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MACEO PARKER
MACHAIRA
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A one-edged sword, slightly curved, in use among the Greeks. For further information, see SWORD.
MACHAON AND PODALIRIUS The sons of Asclepius and Epione, skilled in the art of healing, took part in the expedition to Troy with thirty Thessalian ships, and were there the physicians of the Greeks, besides fighting valiantly. According to post-Homeric legends Machaon was slain by Eurypylus, the son of Telephus, and his corpse was brought by Nestor to Messenia, where, at Gerenia, he had a sepulchre and a temple in which cures were effected. Podalirius, who recognised the madness of Ajax by his burning eyes, stayed with Calchas from the fall of Troy to his death, and then settled at Syrnos in Caria; he had a heroon in Apulia, close to that of Calchas.
MACROBIUS A man of high rank, and, according to his own account, not a born Roman, and probably a pagan, who wrote, in the beginning of the 5th century after Christ, two extant works. (1) a commentary on Cicero's Dream of Scipio (Somnium Scipionis, from the sixth book of the De Republica); and (2) an antiquarian compilation in seven books, treating of a number of historical, mythological, grammatical, and antiquarian subjects, in the form of table talk, at a celebration of the Saturnalia; hence the title, Convivia Saturnalia. Macrobius has gathered his information from various authors, especially Gellius, whom, however, he does not mention any more than his other authorities.
MAENADS "the frenzied ones." Women in Bacchic ecstasy, who formed part of the train of Dionysus (q.v. fig. 3; cp. VASES, fig. 13).
MAGISTER EQUITUM The assistant of the dictator, nominated by him immediately after his own appointment, and bound to obey him unconditionally, representing him in his absence, or when otherwise prevented. He owed his name ("Master of the Horse") to the fact that it was part of his office to command the cavalry in battle, while the dictator was at the head of the infantry. As the insignia of his magistracy he had the sella curulis, the praetexta, and six lictors.
MAGISTRATES
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Of all the official systems established among the Greeks, that in vogue among the Athenians is the best known to us. The qualifications for public office at Athens were genuine Athenian descent, blameless life, and the full possession of civic rights. If religious duties were attached to the office, physical weakness was a disqualification. No one was allowed to hold two offices at a time, or the same office twice or for a longer period than a year. The nomination was made in some cases by election, in others by the drawing of lots. Election took place by show of hands in the ecclesia, or, on the mandate of the ecclesia, in the assemblies of the several tribes. (See CHEIROTONIA, ECCLESIA.) In election by lot [on the introduction of which see Note on p. 706) the proceeding was as follows. The Thesmothetoe presided in the temple of Theseus. (See THESMOTHETAe.) Two boxes or vessels were placed there, one containing white and coloured beans, and the other the names of the candidates, written on tablets. A tablet and a bean were taken out at the same time, and the candidate whose name came out with a white bean was elected. Before entering on his office (whether he had been chosen by lot or election), every official had to undergo an examination of his qualifications (dokimasia). If the result was unfavourable, a substitute was appointed, either by a simultaneous casting of lots in the manner described, or (if the office was elective) by a new election. During their term of office the officials were subject to constant supervision, and were liable to suspension or deposition by the Ecclesia, through the proceeding called epicheirotonia (a new show of hands). On the expiration of his term, every official was bound to give an account of himself (euthyna). The regular officials, had each a place of office (archeion). If the officials formed a society, as in the majority of cues, the business was (so far as joint administration was possible) distributed among the members. If the society appeared in public as a whole, one of the members presided as prytanis. (See PRYTANIS.) In the cases at law which came under their jurisdiction, it was incumbent on the officials to make the necessary arrangements for the trial, and to preside in court. They received no salary, but their meals were provided at the public expense, either at their residences or in the Prytaneum. The emblem of office was a garland of myrtle. The offence of insulting an official in the performance of his duty was punishable with atimia. (See, for details, APODECTAe, ARCHONTES, ASTYNOMI, EPIMELETAeE, COLACRETAe, POLETAeE, STRATEGI, TAMIAS.) There were numerous attendants on the officials (hyperetai), who received a salary, and their meals at the public expense. Such were the clerks (grammateis) and heralds (kerykes). For Sparta, see EPHORS for Rome, MAGISTRATUS, ACCENSI, LICTORS, APPARITOR.
MAGISTRATUS
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A term used by the Romans both to designate the magistracy and the person who held it. The magistrates of the Republic were partly ordinary, chosen at regular intervals: consules, censores, praetores, adiles curules, quaestores, tribuni plebis, and aediles plebis; partly extraordinary, chosen only under special circumstances, the principal being dictator, magister equitum, and interrex. Among these the consuls, praetors, and dictator are distinguished from the others by the possession of the imperium (q.v.) derived from the regal power (the interrex had it for five days only); they and the censors, who, without possessing the imperium, derived their duties from the regal power, constitute the higher magistrates, magistratus maiores, while the rest are the lower, minores, with the exception of the tribunes, who have a position of their own. For those offices, which could originally be held by patricians alone, the term patrician was preserved, even after they had become accessible to the plebeians. The plebeian offices also, the tribunate and plebeian aedileship, do not designate any political contrast after plebeians and patricians had been made legally equal, although only plebeians could hold them. Another distinction is that into magistratus curules and non curules, which refers to the right of having a aella curulis (q.v.). This and the toga praetexta, a white toga edged with purple, were accorded to the higher magistrates, the aediles curules and the magister equitum. Only the magistratus cum imperio and the magister equitum were permitted to have lictors with the fasces (q.v.). All the magistrates were elected, except the dictator and the magister equitum; the magistratus maiores at the comitia centuriata, the rest at the comitia tributa. Every magistrate had the right to call the people to a contio (q.v.), to issue edicts, which had the force of laws as long as his authority (potestas) lasted, to take auspices which were binding for the district within his jurisdiction, and to exercise a limited right of punishment; the higher magistrates and the tribunes had the power, generally speaking, of convoking the comitia and the senate (cp. IMPERIUM). The power of the magistrates was limited by the senate, the intercession of the tribunes and of magitrates of equal or higher rank, the right of appeal of the citizens, and the liability to give account after retirement from office; for no charge could be brought, at any rate against the higher magistrates, as long as they held it. The following were the conditions for obtaining an office : (1) Personal application before the election, the right of rejection being in the hands of the magistrate who directed them (a consul in the case of the higher magistrates, a tribune for the plebeian, a consul-afterwards also the praetor of the city-for the rest). (2) Eligibility, dependent on membership of a citizen family, full possession of personal liberty and honorary rights (See INFAMIA), and the absence of bodily blemish (note also that patricians could not hold plebeian offices). (3) A minimum age for each office, at first according to a certain tradition, then regulated by law, so that in Cicero's time a candidate for the quaestorship had to be in his 30th year at least; in his 37th for the curule aedileship; in his 40th for the raestorship; and in his 43rd for the consulship. (4) At this time also the traditional order of the above-mentioned offices was considered law, and a man was compelled to hold the lower office before he could proceed to the higher, except that the aedileship could be neglected, (6) An interval of two years had to elapse between the aedileship, praetorship, and consulate, and of one year between the tribunate and any other office. (6) Ten years had to elapse before the same office could be held again; in this, and with regard to age, order of offices, and intervals between them, exceptions were permitted under special circumstances. The date of the elections was fixed by the senate; in Cicero's time they usually took place in July [Ad Att. i 16; Ad Fam. viii 4]. From B.C. 153 the magistrates, whose names were solemnly announced (renuntiatio) at the end of the elections, mostly entered upon' their office on January 1st. (See articles on the individual magistrates.) Just as on this occasion they swore to keep the laws, so at the end of their term of office, which was a year, except in the case of the censors, the dictator, and the magister equitum, (q.v.), they affirmed on oath before a contio, that they had done nothing contrary to the laws. The officials elected to an office vacated before the end of the year (suffecti) simply held it for the remainder of that year. The only thing that could legally compel a magistrate to resign before the end of his time was a formal error in the taking of the auspices at the elections. The magistrates received no salaries whatsoever, but they were indemnified for official expenses within the town (e.g. for the games) or without it; those officials more especially who were going to the provinces as procurators received a sufficient sum from the treasury for their equipment and the support of themselves and their suite. Under the Empire the old magistracies continued to exist, though their authority was considerably limited; cp, the several articles, and for their election, see COMITIA (end). Besides these, numerous new offices came into existence, especially the various praefecti (q.v.), some of whom received an actual salary. The magistracies were completely remodelled by Diocletian and Constantine, especially with regard to their pay; all imperial officials received salaries, while the municipal did not. Cp. the several articles mentioned in the beginning.
MAGNA MATER A Roman name of the goddess Rhea (q.v.)
MAGNES
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One of the first founders of Attic Comedy. (See COMEDY.)
MAIA Daughter of Atlas and Pleione, one of the Pleiads (q.v.), mother of Hermes by Zeus. The Romans identified her with an old Italian goddess of spring, Maia Maiestas (also called Fauna, Bona Dea, Ops), who was held to be the wife of Vulcan, and to whom the flamen of that god sacrificed a pregnant sow on the 1st of May.
