogues, poem 6, li. 13.

Mnasippidas, a Lacedæmonian, who imposed upon the credulity of the people, &c. Polyænus.

Mnasippus, a Lacedæmonian, sent with a fleet of 65 ships and 1500 men to Corcyra, where he was killed, &c. Diodorus, bk. 15.

Mnasitheus, a friend of Aratus.

Mnason, a tyrant of Elatia, who gave 1200 pieces of gold for 12 pictures of 12 gods to Asclepiodorus. Pliny, bk. 35, ch. 16.

Mnasyrium, a place in Rhodes. Strabo, bk. 14.

Mnemon, a surname given to Artaxerxes on account of his retentive memory. Cornelius Nepos, Kings.――A Rhodian.

Mnēmŏsy̆ne, a daughter of Cœlus and Terra, mother of the nine Muses by Jupiter, who assumed the form of a shepherd to enjoy her company. The word Mnemosyne signifies memory, and therefore the poets have rightly called memory the mother of the Muses, because it is to that mental endowment that mankind are indebted for their progress in science. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 6, fable 4.—Pindar, Isthmean, ch. 6.—Hesiod, Theogony.—Apollodorus, bk. 1, ch. 1, &c.――A fountain of Bœotia, whose waters were generally drunk by those who consulted the oracle of Trophonius. Pausanias, bk. 9, ch. 39.

Mnesarchus, a celebrated philosopher of Greece, pupil to Panætius, &c. Cicero, On Oratory, bk. 1, ch. 11.

Mnesidămus, an officer who conspired against the lieutenant of Demetrius. Polyænus, bk. 5.

Mnesilaus, a son of Pollux and Phœbe. Apollodorus.

Mnesimăche, a daughter of Dexamenus king of Olenus, courted by Eurytion, whom Hercules killed. Apollodorus, bk. 2.

Mnesimăchus, a comic poet.

Mnester, a freedman of Agrippina, who murdered himself at the death of his mistress. Tacitus, Annals, bk. 14, ch. 9.

Mnestheus, a Trojan, descended from Assaracus. He was a competitor for the prize given to the best sailing vessel by Æneas, at the funeral games of Anchises in Sicily, and became the progenitor of the family of the Memmii at Rome. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 4, li. 116, &c.――A son of Peteus. See: Menestheus.――A freedman of Aurelian, &c. Eutropius, bk. 9.—Aurelius Victor.

Mnestia, a daughter of Danaus. Apollodorus.

Mnestra, a mistress of Cimon.

Mnĕvis, a celebrated bull, sacred to the sun in the town of Heliopolis. He was worshipped with the same superstitious ceremonies as Apis, and, at his death, he received the most magnificent funeral. He was the emblem of Osiris. Diodorus, bk. 1.—Plutarch, de Iside et Osiride.

Moaphernes, the uncle of Strabo’s mother, &c. Strabo, bk. 12.

Modestus, a Latin writer, whose book De re Militari has been elegantly edited in 2 vols., 8vo, Vesaliæ, 1670.

Modia, a rich widow at Rome. Juvenal, satire 3, li. 130.

Mœcia, one of the tribes at Rome. Livy, bk. 8, ch. 17.

Mœnus, now Mayne, a river of Germany, which falls into the Rhine near Mentz. Tacitus, Germania, ch. 28.

Mœragĕtes, fatorum ductor, a surname of Jupiter. Pausanias, bk. 5, ch. 15.

Mœris, a king of India, who fled at the approach of Alexander. Curtius, bk. 9, ch. 8.――A steward of the shepherd Menalcas in Virgil’s, Eclogues, poem 9.――A king of Egypt. He was the last of the 300 kings from Menes to Sesostris, and reigned 68 years. Herodotus, bk. 2, ch. 13.――A celebrated lake in Egypt, supposed to have been dug by the king of the same name. It is about 220 miles in circumference, and intended as a reservoir for the superfluous waters during the inundation of the Nile. There were two pyramids in it, 600 feet high, half of which lay under the water, and the other appeared above the surface. Herodotus, bk. 2, ch. 4, &c.—Mela, bk. 1, ch. 6.—Pliny, bk. 36, ch. 12.

