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.
♦ ‘paticularly’ replaced with ‘particularly’
=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_.