MAIESTAS
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Denoted among the Romans the sovereign power of the people and the State, or that of the emperor. To detract from this sovereign power was a crime (crimen minetae maiestatis). Originally the term perduellio (q.v.) included all offences of this kind; distinctions were first made in B.C. 100 by the Lex Apuleia, which declared some offences to be treason that had previously been regarded as perduellio, such as hindering the tribunes and exciting to sedition. The idea of treason was considerably extended by the Lex Cornelia of the dictator Sulla in B.C. 80, which made it include inciting to sedition, hindering a magistrate in the exercise of his functions, and acting in a manner prejudicial to the Roman prestige or beyond the limits of one's authority. It also instituted a permanent lawcourt (see QUAeSTIO PERPETUA) to take cognisance of such cases; and made exile (interdictio aquae et ignis) the penalty. (See EXILIUM.) Caesar's Lex Iulia, B.C. 46, made perduellio pass over into crimen maiestatis, which was held to cover all actions prejudicial to the State and the existing constitution (such as treason, plots, conspiracies, sedition, illegal assumption of authority). The Julian Law also formed the basis for punishing offences of this kind under the Empire; to these were now added all those against the person and the authority of the emperor. The term was very elastic, and received whatever interpretation the emperor preferred, so that when a charge, e.g. that of embezzlement (see REPETUNDARUM CRIMEN), was brought against a man, he could often be also charged with the crimen maiestatis, especially as the accusers were rewarded if the offence was proved. After the closing of the quaestiones these cases were decided by the senate; later still, the emperor was judge, or entrusted them to the praefectue urbi. The regular penalty was confiscation, and sometimes banishment or death. Charges of treason could he brought or the trial could be continued, even after the death of the accused; and in the most serious cases the penalty had to be borne by the children, in accordance with a decree of the emperor, and even with the law at a later period.
MAMERTINUS A Latin panegyrist, the author of a speech addressed to the emperor Julian on January 1st, A.D. 362, at Constantinople, thanking him for conferring the consulate on him. It gives a pretty accurate picture of the personality of the emperor and of his administration. An older Mamertinus is assumed to be the author of two panegyrics in praise of Maximinianus, co-regent with Diocletian, which were delivered in 289 and 291 at Treves.
MAMURIUS
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The mythical maker of the ancilia. (See ANCILE.)
MANCIPATIO
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A formal mode of purchase among the Romans, which seems to go back to a time when the price of purchase was weighed out in bars of copper. In the presence of six Roman citizens of the age of puberty, one of whom, called the libripens (weigher), held a copper balance, the purchaser took hold of the thing and uttered certain prescribed words. He then struck the balance (libra) with a small piece of copper (oes or raudusculum), which he gave to the seller as symbol of the price. This mode of purchase per oes et libram was employed in the case of res mancipi, i.e. estates in Italy or provinces with Italian law, in the country or in towns, slaves, and domestic animals and beasts of burden needed for agricultural purposes; also in a certain kind of testaments, in the form of marriage called coemptio, and in transferring one's power over a person (manus) to another. (See ADOPTION, EMANCIPATIO, and MANCIPIUM.)
MANCIPIUM
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The right of possession obtained through mancipatio (q.v.), and the possession itself, which none but the head of the family has a right to dispose of. Homines liberi in mancipio are free men, whom their father has given into the power of another man by mancipatio, e.g. in compensation for some damage they have done to the latter. Their position differed from that of slaves in this, that they retained the right of personality, could complain if their masters treated them badly, and regained all the rights of a freeborn man on leaving their position of dependence. This was effected in the same way as the liberation of slaves vindicta, censu, and testamento. (See FREEDMEN.) After the repeal of the severe laws making imprisonment the penalty of convicted debtors, the same relation as that mentioned above existed between debtor and creditor, until the money was paid.
MANES A name given by the Romans to the spirits of the dead, which were held to be immortal like the gods,and hence designated as such (dii manes). They dwell below the earth, and only come forth at certain seasons of the year. On the Mons Palatinus at Rome, there was, as in other Italian towns, a deep pit with the shape of an inverted sky, known as mundus, the lowest part of which was consecrated to the infernal gods and also to the Manes, and was closed with a stone, lapis manalis, thought to be the gate of the nether world. This stone was lifted up three times a year (August 24th, October 5th, November 8th), and the Manes were then believed to rise to the upper world: on this account those days were religiosi, i.e. no serious matter might be undertaken on them. Sacrifices were offered to them as to the dead; water, wine, warin inilk, honey, oil, and the blood of black sheep, pigs, and oxen, were poured on the grave; ointments and incense were offered; and the grave was decked with flowers, roses and violets by preference. Oblations, which chiefly consisted of beans, eggs, lentils, bread and wine, were placed on the grave, and the mourners partook of a meal in its neighbourhood. Besides the private celebrations there was also a public and universal festival, the Parentalia, which lasted from the 13th to the 21st of February, the last month of the older Roman year; the last day had the special name Feralia. During these days all the temples were closed, marriages were prohibited, and the magistrates had to appear in public without the tokens of their office. The festival of the dead was followed by that of the relations on February 22nd, called Caristia. This was celebrated throughout the town by each individual family, the members of which exchanged presents and met at festal banquets.
MANETHON An Egyptian of Sebennytus, who lived in the second half of the 3rd century B.C. He was high priest at Heliopolis in Egypt, and wrote in Greek a history of his native country from the oldest times to its conquest by Alexander the Great, founded on the sacred records of the Egyptians. Recent hieroglyphic discoveries have confirmed the authority of this work against the doubts and suspicions previously entertained, and show it to have been compiled from good sources: only a third of the kings' names and some fragments have been preserved by later writers. He has been wrongly considered the author of a Greek poem in six books, treating of the influence of the constellations on the fates of men, entitled Apotelesmatica; various parts of it seem to have been written by different authors between the 3rd and 5th century after Christ.
MANIA An old Italian goddess of the Manes, i.e. the dead, also called Lara, Larunda, Muta (the dumb), Mana Genita, who was held by some to be the mother or grandmother of the good Lares, by others of the evil Larvoe. Originally daughter of the river-god Almo, and called Lara, she was deprived of her tongue by Jupiter, because she had betrayed his love for the Nymph Juturna, and was condemned to be the Nymph of the marshy waters in the realm of the speechless. On the way to the nether world Mercury fell in love with her, and the Lares were her offspring in early times boys are said to have been sacrificed to her, to insure the prosperity of a family. At a later period heads of poppies and garlic were offered to her, and woollen dolls, manioe, called after her, were suspended on the doors as a protection. As Mana Genita she received the sacrifice of a dog and was implored not to let any of the family become a " good one," i.e. die. In the course of time Mania became a bogy with which children were threatened.
MANILIUS The reputed author of a Latin didactic poem about astronomy and astrology (Astronomica), in five books, the first of which was written under Augustus, after the battle in the Saltus Teutoburgiensis, 9 A.D., and the fifth under Tiberius. The first two books treat of astronomy as the foundation of astrology; the rest, of the influence of constellations on human destiny. The author certainly intended to write a sixth book, but it has either been lost or was never written. The poet, who shows extensive knowledge, frequently boasts of having been the first among Roman poets to treat the subject, and handles his difficult theme with a dexterity and a moral earnestness that recall Lucretius, whose language he has frequently imitated. In metrical skill he is on a par with the best poets of the Augustan age.
MANIPULUS A subdivision of the Roman legion (q.v.), which had thirty of them (three in each of the ten cohorts). The manipulus consisted of two centuries.
MANTIKE is the name given by the Greeks to the gift or art of divination. The belief of the ancients, that it was possible to find out what was hidden or what was going to happen, sprang from the idea that the gods, when implored by prayer, or even when unimplored, graciously communicated revelations to men, by means of direct inspiration or through signs requiring interpretation. Hence the ancients distinguished between natural and artificial divination.
MANTO Daughter of the seer Tireslas, was herself a prophetess, at first of the Ismenian Apollo at Thebes. After the capture of the town by the Epigoni she was presented to the oracle at Delphi as part of the booty, and sent by the god to Asia, in order to found the oracle of the Clarian Apollo in the neighbourhood of what was afterwards Colophon. Here she bore Mopsus (q.v., 2) to the Cretan seer Rhacius.
MANUMISSIO
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Freeing of slaves, See FREEDMEN.
MANUS in its wider sense, is the name given by the Romans to the power of the chief of a family over the whole of that family, especially the power of the husband over his wife, whose person and property were so completely his own, that he was legally responsible for her actions, but at the same time had the right to kill, punish, or sell her. As in this respect, so also with respect to the right of inheritance, the wife was placed on a level with the children, as she obtained the same share as they. For marriages without manus, see MARRIAGE.
MANUS INIECTIO
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In the oldest Roman legal procedure a kind of execution levied on the person of one who had been condemned to pay a certain sum. If this was not done within thirty days of the condemnation, the plaintiff could seize the debtor and bring him before the praetor, who handed him over to the creditor with the word addico (I hand over), unless he paid there and then, or a vindex came forward to pay for him or to show there was no ground for complaint. The creditor kept the debtor in chains at his house for sixty days; if his claims had not been satisfied during this period, he might kill him or sell him as a slave in foreign parts. From the 4th century onwards a less severe arrangement was usual; the relation of the addictus to his creditor was that of a homo liber in mancipio. (See MANCIPIUM.)
MARCELLUS EMPIRICUS of Burdigala (Bordeaux). Marshal of the household (magister officiorum) to Theodosius I, compiled about A.D. 410 a dispensatory for the poor, which was chiefly founded on Scribonius Largus (q.v.), with many superstitious additions.
MARCIANUS A Greek geographer, who lived at Heraclea in Bithynia. With the aid of the best sources of information from Hanno and Scylax down to Ptolemaeus, he compiled, about 400 A.D., a description of the Western and Eastern ocean in two books, not completely preserved. It is of particular importance for ancient geography, as the distances in stadia are given.
MARIUS MAXIMUS
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Latin historian. (See SCRIPTORES HISTORIAe AUGUSTAe and SUETONIUS).
MARPESSA
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Daughter of the river god Euenus, and wife of Idas. (See IDAS AND LYNCEUS.)