Mœdi, a people of Thrace, conquered by Philip of Macedonia.

Mœon, a Sicilian, who poisoned Agathocles, &c.

Mœra, a dog. See: Mera.

Mœsia, a country of Europe, bounded on the south by the mountains of Dalmatia, north by mount Hæmus, extending from the confluence of the Savus and the Danube to the shores of the Euxine. It was divided into Upper and Lower Mœsia. Lower Mœsia was on the borders of the Euxine, and contained that tract of country which received the name of Pontus from its vicinity to the sea, and which is now part of Bulgaria. Upper Mœsia lies beyond the other, in the inland country, now called Servia. Pliny, bk. 3, ch. 26.—Virgil, Georgics, bk. 1, li. 102.

Moleia, a festival in Arcadia, in commemoration of a battle in which Lycurgus obtained the victory.

Molion, a Trojan prince, who distinguished himself in the defence of his country against the Greeks as the friend and companion of Thymbræus. They were slain by Ulysses and Diomedes. Homer, Iliad, bk. 11, li. 320.

Molīŏne, the wife of Actor son of Phorbas. She became mother of Cteatus and Eurytus, who, from her, are called Molionides. Pausanias, bk. 8, ch. 14.—Apollodorus, bk. 2, ch. 7.

Molo, a philosopher of Rhodes, called also Apollonius. Some are of opinion that Apollonius and Molo are two different persons, who were both natives of Alabanda, and disciples of Menecles, of the same place. They both visited Rhodes, and there opened a school, but Molo flourished some time after Apollonius. Molo had Cicero and Julius Cæsar among his pupils. See: Apollonius. Cicero, On Oratory.――A prince of Syria, who revolted against Antiochus, and killed himself when his rebellion was attended with ill success.

Moloeis, a river of Bœotia, near Platæa.

Mŏlorchus, an old shepherd near Cleonæ, who received Hercules with great hospitality. The hero, to repay the kindness he received, destroyed the Nemæan lion, which laid waste the neighbouring country and, therefore, the Nemæan games, instituted on this occasion, are to be understood by the words Lucus Molorchi. There were two festivals instituted in his honour, called Molorcheæ. Martial, bk. 9, ltr. 44; bk. 14, ltr. 44.—Apollodorus, bk. 2, ch. 5.—Virgil, Georgics, bk. 3, li. 19.—Statius, Thebiad, bk. 4, li. 160.

Mŏlossi, a people of Epirus, who inhabited that part of the country which was called Molossia, or Molossis from king Molossus. This country had the bay of Ambracia on the south, and the country of the Perrhæbeans on the east. The dogs of the place were famous, and received the name of Molossi among the Romans. Dodona was the capital of the country according to some writers. Others, however, reckon it as the chief city of Thesprotia. Lucretius, bk. 5, lis. 10, 62.—Lucan, bk. 4, li. 440.—Strabo, bk. 7.—Livy.—Justin, bk. 7, ch. 6.—Cornelius Nepos, bk. 2, ch. 8.—Virgil, Georgics, bk. 3, li. 495.—Horace, bk. 2, satire 6, li. 114.

Mŏlossia, or Molossis. See: Molossi.

Molossus, a son of Pyrrhus and Andromache. He reigned in Epirus, after the death of Helenus, and part of his dominions received the name of Molossia from him. Pausanias, bk. 1, ch. 11.――A surname of Jupiter in Epirus.――An Athenian general, &c. Pausanias, Theseus.――The father of Merion of Crete. See: Molus. Homer, Odyssey, bk. 6.

Molpadia, one of the Amazons, &c. Plutarch.

Molpus, an author who wrote a history of Lacedæmon.