MARS
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With Jupiter the principal deity of the inhabitants of Italy, and therefore honoured with particular reverence by the Latins and Romans from the very earliest times, especially as the latter regarded him as the father of Romulus, the founder of Rome. He was held to be the son of Juno, who bore him in consequence of touching a wonderful spring-flower, and the husband of Nerio or Nerlene, a goddess of strength. Through the emphasising of one of his attributes he gradually came to be considered as, above all, the god of war; for originally he is at the same time one of the mightiest gods of nature, who accords fertility and protection to fields and herds. The first month of the old Roman year was dedicated to him as the fertilizing god of spring; in the very ancient chant of the Arval brothers (q.v.), at the May-day festival of the Dea Dia, the help and protection of Mars were demanded. In earlier times he was also invoked at the hallowing of the fields (See AMBARVALIA), that he might bless the family, the field and the cattle, and keep off sickness, bad weather, and all else that did harm. (Cp. ROBIGUS.) In later times the names of Ceres and Bacchus were substituted for his on this particular occasion. At the festival on 15th October (see below) a horse was sacrificed to him to insure the fair growth of the seed that had been sown. As god of war he had the special name Gradixus, the strider, from the rapid march in battle 1 (Cp. QUIRINUS), and his symbols were the ravenous wolf, the prophetic and warlike woodpecker, and the lance. When war broke out, the general solemnly invoked his aid, by smiting his holy lance and the holy shields (ancilia -see ANCILE) with the cry, Mars, awake! (Mars vigila!) Many sacrifices were also offered to him during the campaign and before battle; and in his name military honours were conferred. The Field of Mars (Campus Martius) was dedicated to him as the patron god of warlike exercises; contests with battle-steeds, called Equirria, were there held in his honour on the 27th February, 14th March, and 15th October. On the last-mentioned day the horse on the right of the victorious team was sacrificed on his altar in the Field of Mars; it was known as the horse of October (October equus), and its blood was collected and preserved in the temple of Vesta, and used at the Palilia for purposes of purification. The cult of Mars was entrusted to a special priest, the flamen Martialis (see FLAMEN), and the college of the Salii (q.v.), which worshipped him more particularly as god of war. His principal festival was in March, the month sacred to him. As early as the time of king Tullus Hostilius, Pavor and Pallor, Fear and Pallor, are said to have been worshipped as his companions in the fight, in sanctuaries of their own. Augustus caused him to be honoured in a new form, as Mars Ultor (avenger of Caesar), in the magnificent temple in the Forum Augusti, consecrated B.C. 2, where statues of him and of Venus, as the two divine ancestors of the Julian family, were set up. In later times he was identified completely with the Greek Ares (q.v.).
MARSYAS A Silenus of Phrygian legend (really god of the river of the same name near the old Phrygian town Cybele), son of Hyagnis. He was the typical player on the flute. Among the Phrygians the flute entered into the worship of Cybele and Dionysus, and Marsyas is said to have instructed Olympus in playing upon that instrument. According to a Greek legend, Athene had invented the flute, and then cast it aside because it distorted the features of the player. Marsyas took it up, and became so skilful as to challenge Apollo, the patron god of the lyre. The Muses having declared him vanquished, the god flayed him; his skin was hung up in the cave from which the river Marsyas issued, and was said to move about joyfully when a flute was played. King Midas, who had decided in his favour, received as punishment from Apollo a pair of donkey's ears. The contest was a favourite subject in art.
MARTIALIS The Roman epigrammatist, born at Bilbilis in Spain between A.D. 40 and 43. He was originally intended for the law, and was sent to Rome in Nero's reign to complete his studies, but devoted himself to poetry, which obtained for him the favour of Titus, Domitian, and the great men of Rome, and thus insured him a livelihood. On returning in 98 under Trajan to Bilbilis, after a stay of thirty-four years in the capital, he was so poor that the younger Pliny [Ep. iii 21] had to give him pecuniary assistance for the journey. Though his skill as a poet won him patrons in his native country, and even an estate from the wealthy Marcella, yet he yearned for the bustle of the capital. He died about 102.-Martial is the creator of the modern epigram, and the first ancient poet who exclusively cultivated the epigram as a separate branch of literature. Besides a small collection of epigrams about public shows under Titus and his successor (Liber Spectaculorum), we possess a much larger collection in fourteen books, of which only two (xi and xii) were not published under Domitian. He depicts, usual ly in elegiac or iambic verse, the corrupt morals of his degenerate times with brilliant and biting wit and with the metrical skill of Ovid, but without any moral seriousness, and with evident pleasure in what is coarse. A particularly distasteful effect is produced by his fulsome flattery of patrons in high positions, especially Domitian, in whom he manages to discover and to admire every virtue that a man and a prince could possibly possess. His epigrams were much read by the ancients. They have many points of excellence, and they throw a vivid light on the manners and customs of the Silver Age of Latin literature.
MARTIANUS CAPELLA of Madaura in Africa, apparently a pagan; a lawyer at Carthage. He compiled before 439 A.D. (When Genseric took Carthage) an encyclopaedia of the liberal arts, entitled, " The Marriage of Philology and Mercury " (Nuptioe Philologioe et Mercurii), in nine books, a medley of prose and verse on the pattern of the Menippean Satires of Varro, to whom he is also otherwise indebted. The first two books contain the allegory: Mercury marries the maiden Philologia, and among the presents he gives her are seven maidens, the liberal arts: Grammar, Dialectic, Rhetoric, Geometry, Arithmetic, Astronomy, and Harmony (Music); each of these delivers her teaching in the following books. The style is partly dry and partly bombastic. In the earlier Middle Ages the book was for a long time the principal basis of school education in general, and exerted great influence on the liberal culture of the time.
MASKS An indispensable part of the equipment of a Greek actor. Their use, like the drama itself, goes back to the mummery at the festivals of Dionysus, in which the face was painted with lees of wine or with vermilion, or covered with masks made ofleaves or the bark of trees. The development of the drama led to the invention of artistic masks of painted linen which concealed not only the face, but the whole head, a device ascribed to Aeschylus. The opening for the eyes was not larger than the pupil of the actor concealed under the mask; similarly, in the masks of tragedy (figs. 1-4), the hole for the mouth was only a little larger than sufficed to let the sound pass through; while the masks of comedy (figs. 6-10) had lips that were distorted far apart, and in the form of a round hole, so as to make the voice louder. By moulding and painting them in different ways, and variously arranging the hair of the head and the beard, the masks were made to represent many different types of character, men and women of various ages, slaves, etc; the expression also was made to agree with the dominant nature of the parts [Pollux, iv 133-164]. Among the Romans, masks were at first only used at the Atellanoe (q.v.) , popular farces acted by amateurs; they were not introduced on the stage till the 2nd century B.C., and were not generally employed before the time of the celebrated actor Roscius, an older contemporary of Cicero. After that time, the mimes seem to have been the only actors without masks.
MATRONA A name applied by the Romans to every honourable married woman. She enjoyed the highest esteem; the way was cleared for her in the street, in which she might not appear unaccompanied, and she was not allowed to be touched even when cited before a law court. She was distinguished by the long white stola, the cloak called palla, and her hair divided into six plain plaits, with woollen ribbons (vittoe) wound round it.
MATRONALIA A festival celebrated by Roman matrons on the 1st of March, the anniversary of the foundation of the temple of Juno Lucina on the Esquiline. In the houses sacrifices and prayers were offered for a prosperous wedlock, the women received presents from the men and waited on the slaves, just as the men did at the Saturnalia. In the temple of the goddess, women and girls prayed to her and to her son Mars, and brought pious offerings.
MATUTA An old Italian goddess of dawn and of birth, also goddess of harbours and of the sea, and hence identified with the Greek Leucothea. In her temple at Rome in the Forum Boarium, on the 11th of June, the Matralia, or festival of mothers, was celebrated in her honour by the women of Rome; no slaves were admitted to it, and only a matron who had not been married before was allowed to place a wreath on the statue of the goddess. The women first prayed for the well-being of their nephews and nieces, and then for that of their own children. This custom was referred to the myth of Ino-Leucothea, who tended Dionysus, the son of her sister Semele.
MAUSOLEUM
MAXIMIANUS of Etruria, a Latin poet in the beginning of the 6th century after Christ. He is the author of six amatory elegies, modelled on classical poets, from whom he borrowed largely.
MAXIMUS of Tyre. A Greek rhetorician and adherent of the Platonic philosophy, in the second half of the 2nd century after Christ. Forty-one rhetorical lectures of his on philosophical subjects of general interest are extant; the style is neat and scholarly.
MAXIMUS The author, otherwise unknown, of an astrological poem about the positions of the stars which are favourable for various undertakings; only fragments of this are preserved. It is probable that he lived under the early Empire.
MEALS
MEDEA
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The daughter of Aeetes of Colchis and of Idyia; skilled in witchcraft. For the legend of her being carried off by Jason, and how she revenged his perfidy at Corinth, see ARGONAUTS. From Corinth she fled to Athens, married king Aegeus, the father of Theseus, and had a son Medus by him. But she was again compelled to fly with her son, as she had plotted against the life of Theseus. She came to Colchis without being recognised, and there found her father deprived of the kingship by his brother Perses. She killed the latter, and restored Aeetes to the throne. According to a later legend, Medus comes to Colchis to seek his mother, and is imprisoned by Perses, before whom he alleges that he is Hippotes, son of Creon of Corinth. Then Medea appears on a chariot drawn by serpents, and under pretence of being a priestess of Artemis promises to deliver the country from the barrenness that is oppressing it, on condition the supposed son of her mortal enemy is given into her power. When this is done, she recognises her son, who with her aid kills Perses and takes possession of his grandfather's realm. The Greeks looked on Me'dus as the progenitor of the Medes. According to one legend, Medea became the wife of Achilles in Elysium, as did Helen according to another. At Corinth she was deemed immortal, and regarded as a benefactress of the city, which she was alleged to have delivered from a famine. Elsewhere, she was merely regarded as an ancient queen. Her seven sons and seven daughters were killed by Corinthian women at the altar of Hera, on account of which a pestilence ravaged the town, and an oracular decree ordained that an annual expiatory offering should be made. This was observed until the destruction of the town.
MEDIMNUS A Greek measure of capacity, six times as large as the Roman modius, and in English about 1 1/2 bushel. Its principal subdivisions were the choenix (1/48), xestes (1/96), cotyle (1/192), cyathus (1/1152).
MEDUS Son of Aegeus and Medea (q.v.).
MEDUSA One of the Gorgons, whose head was out off by Perseus (q.v.). (See also GORGO.)
MEGAERA
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One of the Greek goddesses of vengeance. (See ERINYES.)
MEGALESIA A Roman festival in honour of Rhea (q.v.).
MEGARA Daughter of the Theban king Creon, wife of Heracles (q.v.), afterwards married by him to Iolaus.
MEGARON
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In many Greek temples a space divided off and sometimes subterranean, which only the priest was allowed to enter. (See TEMPLE.)
MEGASTHENES A Greek historian, who stayed for a considerable time, as ambassador of king Seleucus Nicator, at the court of the Indian king Sandracus (B.C. 315-291), at Palibothra on the Ganges. From information about the country and the people, obtained while he occupied that position, he compiled a historical and geographical work about India, the chief treatise on that country left us by the ancients. On it are founded the accounts of Diodorus and Arrian; beyond this only fragments are preserved. His record of the state of India at the time has been discredited; but recent investigations have to a great extent shown its trustworthiness.
MELAMPUS
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Son of Amythaon (see Ae0LUS, 1) and of Eidomene; brother of Bias, the oldest Greek seer, and ancestor of the family of seers called Melampodidae. The brothers went with their uncle Neleus froin Thessaly to Pylus in Messenia, where they dwelt in the country. Melampus owed his gift of soothsaying to some serpents, which he had saved from death and reared, and who in return cleansed his ears with their tongues when he slept; on awaking he understood the voices of birds and thus learnt what was secret. When Neleus would only give Bias his beautiful daughter Pero on condition that he first brought him the oxen of Iphiclus of Phylace in Thessaly, which were guarded by a watchful dog, Melampus offered to fetch the oxen for his brother, though he knew beforehand that he would be imprisoned for a year. He is caught in the act of stealing them, and kept in strict confinement. From the talk of the worms in the woodwork of the roof he gathers that the house will soon fall to pieces. He thereupon demands to be taken to another prison ; this is scarcely done, when the house breaks down. When, on account of this, Phylacus, father of Iphiclus, perceives his prophetic gifts, he promises him the oxen, if by his art he will find out some way of curing his son's childlessness. Melampus offers a bull to Zeus, cuts it in pieces, and invites the birds to the meal. From these he hears that a certain vulture, that had not come, knew how it could be effected. This vulture is made to appear, and relates, that the defect in Iphiclus was the result of a sudden fright at seeing a bloody knife, with which his father had been castrating some goats; he had dug the knife into a tree, which had grown round about it; if he took some of the rust scraped off it, for ten days, he would be cured. Melampus finds the knife, cures Iphiclus, obtains the oxen, and Bias receives Pero for his wife. Afterwards he went to Argos, because, according to Homer [Od. xv 225-240] Neleus had committed a serious offence against him in his absence, for which he had taken revenge; while, according to the usual account he had been asked by king Proetus to heal his daughter, stricken with madness for acting impiously towards Dionysus or Hera. He had stipulated that his reward should be a third of the kingdom for himself, another for Bias; besides which Iphianassa became his wife, and Lysippe that of Bias, both being daughters of Proetus. A descendant of his son Antiphates was Oicles, who was a companion of Heracles in the expedition against Troy, and was slain in battle by Laomedon; he again was ancestor of the seer and hero Amphiaraus. Descendants of his other son Mantius were Cleitus, whom Eos, the goddess of dawn, carried off on account of his beauty, and Polypheides, whom, after the death of Amphiaraus, Apollo made the best of seers. The son of Polypheides was the seer Theoclymenus, who, flying from Argos on account of committing a murder, met Telemachus at Pylus, was led by him to Ithaca, and announced to Penelope the presence in Ithaca of Odysseus, and to the suitors their approaching death. The seer Polyidus (q.v.) was also said to be a great-grandson of Melampus. At Argos Melampus was held to be the first priest of Dionysus, and originator of mysterious customs at festivals and at ceremonies of expiation.
MELANIPPIDES
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Greek dithyrambic poet. (See DITHYRAMBOS.)
MELANIPPUS A Theban, who mortally wounded Tydeus in the fight of the Seven against Thebes, and was himself slain by Amphiaraus. (Cp. TYDEUS.)
MELEAGER Greek epigrammatist. Of Gadara in Palestine, flourished about B.C. 60. His collection of epigrams, by himself and others, entitled Stephanos (wreath), formed the nucleus of the Greek anthology (q.v.), Of his own poems there remain 128, in which amatory themes are cleverly and wittily treated.
MELEAGER
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Son of (Eneus of Calydon and of Althaea, husband of Cleopatra (see, IDAS), one of the most celebrated heroes of Greek legend. He took part in the enterprise of the Argonauts and brought about the celebrated chase of the Calydonian boar (see OENEUS), to which he invited the most renowned heroes of the time, Admetus, Amphiaraus, Jason, Idas, Lynceus, Castor and Pollux, Nestor, Theseus and Pirithous, Peleus, Telamon, and others. Many lost their lives, till at last Meleager slew the monster. However, Artemis thereupon stirred up furious strife between the Calydonians and the Curetes (who dwelt at Pleuron) about the head and skin of the boar, the prize of victory. The Calydonians were victorious, as long as Meleager fought at their head; but when he slew the brother of his mother, she uttered a terrible curse on him, and he retired sullenly from the fray. The Curetes immediately forced the Calydonians to retreat, and were already beginning to climb the walls of Calydon, when, at the height of their distress, he yielded to the prayers of his wife and again joined in the fight to ward of destruction from the city; but he did not return alive, for the Erinys had accomplished the curse of his mother. According to a later legend, the Moerae appeared to his mother on the seventh day after his birth, and announced to her that her son would have to die when a log of wood on the hearth was consumed by the flame; whereupon Althaea immediately snatched the log from the fire and concealed it in a chest. At the Calydonian Hunt Meleager fell in love with Atalante (q.v.), and gave her (who had inflicted the first wound) the prize, the skin of the animal which he had killed. He slew the brothers of his mother, the sons of Thestius, when they were lying in wait for the virgin to rob her of the boar's hide. Overcome by pain at the death of her brothers, Althaea sets fire to the log, and Meleager dies a sudden death. His mother and wife hang themselves; his sisters weep so bitterly for Meleager, that Artemis for pity changes them into gninea-hens, (Gr. meleagrides). Legends relate that even in the nether world Meleager retained his dauntless courage; for when Heracles descended to Hades, all the shades fled before him except Meleager and Medusa.
MELICERTIS
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In Greek legend the son of Athamas and Ino, and ch~nged, after his death by drowning, into the marine deity Palaemon, while his mother became Leucothea. (See INO). His name (=Melkart), however, shows him to have been originally a Plicenician god. Like Ino-Leucothea, he was worshipped on all the coast of the Mediterranean, especially on that of Megara and at the Isthmus of Corinth, where he was so closely connected with the cult of Poseidon, that the Isthmian games, originally instituted in honour of this god, came to be looked upon as the funeral games of Melicertes. The Romans regarded him as a beneficent god of the sea, and identified him with Portunus, the god of harbours.
MELINNO
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Greek poetess. (See ERINNA.)
MELPOMENE
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The Muse of tragedy. For further details see MUSES.
MEMNON The beautiful son of Tithonus and of Eos; king of the Aethiopians. His brother Emathion had ousted him from the throne, but Heracles, on his expedition for obtaining the apples of the Hesperides, murdered the usurper, and reinstated Memnon. After Hector's death he went to help his uncle Priam, and killed Antilochus, the son of Nestor and friend of Achilles. When the latter had slain him, Eos entreated Zeus to grant her son the boon of immortality. The Greeks originally thought that one of the two Aethiopias mentioned in Homer was the realm of Memnon, which is situated near sunrise and the dwelling place of Eos, and hence regarded him as the builder of the royal castle at Susa. It was not till later that his kingdom was identified with the Egyptian Aethiopia, and that he was connected with the colossal statue of Amenophis near Thebes. This "column of Memnon" is still standing. After its partial destruction by an earthquake in B.C. 27, the musical sound, which it gave forth when touched by the first rays of the sun, was explained as Memnon's greeting to his mother, the Goddess of Dawn. The tomb of Memnon was shown at various places. It was told of the one at Abydus on the Hellespont, that the companions of Memnon, who had been changed into birds (the Memnonides) on account of their excessive grief for their king, came there every year to fight and to lament at his grave. The clew-drops of the early morning were called the tears of Eos, which she shed anew every morning in sorrow for her beloved son.
MENANDER The chief representative of the Later Attic Comedy, born in B.C. 342, at Athens, of a distinguished and wealthy family. He received a careful education, and led a comfortable and luxurious life, partly at Athens, and partly at his estate in the Piraeus, the harbour of Athens, enjoying the intimate friendship of his contemporary and the friend of his youth, Epicurus, of Theophrastus, and of Demetrius Phalereus. He declined an invitation of king Ptolemy I of Egypt, so as not to have his comfort disturbed. At the height of his poetic productiveness he was drowned while bathing in the Piraeus, at the age of 52. His uncle Alexis had given him some preparatory training in dramatic composition. As early as 322 he made his first appearance as an author. He wrote above a hundred pieces, and worked with the greatest facility; but he only obtained the first prize for eight comedies, in the competition with his popular rival Philemon. The admiration accorded him by posterity was all the greater: there was only one opinion about the excellence of his work. His principal merits were remarkable inventiveness, skillful arrangement of plots, life-like painting of character, a clever and refined wit, elegant and graceful language, and a copious supply of maxims based on a profound knowledge of the world. These last were collected in regular anthologies and form the bulk of the extant fragments. Unfortunately not one of his plays has survived, although they were much read down to a late date. However, apart from about seventy-three titles, and numerous fragments (some of considerable length), we have transcripts of his comedies (in which, of course, the delicate beauties of the original are lost), in a number of Latin plays by Plautus (Bacchides, Stichus, Poenulus), and Terence (Andria, Eunuchus, Hautontimorumenos, Adelphi). Lucian also, in his Conversations of Hetoeroe, and Alciphron in his Letters, have made frequent use of Menander.