Molus, a Cretan, father of Meriones. Homer, Odyssey, bk. 6.――A son of Deucalion.――Another, son of Mars and Demonice.

Molycrion, a town of Ætolia, between the Evenus and Naupactum. Pausanias, bk. 5, ch. 3.

Momemphis, a town of Egypt. Strabo, bk. 17.

Momus, the god of pleasantry among the ancients, was son of Nox, according to Hesiod. He was continually employed in satirizing the gods, and whatever they did was freely turned to ridicule. He blamed Vulcan, because in the human form which he had made of clay, he had not placed a window in his breast, by which whatever was done or thought there might be easily brought to light. He censured the house which Minerva had made, because the goddess had not made it movable, by which means a bad neighbourhood might be avoided. In the bull which Neptune had produced, he observed that his blows might have been surer if his eyes had been placed near his horns. Venus herself was exposed to his satire; and when the sneering god had found no fault in the body of the naked goddess, he observed, as she retired, that the noise of her feet was too loud, and greatly improper in the goddess of beauty. These illiberal reflections upon the gods were the cause that Momus was driven from heaven. He is generally represented raising a mask from his face, and holding a small figure in his hand. Hesiod, Theogony.—Lucian, Hermotimus.

Mona, an island between Britain and Hibernia, anciently inhabited by a number of Druids. It is supposed by some to be the modern island of Anglesey, and by others, the island of Man. Tacitus, Annals, bk. 14, chs. 18 & 29.

Monæses, a king of Parthia, who favoured the cause of Marcus Antony against Augustus. Horace, bk. 3, ode 6, li. 9.――A Parthian in the age of Mithridates, &c.

Monda, a river between the Durius, and Tagus, in Portugal. Pliny, bk. 4, ch. 22.

Monēsus, a general killed by Jason at Colchis, &c.

Monēta, a surname of Juno among the Romans. She received it because she advised them to sacrifice a pregnant sow to Cybele, to avert an earthquake. Cicero, De Divinatione, bk. 1, ch. 15. Livy says (bk. 7, ch. 28) that a temple was vowed to Juno under this name, by the dictator Furius, when the Romans waged war against the Aurunci, and that the temple was raised to the goddess by the senate, on the spot where the house of Manlius Capitolinus had formerly stood. Suidas, however, says, that Juno was surnamed Moneta, from assuring the Romans, when in the war against Pyrrhus they complained of want of pecuniary resources, that money could never fail to those who cultivated justice.

Monĭma, a beautiful woman of Miletus, whom Mithridates the Great married. When his affairs grew desperate, Mithridates ordered his wives to destroy themselves; Monima attempted to strangle herself, but when her efforts were unavailing, she ordered one of her attendants to stab her. Plutarch, Lucullus.

Monimus, a philosopher of Syracuse.

Monŏdus, a son of Prusias. He had one continued bone instead of a row of teeth, whence his name (μονος ὁδους). Pliny, bk. 7, ch. 16.

Monœcus, now Monaco, a town and port of Liguria, where Hercules had a temple; whence he is called Monœcius, and the harbour Herculis Portus. Strabo, bk. 4.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 6, li. 830.

Monoleus, a lake of Æthiopia.

Monophăge, sacrifices in Ægina.

Monophĭlus, a eunuch of Mithridates. The king entrusted him with the care of one of his daughters; and the eunuch, when he saw the affairs of his master in a desperate situation, stabbed her, lest she should fall into the enemy’s hands, &c.

Mons Sacer, a mountain near Rome, where the Roman populace retired in a tumult, which was the cause of the election of the tribunes.

Mons Sevērus, a mountain near Rome, &c.

Montānus, a poet who wrote in hexameter and elegiac verses. Ovid, ex Ponto.――An orator under Vespasian.――A favourite of Messalina.――One of the senators whom Domitian consulted about boiling a turbot. Juvenal, satire 4.