MENANDER A Greek rhetorician, of Laodicea, who probably lived at the end of the 3rd century after Christ. He is the author of two treatises About Speeches for Display, which add to our knowledge of the theory of the sophistic type of oratory [in Spengel's Rhetores Groeci, iii 331-446].
MENELAUS Son of Atreus, and younger brother of Agamemnon, with whom he was exiled by Thyestes, the murderer of Atreus, and fled to king Tyndareos, at Sparta, whose daughter Helen he married, and whose throne he inherited after the death of Helen's brothers, Castor and Polydeuces (Pollux). When Paris had robbed him of his wife and of great treasures, he went with Odysseus to Troy to demand restitution, and they were hospitably received there by Antenor. His just claims were refused, and his life was even in danger; he and Agamemnon accordingly called on the Greek chieftains to join in an expedition against Troy, and himself furnished sixty ships. At Troy he distinguished himself in counsel and in action, and was specially protected by Athene and Hera. In the single combat with Paris he is victorious, but his opponent is rescued and carried off by Aphrodite. On demanding that Helen and the treasures should be restored, he is wounded by an arrow shot by the Trojan Pandarus. He is also ready to fight Hector, and is only prevented by the entreaties of his friends. When Patroclus has fallen, he shields the dead body, at first alone, and then with the aid of Ajax, and bears it from the field of battle with Meriones. He is also one of the heroes of the wooden horse. Having recovered Helen he hastens home, but on rounding the promontory of Malea he is driven to Egypt with five ships, and wanders about for eight years among the peoples of the East, where he is kindly received everywhere and receives rich gifts. He is finally detained at the isle of Pharos by contrary winds, and with the help of the marine goddess Eidothea he artfully compels her father Proteus to prophecy to him. He thus learns the reason of his being unwillingly detained at the island, and is also told that, as husband of the daughter of Zeus, he will not die, but enter the Elysian plains alive. After appeasing the gods in Egypt with hecatombs, he returns swiftly and prosperously to his home, where he arrives on the very day on which Orestes is burying Aegisthus and Clytaemnestra. He spent the rest of his life quietly withHelen, in Lacedaemon. Their only daughter Hermione was married to Neoptolemus, son of Achilles.
MENESTHEUS The son of Peteus, who seized the government of Attica, while Theseus pined away in the nether world, and commanded the Athenians before Troy, where he fell. (Cp. DEMOPHOON, THESEUS).
MENIPPE Daughter of Orion, who offered to die with her sister Metioche, when a pestilence was raging in Boeotia, and the oracle demanded the sacrifice of two virgins. (See also ORION).
MENIPPUS A Greek philosopher of Gadara in Syria, flourished about B.C. 250. He was originally a slave, and afterwards an adherent of the Cynic school of philosophy. His writings (now completely lost) treated of the follies of mankind, especially of philosophers, in a sarcastic tone. They were a medley of prose and verse, and became models for the satirical works of Varro, and afterwards for those of Lucian.
MENOECEUS Grandson of Pentheus of Thebes, father of Creon and Jocasta.
MENOECEUS Grandson of the above, son of Creon. At the siege of Thebes by the Seven, Tiresias prophesied that the Thebans would conquer if the wrath of Ares at the slaying of the dragon by Cadmus were appeased by the voluntary death of a descendant of the warriors that had sprung from the dragon's teeth. Menoeceus, one of the last of this race, slew himself, in spite of his father's prohibition, on the castle wall, and fell down into the chasm which had once been the haunt of the dragon as guardian of the spring Dirce.
MENS Under this name the Romans personified intelligence and prudence. After the battle at Lake Trasimene, which was lost through the carelessness of the Romans, a temple was erected to her on the Capitol. The anniversary of its foundation was celebrated on the 8th of June.
MENTOR
MENTOR Son of Alcimus of Ithaca, friend of Odysseus, who, on defarting for Troy, confided to him the care of his house and the education of Telemachus [Od. ii 225]. His name has hence become a proverbial one for a wise and faithful adviser or monitor. Athene assumed his shape when she brought Telemachus to Pylus [Od. ii 268), and when she aided Odysseus in fighting the suitors and made peace between him and their relatives [xxii 206, xxiv 4461.
MERCURY The Italian god of commerce, and as such identified with the Greek Hermes (q.v.), whose descent and other qualities were accordingly transferred to him. As protector of the corn trade, especially with Sicily, which was of such great importance to Rome, he was first publicly honoured in that city by the erection of a temple near the Circus Maximus. At the same time a guild of merchants was established, the members of which were known as mercuriales. At the yearly festival of the temple and the guild, May 15th, the merchants sacrificed to the god and to his mother, and at the Porta Capena sprinkled themselves and their merchandise with hallowed water. With the spread of Roman commerce the worship of Mercury extended far into the West and North.
MEROBAUDES A rhetorician born in Spain and distinguished as a general, and also as a Latin poet, in the first half of the 5th century after Christ. Besides a short hymn, De Christo, there are preserved fragments of five secular poems, the longest being part of a panegyric on the third consulate of Aetius (446), with a preface in prose. They prove him to be no unskilful imitator of Claudian; in language and metre he possesses an elegance rare in his time.
MEROPE One of the Pleiads (q.v.), mother of Glaucusg by Sisyphus.
MEROPE Wife of Polybus of Corinth (also called Periboea), foster-mother of (Edipus q.v.).
MESOMEDES A Greek lyric poet of Crete, who lived about A.D. 130, and was a freed-man of Hadrian. Three small poems of his have come down to us [Anthologia Groeca, xiv 63, xvi 323]. They are not unattractive, and the one on Nemesis is of peculiar interest, as its musical composition is indicated according to the ancient notation [Brunck's Analecta, iii 292; Bellermann, Hymnen des Dionysius und Mesomedes, pp. 13, 26].
MESTRA Daughter of Erysichthon (q.v., 2). She supported her famished father by employing the power to change herself into any form she pleased, the gift of her lover Poseidon. She let herself be sold in various forms, and then always returned to her father [Ovid, Met. viii 738-884].
META The upper column at the upper and lower end of the Roman circus, round which the competitors usually had to drive seven times. (Cp. CIRCUS, GAMES OF.)
METAGEITNIA An Athenian festival in honour of Apollo (q.v.).
METAULOS
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See HOUSE (Greek).
METIS Daughter of Oceanus, first wife of Zeus, by whom she was devoured, as he feared she would bear a son mightier than himself; whereupon Athene (q.v.) sprang from the head of the god.
METOECI The name given at Athens to liens (other than slaves) resident in Attica. When the State was most flourishing, they numbered as many as 10,000 adult men. The favourable position of Athens for commerce and the rich opportunities for carrying on trade and for selling merchandise induced both Greeks and barbarians to settle there. The Athenians besides had the reputation among the Greeks of being friendly towards foreigners. For the legal protection granted them by the State, they paid a sum of twelve drachmoe [8s.] annually for each man, and half as much for each independent woman; and they had to choose a patron (prostates) to conduct their dealings with the State in all public and private affairs, e.g. the bringing of an action. Whoever failed to do the one or the other was summoned before a lawcourt, and, if guilt , sold as a slave. They were prohibited from marrying citizens and from obtaining landed property; but they could follow any trade they pleased, on payment of a certain tax. They also had to pay the extraordinary taxes for war, and were obliged to go on ilitary service either in the fleet or in the land-army; they might be hoplites, but not knights. At festivals it was their duty to follow the processions, carrying sunshades, pitchers, and bowls or trays (filled. with honey or cakes). A decree of the people could, in return for special services, confer on them the isoteleia, which placed them on a level with the citizens with regard to "liturgies," or public burdens, freed them from the necessity of having a patron or paying a tax for protection, and gave them the right of holding property in land and of transacting business with the people or the authorities without an intermediary; but even this privileged class did not possess the active rights of a citizen.
METON A Greek astronomer, of Athens, instituted in B.C. 432 the cycle of nineteen years called after him; it was intended to reconcile the lunar and the solar year: 235 lunar months of 29 or 30 days (on an average 29 25/47) =19 solar years of 365 5/19 days. This cycle was not adopted at Athens till much later, probably in B.C. 330. (Cp. CALENDAR.)
METOPES
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[Metopoe, either " the intervening openings," or (Vitruv. iv 2, 4) " the spaces between the sockets " (Gr. opai). In Doric architecture the spaces between the triglyphs (q.v.) in the frieze. They were originally left open. Thus, Orestes manages to make his way into the Tauric temple of Artemis through one of these openings (Eur., Iph. T. 113). They were afterwards filled with panels of wood, which were in course of time superseded by plain slabs of marble, as in the temples at Paestum, etc. These slabs were sometimes slightly ornamented with around shield in low relief, as in the frieze of the temple of Zeus at Olympia. More frequently they were filled with figures in relief, as in those of Selinus (see SCULPTURE, fig. 1), and of the Theseum and the Parthenon (q.v.). The term is also applied to similarly sculptured slabs not placed between the triglyphs, but on the wall of the cella, as in the temple of Zeus at Olympia. See OLYMPIAN GAMES, fig. 3.]
METRAGYRTI The vagrant begging priests of Rhea (q.v.).
METRETES The largest liquid measure of the Greeks, a little less than nine gallons. Its chief subdivisions were the Gr. chous,(1/12), xestes(1/72), cotyle (1/144), cyathus
MEZENTIUS King of Caere n Etruria; he aided Turnus of Ardea against neas, but was killed in battle by the latter or by his son Ascanius.
MIDAS An old Phrygian king, son of Gordias and Cybele, in whose honour he is said to have founded a temple and instituted priests at Pessinus. When the drunken Silenus had lost his way and strayed into Midas' rose-gardens, the king brought him back to Dionysus. (According to another legend the king made him drunk by mingling wine with the spring Midas, and so caught him, that he might prophesy to him.) Dionysus granted Midas the fulfillment of his wish, that all he touched might turn to gold. But his very food and drink were changed at his touch, so that he prayed the god to take away the fatal gift. At the god's command he bathed in the Pactolus, which ever after became rich in gold. In the musical contest between Marsyas (or Pan) and Apollo, he decided for the former; on which account the god gave him the ears of an ass. He concealed them beneath a high cap, so that only his barber knew about it. However, he could not keep the secret for any length of time, and at last shouted it into a hole that he had dug into the ground; reeds grew from this hole, and whispered the secret to all the world. While this legend makes Midas himself appear as one of the Sileni belonging to the train of Dionysus (the ass being one of their attributes), the other points to him as the favourite of the divinity, whose first priest he was deemed to be, and who showered riches upon him.
MILANION The faithful lover of Atalante (q.v.).
MILIARIUM The Roman milestone, a stone column, such as were set up at intervals of 1,000 (mille) passus = 5,000 Roman feet on the military roads, partly during the last years of the Republic, and regularly since Augustus. They gave in numbers, usually preceded by M.P. (milia passuum), the distance from the place from which the measurement was made, besides its name and that of the person who had constructed the road or erected the milestone, and of the emperor in whose reign the road had been made. A great number of these milestones, in every part of the Roman empire, has been preserved, and also the base of the central column of gilt bronze (miliarium aureum) erected by Augustus in the Forum near the temple of Saturn; it was regarded as the centre of the empire. (SeePlan of Fora, under FORUM.)
MILLS MILL, POMPELL
MIME
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really denotes a farcical mimie, a buffoon, such as used to show themselves from the earliest times in Italy and Sicily on the public places at popular entertainments, etc., and also served to while away the time during meals. It afterwards came to be applied to the farcical imitation of persons and scenes in ordinary life. The mimes of the Syracusan Sophron were character-sketches in dialogue taken from the life of the people; but these were at most meant to be recited, certainly not to be acted. In Italy, especially among the Latians and at Rome, the representation of such farcical scenes from low life on the stage was no doubt as old as the stage itself; and as great a scope was at all times given to improvisation in these as in the Atellanae, from which the mimes mainly differed in not being confined to stock-characters (see ATELLANA). At Rome the mime was for a long time confined to fifth-rate theatres, but in B.C. 46 it appears to have ousted the Atellanae as an interlude and afterpiece on the more important stages, and received at the hands of Decimus Laberius and Publilius Syrus a technical development on the lines of the existing kinds of drama. The native name for these national farces was planipes, probably because the performers appeared planis pedibus, i.e. without the theatrical shoes used in tragedy and comedy. There were also no masks, the use of which would have of course rendered impossible the play of the features, which is such an important means of imitation. The costume worn was the centunculus,a kind of harlequin's dress, and the ricinium, a peculiar little cloak. Contrary to the custom in all other dramatic performances, the female parts were really taken by women, who, like all the actors, in mimes, were in very bad repute. Besides the chief actor, archimimus or archimima, who had to carry through the plot, there was always a second performer with a clean-shaven head, whose part is characterized by the names given him, parasitus or stupidus (fool). The mimes were acted on the front part of the stage, which was divided from the back part by a curtain (siparium). As they depicted the life of the lower classes, and as it was their chief aim to rouse the laughter of the spectators in every possible way, they were full of plebeian expressions and turns, and abounded in the most outrageous buffoonery and obscenity; cheating and adultery were, the favourite subjects. In particular the dances that occurred in the mimes were remarkable for the extravagance of the grimaces and the disgusting nature of the gestures. Owing to the continually degenerating tastes of the Roman public, they and the pantomimes enjoyed the greatest popularity during the Empire, especially as here, no less than in the Atellance, a certain freedom of speech was sometimes permitted; and among dramatic representations proper they occupied the first place.
MIMNERMUS Of Colophon; the creator of the erotic type of Greek elegy, an older contemporary of Solon; he flourished about B.C. 630-600. He gave his collection of love elegies the name of the beautiful flute-player Nanno, who on account of his advanced age would not return his love. There are only a few fragments of his poems left; their chief themes are the melancholy complaint of old age abandoned by love, the transitoriness of the life of man, and the exhortation to enjoy youth, the age of love. His language is simple and tender, and the ancients therefore called him the sweet singer [Ligyastades, in Solon's lines to Mimnermus, Bergk's Poetae Lyrici, Solon, fragm. 20].
MINA
MINERVA
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The Italian goddess of intelligence, meditation, and inventiveness, queen of all accomplishments and arts, especially of spinning and weaving, as practised by women. She was also the patron-goddess of fullers, dyers, cobblers, carpenters, musicians, sculptors, painters, physicians, actors, poets, schoolmasters, and especially of schoolchildren. Her oldest and most important sanctuaries were at Rome on the hills of the town; on the Capitol, where she occupied the chamberon the right in the great temple common to her with Jupiter and Juno; on the Aventine, where the official meeting place of poets and actors was situated, and on the. Caelian. Her chief festival was the Quinquatrus (q.v.). In the course of time the Greek conception gained more ground; Minerva was identified with Pallas Athene. This certainly happened with regard to Athene considered as the bestower of victory and booty, when Pompey erected a temple to her from the booty won in his Eastern campaigns. And Augustus must have regarded her as Athene the Counsellor when he added to his Curia Iulia a vestibule dedicated to Minerva. The Roman Minerva was represented in art in the same manner as the Greek goddess. (See ATHENE.)
MINERVAL
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The school fee among the Romans. (See QUINQUATRUS.)
MINOS
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A mythical king of Crete, the centre of the oldest legends of that island. He is the son of Zeus and of Europa; in Homer, brother of Rhadamanthys, father of Deucalion and Ariadne, and grandfather of Idomeneus. Residing at Gnossus as the "familiar friend of Zeus," he had a "nine-yearly" rule over the flourishing island [<italic>Od.</italic> xix 179], an expression which later generations explained as signifying periods of nine years; at the end of which he went into a cave sacred to Zeus, in order to hold converse with his father, and to receive the laws for his island. Just as he was thought to be the framer of the famous older Cretan constitution, so he was also considered a founder of the naval supremacy of Crete before the times of Troy; Hesiod calls him the "mightiest king of all mortals," who rules with the sceptre of Zeus over most of the neighbouring peoples. Later legend gives him another brother, Sarpedon, and a number of children (among others Androgeos, Glaucus, Catreus, and Phaedra) by his wife Pasiphae, a daughter of Helios and Perseis. When after the death of Asterin, the husband of Europa, he has driven away his brothers in consequence of a quarrel, he seizes the kingship of Crete, in which he is supported by Poseidon, who, on his prayer that he should send him a bull for sacrifice, causes a wonderfully beautiful snow-white bull to rise from the sea. But as he, desiring to keep it for his own herd, sacrifices another, the god to punish him inspires his wife Pasiphae (q.v.) with love for the bull. Homer [Od. xi 322] calls Minos the "meditator of evil"; in later times he was represented as a hard-hearted and cruel tyrant, especially on the Attic stage, because of the part he played in Attic legends. On account of the murder of his son Androgeos (q.v.) at Athens, he undertook an expedition of revenge against Attica, captured Megara (see NISUS), and compelled the Athenians to send him once in every nine years seven boys and seven girls to Crete, to be devoured by the Minotaur (q.v.; see also THESEUS). Tradition made him die in Sicily, whither he had pursued Daedalus (q.v.) on his flight, and where king Cocalus or his daughters stifled him in a hot bath. His Cretan followers interred him near Agrigentum, where his grave was shown. In Homer [Od. xi 568] Odysseus sees him in Hades with a golden sceptre in his hand, judging the shades; he does not appear in the legends as judge of the dead by the side of Aeacus and Rhadamanthys till later [Plato, Apol. 41 a, Gorg. 523 e].
MINUCIUS FELIX The first Latin Christian author, a man of excellent education, and a distinguished lawyer at Rome. After becoming a Christian at an advanced age, he wrote in the second half of the 2nd century a dialogue entitled Octavius, in which he aims at refuting the objections raised against Christianity. The work is marked by purity of diction and by acuteness and precision of argument.
MINYADES The daughters of Minyas, the rich king of Orchomenus and mythical ancestral hero of the race of the Minyae; their names were Alcathoe (Alcithoe), Leucippe, and Arsippe. When the worship of Dionysus was introduced into Boeotia, and all the other women wandered in frenzy over the mountains in honour of the god, they alone remained at home, and profaned the festival by working at their looms, in spite of the warning of the god, who had appeared to them in the shape of a maiden. It was not till he had assumed the shapes of a bull, a lion, and a panther, had made milk and wine flow from the yarnbeams, and had changed their weft into grapes and vine-leaves, that they were terrified and drew lots who should offer a sacrifice to the god; and Leucippe, on whom the lot fell, tore her own son Hippasus to pieces in her Bacchic fury. They then raged about on the mountains till they were transformed into bats. With this legend was connected the custom, that at the annual festival of Dionysus the priest of the god was allowed to pursue the women of the Minyan race with a drawn sword and kill them. [Aelian, V. H. iii 42 ; Plutarch, Quaest. Gr. 38; Ovid, Met. iv 1-40, 390-415.]
MIRRORS
MITHRAS The Persian god of created light and of all earthly wisdom. In the course of time he became identified with the sun-god I who conquers all demons of darkness. In the time after Alexander the Great, his worship, mixed with various customs peculiar to Western Asia, was extended over all the Oriental kingdoms. In the first half of the lst century B.C. it is said to have been introduced into the Roman provinces in the West by the Cilician pirates who were at that time masters of the Mediterranean. There are traces of his worship at Rome under Tiberius; and in the beginning of the 2nd century after Christ, under the Antonines, it became common throughout the whole Roman empire, and was kept up till the end of the 4th century. Mithras was a special favourite of the Roman armies. Being born from the rocks, he was worshipped in natural or artificial caves, such as have been found in every part of the Roman empire. He is represented as a Young Man in oriental dress and as an invincible hero, stabbing a bull with his dagger or standing on a bull he has thrown down. [Fine specimens of this group may be seen in the Louvre and in the British Museum and elsewhere (see cut).] The cave itself was explained by the ancients to signify the world, into which the human soul must descend, that it may be purified by many trials before leaving it. Before any one was initiated in the mysteries of Mithras, it was necessary for the person to undergo a series of (it is said eighty) trials of increasing difficulty; and an undaunted, unsubdued spirit had to be maintained in fire and water, hunger and thirst, scourging, and solitude, and the aspirant was thus prepared for the initiation. It consisted of seven degrees, that of the ravens, the secret, the fighters, the lions or she-lions (for women were also received), the Persians, the sun-runners, and the fathers. Various Christian rites seem also to have been introduced into the mysteries of Mithras. Epithets like "Lord and Creator of all things," "Father and source of all life," enable us to recognise Mithras as one of the pantheistic divinities of declining heathendom.
MITRA
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A kerchief which women wore round the head. See HAIR.
MMESICLES A Greek architect, the builder of the Propylaeea (q.v.).
MNEMOYNE Daughter of Uranus and Gaea, and one of the Titanides, the goddess of memory, by Zeus, mother of the Muses (q.v.), in company with whom she was usually worshipped.
MODIUS The principal dry measure of the Romans, equal to nearly two gallons, a sixth part of the Greek medimnus. It was divided into 16 sextarii, 32 heminae, 64 quartarii, 128 acetabula, 192 cyathi.
MOERIS Known as the Atticist. A Greek grammarian of the 2nd century after Christ. He was the author of an Attic Lexicon, a list, in alphabetical order, of a number of expressions and forms used by Attic writers, with the parallel expressions used in his own time.
MOLIONIDAE Eurytus and Cteatus, the sons of Actor (whence they were also called Actoridae) or else of Poseidon and Molione. [Homer, Il. xi 750, calls them by the dual and double name Actorione> Molione.] As boys they fought against Nestor and the men of Pylus. When they had grown up, they beat the army of Heracles that threatened their uncle Augeas, but were killed by the former near Cleonae in Argolis. In Homer their sons Thalpius and Antimachus are the chieftains of the Epeians before Troy. A later legend describes them as having only one body [Athenaeus, ii P. 58].
MOMUS In Greek mythology the evil spirit of blame and mockery, according to Hesiod [Theog. 214] the son of Night. [According to Lucian, Hermotimus 20, he found fault with the man formed by Hephaestus for not having little doors in his breast, so as to allow of his secret thoughts being seen. In Philostratus (Ep. 21 = 37) the only faults he finds in Aphrodite are that she is too talkative and that her sandal makes too much noise.]
MONOPTEROS
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An epithet descriptive of a round temple with its columns arranged in a circle and supporting a cupola. See TEMPLE (end of article).
MOON, GODDESS OF
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Among the Greeks, see SELENE; among the Romans,see LUNA.
MOPSUS
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One of the Lapitae of (Echalia in Thessaly, son of Ampyx and the Nymph Chloris. He took part, in the Calydonian Hunt and in the fight of the Lapithae and the Centaurs see PIRITHOUS), and afterwards accompanied the Argonauts as seer, and died of the bite of a snake in Libya, where he was worshipped as a hero, and had an oracle.
MOPSUS Son of the Cretan seer Rhacius and of Manto (q.v.), and founder, with Amphilochus, son of Amphiaraus, of the celebrated oracle (q.v.) at Mallus in Cilicia. Mopsus and Amphilochus killed each other in a combat for the possession of the sanctuary.
MORA One of the six principal divisions of the army at Sparta, which included all Spartans and Periceci that were obliged to serve. It was under the command of a polemarch, and consisted of four lochi, eight penticostyes, and sixteen enomotice, which were under as many lochagi, pentecosteres, and enomotarchi. These divisions were never sent on a campaign in their full strength, but only the men of particular years, specified in each case. The polemarch always took the command of the first levy.
MORAE The Greek goddesses of Fate: Homer in one passage (Il. xxiv 209] speaks generally of the Moira, that spins the thread of life for men at their birth; in another [ib. 49] of several Moirai, and elsewhere (Od. vii 197] of the Clothes, or Spinners. Their relation to Zeus and other gods is no more clearly defined by Homer than by the other Greeks. At one time Fate is a power with unlimited sway over men and gods, and the will of Fate is searched out and executed by Zeus with the other gods [Il. xix 87; Od. xxii 413]; at another Zeus is called the highest ruler of destinies, or again he and the other gods can change the course of fate (Il. xvi 434], and even men can exceed the limits it imposes [Il. xx 336). In Hesiod they are called in one passage [Theog. 211-7] daughters of Night and sisters of the goddesses of death (Keres), while in another (Theog. 904] they are the daughters of Zeus and Themis and sisters of the Horae, who give good and bad fortunes to mortals at their birth; their names are Clotho (the Spinner), who spins the thread of life, Lachesis (Disposer of Lots), who determines its length, and Atropos (Inevitable), who cuts it off. As exerting power at the time of birth they are connected with Ilithyia, the goddess of birth, who was supposed to stand beside them, and was invoked together with them, these and the Kere's being the powers that decided when life should end. As at birth they determine men's destinies in life, they are also able to predict them. While on the one hand they are regarded as the impartial representatives of the government of the world, they are on the other hand sometimes conceived as cruel and jealous, because they remorselessly thwart the plans and desires of men. In art they appear as maidens of grave aspect. Clotho is usually represented with a spindle; Lachesis with a scroll, or a globe; and Atropos with a pair of scales or shears, or else drawing a lot (as in the cut). The Romans identified the Moirai with their native goddesses of fate, the Parcae. These were also called Fata, and were invoked, at the end of the first week of an infant's life, as Fata Scribunda, the goddesses that wrote down men's destiny in life.
MORPHEUS
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The Greek god of dreams. (See DREAMS.)
MORSIMUS
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A tragic poet (see PHILOCLES).
MOSAICS
MOSCHUS A Greek bucolic poet, who lived in Syracuse about B.C. 150. Four longer and four shorter poems have been handed down as his; they show the greatest elegance of expression without the truth to nature and the dramatic power of his model Theocritus.
MUCIUS SCAEEVOLA (Quintus) was born of a family in which the pontificate and great legal learning had been handed down from father to son. He was a friend of the orator Crassus and his colleague in almost all offices, was made consul in B.C. 95, and murdered by the Marians in 85. A man of great integrity and wide culture, he combined a profound knowledge of the law with remarkable eloquence. He rendered great service by being the first to reduce the legal materials accumulated in the course of time to a consistent and classified system. This he did in his lost work, De Iure Civili, in eighteen volumes; it formed the basis for a methodical treatment of law. Among his pupils were Cicero and the lawyer Sulpicius Rufus (q.v.).
MULCIBER Epithet of Vulcan (q.v.).
MULTA The Roman term for a fine, inflicted either by a magistrate for disobedience or insubordination, or at the motion of an official by the decision of the people at the comitia tributa, or prescribed in laws, wills, etc., in case any one contravened them. It originally consisted in cattle, sheep, or oxen; then, after B.C. 430, the Lex Iulia Papiria permitted the payment in money according to a fixed scale (a sheep = 10 asses, an ox = 100 asses). The lowest amount of the multa inflicted by a magistrate in virtue of his office was a sheep; when acts of disobedience were repeated, the fine could be raised to 30 oxen (suprema multa). Against heavier penalties, such, in particular, as were imposed by the tribunes of the people on account of political crimes, e.g. when a general had waged war unskilfully or had exceeded the limits of his power, an appeal to the comitia tributa was granted, and they were decided by that body in the regular legal manner. The fines imposed by the people were always, and those imposed by the magistrates usually, set apart for sacred purposes; otherwise they fell to the cerarium, as was the rule under the, Empire. This also received a part of the penalties fixed by laws, the other was given to the plaintiff. Fines for contravention of the clauses of a will were either paid to the funds of a temple or to the community to which the testator belonged, and at Rome to the cerarium.
MUMMIUS
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A Latin writer of Atellance (see ATELLANA), after 90 B.C.
MUNICIPIUM
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Originally the Roman term for a town the inhabitants of which, called manicipes, only possessed tart of the rights of Roman citizenship, viz. the private rights of commercium and conubium, while they were excluded from the political rights, the ius suffragii and the ius honorum, the right to elect and to be elected to office. As Roman citizens, they did not serve (like the allies) in cohorts under a prefect, but in the legions under tribunes; they were, however, assigned to legions distinct from the others, since they were not inscribed on the lists of the Roman tribes, and therefore could not be levied in accordance with those lists. After the dissolution of the Latin League in B.C. 338, the allied towns were put into the position of municipia. At first there were two classes of municipia, according as they retained an independent communal constitution or not. The second class, which had no senate, magistrates, or popular assembly of its own, and was governed directly by Rome, consisted of the proefecturoe (q.v.). As the municipia gradually obtained the full rights of citizship, their nature changed; all persons were now called municipes, who did not belong to the town of Rome by birth, but were full Roman citizens, and hence belonged to a Roman tribe, were registered at Rome, could elect and be elected to office, and served in the Roman legions. The Lex Iulia of B.C. 90 made all the towns of Italy municipia with full civic rights, and every Italian country-town was now called a Roman municipium. Gradually the towns in the provinces received municipal rights, till finally Caracalla made all towns of the empire municipia. Originally one class of municipia had retained their own laws and their own constitution; this arrangement underwent a change when they were received into the Roman citizenship, inasmuch as the Roman law then became binding upon them, and a regularly organized administration on the Roman model was introduced. The citizens were divided into curice, and at their comitia curiata passed all kinds of decrees, and chose officers; most of these rights, however, passed into the hands of the local senate towards the end of the 1st century. This senate usually consisted of 100 life-members, called decuriones, and in every fifth year the vacancies were filled up from those who had held office or were qualified by their property. The highest officials were the duo viri, who were judges and presided at the assemblies of the people, especially at elections, and in the senate; the two quinquennales, chosen for a year, once in five years, and corresponding to the Roman censors; and qucestores and cediles, officials with similar duties to the Roman officials of the same name. (See MAGISTRATUS.) Besides the decuriones, whose position became hereditary at the end of the Empire, there were, under the heathen emperors, a second privileged class, known as Augustales, chosen by decree of the local senate and next to that body in rank. They made up a collegium, which was originally dedicated to the worship of the Julian family, and in later times seems to have also extended its functions to the worship of the other emperors. The decline of the municipal system, the prosperity of which had depended on the liberty and independence of the administration, set in at the end of the 2nd century after Christ, when the emperors began to transfer to the municipia the burdens of the State, and the decuriones gradually became mere imperial officials, who were more especially responsible for the collection of the tribute imposed.
MURRINA
MUSAEUS
MUSAEUS A grammarian and Greek poet, who in the beginning of the 6th century after Christ wrote a short epic of love, entitled Hero and Leander, which shows intense warmth of feeling, and has touches that are almost modern.
MUSAGETES
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i.e. leader of the, Muses, A title of (Apollo) the god of poets. (See APOLLO and MUSES.)
MUSEION Originally a temple of the Muses, then a place dedicated to the works of the Muses. In this sense the most remarkable and most important museum of antiquity was that established at Alexandria by Ptolemy Philadelphus in the first half of the 3rd century B.C. This institution contributed very largely towards the preservation and extension of Greek literature and learning. It was a spacious and magnificent edifice, supplied with everything requisite for its purpose, such as an observatory, a library, etc.; it lay near the royal palace and communicated immediately with the temple of the Muses. Noted men of erudition were there supported at the cost of the State, to enable them to devote themselves to their learned studies without interruption. They were under the supervision of principals chosen from their own body, while the priest of the Muses was at their head. Under the Roman emperors, when Egypt had become a province of the empire, it still continued, as an imperial institute and the centre of all learning, especially in mathematics and astronomy [Strabo, p. 794). Caracalla confiscated the pensions of the learned men attached to it, and the institution itself was completely destroyed during the civil wars under Aurelian in the 3rd century.
MUSES
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In Greek mythology originally the Nymphs of inspiring springs, then goddesses of song in general, afterwards the representatives of the various kinds of poetry, arts, and sciences. In Homer, who now speaks of one, and now of many Muses, but without specifying their number or their names, they are considered as goddesses dwelling in Olympus, who at the meals of the gods sing sweetly to the lyre of Apollo, inspire the poet and prompt his song. Hesiod [Theog. 52-,76-,] calls them the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, born in Pieria, and mentions their names, to which we shall at the same time add the province and the attributes afterwards assigned to each (see cuts). (1) CALLIOPE (she of the fair voice), in Hesiod the noblest of all, the Muse of epic song; among her attributes are a wax tablet and a pencil. (2) CLIO (she that extols), the Muse of history; with a scroll. (3) EUTERPE (she that gladdens), the Muse of lyric song; with the double flute. (4) THALIA (she that flourishes), the Muse of comedy and bucolic poetry; with the comic mask, the ivy wreath, and the shepherd's staff. (5) MELPOMENE (she that sings), the Muse of tragedy; with tragic mask, ivy wreath, and occasionally with attributes of individual heroes, e.g. the club, the sword. (6) TERPSICHORE (she that rejoices in the dance), the Muse of dancing; with the lyre. (7) ERATO (the lovely one), the Muse of erotic poetry; with a smaller lyre. (8) POLYMNIA or POLYHYMNIA (she that is rich in hymns), the Muse of serious sacred songs; usually represented as veiled and pensive. (9) URANIA (the heavenly), the Muse of astronomy; with the celestial globe. Three older Muses were sometimes distinguished from these. MELETE (Meditation), MNEME (Remembrance), AOIDE (Song), whose worship was said to have been introduced by Aloidae, Otus and Ephialtes, near Mount Helicon. Thracian settlers, in the Pierian district at the foot of Olympus and of Helicon in Boeotia are usually mentioned as the original founders of this worship. At both these places were their oldest sanctuaries. According to the general belief, the favourite haunts of the Muses were certain springs, near which temples and statues had been erected in their honour: Castalia, at the foot of Mount Parnassus, and Aganippe and Hippocrene, on Helicon, near the towns of Ascra and Thespiae. After the decline of Ascra, the inhabitants of Thespiae attended to the worship of the Muses and to the arrangements for the musical contests in their honour that took place once in five years. They were also adored in many otherplaces in Greece. Thus the Athenians offered them sacrifices in the schools, while the Spartans did so before battle. As the inspiring Nymphs of springs they were early connected with Dionysus; the god of poets, Apollo, is looked on as their leader (Musagetes), with whom they share the knowledge of past, present, and future. As beings that gladden men and gods with their song, Hesiod describes them as dwelling on Olympus along with the Charites and Himeros. They were represented in art as virgin goddesses with long garments of many folds, and frequently with a cloak besides; they were not distingnished by special attributes till comparatively later times. The Roman poets identified them with the Italian Camence, prophetic Nymphs of springs and goddesses of birth, who had a grove at Rome outside the Porta Capena. (See EGERIA .) The Greeks gave the title of Muses to their nine most distinguished poetesses: Praxilla, Mcero, Anyte, Erinna, Te1esilla, Corinna, Nossis, Myrtis, and Sappho.
MUSIC
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included among the Greeks everything that belonged to a higher intellectual and artistic education. [Plato in his Republic, p. 136, while discussing education, says: "Can we find any better than the old-fashioned sort, gymnastic for the body and music for the soul?" and adds: "When you speak of music, do you rank literature under music or not?" "Ido."] Music in the narrower sense was regarded by the Greeks not only as an agreeable amusement, but also as one of the most effective means of cultivating the feelings and the character. The great importance they attached to music is also shown by their idea that it was of divine origin; Hermes or Apollo were said to have invented the lyre, Athene the simple flute Pan the shepherd's pipe. Besides these gods and the Muses, Dionysus also was connected with music. Numerous myths, as for instance those concerning Amphion and Orpheus, tell of its mighty power, and testify to the Greeks having cultivated music at a very early epoch. It was always intimately allied to poetry. Originally, epic poems were also sung to the accompaniment of the cithara, and the old heroes of poetry, such as Orpheus and Musaeus, are at the same time heroes of music, just as in historical times the lyric and dramatic poets were at the same time the composers of their works. It was not until the Alexandrian times that the poet ceased to be also a musician. Owing to its connexion with poetry, music developed in the same proportion, and flourished at the same period,, as lyric and dramatic poetry. Of the Greek races, the Dorians and Aeolians had a special genius and capacity for music, and among both we find the first traces of its development as an art. The actual foundation of the classical music of the Greeks is ascribed to TERPANDER (q.v.), of the Aeolian island of Lesbos, who, in Dorian Sparta (about B.c. 675) first gave a truly artistic form to song accompanied by the cithara or citharodice, and especially to the citharodic nomos (q.v.). In the Peloponnesian school of the Terapandridce, who followed his teaching and formed a closely united guild, citharodice received its further artistic development. What Terpander had done for citharodice was done not long afterwards by CLONAS of Thebes or Tegea for aulodice, or song accompanied by the flute. The artistic flute-playing which had been elaborated by the Phrygian OLYMPUS in Asia, was introduced by Clonas into the Peloponnesus, which long remained the principal seat of all musical art. Of the two kinds of independent instrumental music, which throughout presupposes the development of vocal music and always adapts itself to this as its model, the earlier is the music on the flute, aulitice, which was especially brought into favourable notice by SACADAS of Argos (about B.C. 580), while the music on stringed instruments, citharistice, is later. Music was much promoted by the contests at the public festivals, above all, by those at the Pythian games. Its highest point of development was attained in the time of the Persian Wars, which seems to have seen the completion of the ancient system as it had been elaborated by the tradition of the schools. The lyric poets of this time, as Pindar and Simonides, the dramatists, as Phrynichus and Aeschylus, were hold by the critics to be unsurpassable models. What was added in subsequent times can hardly be called a new development of the art. Athens in her golden age was the central city where professional musicians met one another,-Athens the home of Greek dramatic poetry. At this time vocal, combined with instrumental, music largely prevailed over instrumental music alone. The latter was chiefly limited to solo performances. Ancient vocal music is distinguished in one important point from ours: throughout classical times part-singing was unknown, and there was at most a difference of octaves, and that only when men and boys sang in the same choir. Again, in classical times, the music was subordinate to the words, and was therefore necessarily much simpler than it is now. It is only in this way that we can explain the fact that an ancient audience could follow the musical representation of the often intricate language of the odes, even when the odes were sung by the whole choir. Critics regarded it as a decline of art, when, at the end of the Peloponnesian War, the music began to be the important element instead of the poetry. This change took place at first in single branches of the art, as in the solos (monodice) in tragedy, and in the dithyrambic choruses. Thenceforward ancient music, like modern music, raised itself more and more to a free and independent position beside that of poetry. The first place among the various kinds of music was assigned to the indigenous citharodice, which was connected with the first development of the musical art; and indeed stringed instruments were always more esteemed than wind instruments, in part on account of the greater technical difficulties which had to be overcome, and which led to musicians giving particular attention to them. Moreover, playing on the flute was limited to certain occasions, as its sound seemed to the ancients to arouse enthusiasm and passion [Aristotle, Politics, viii 3]. There is evidence that, on the one hand, the ancient theory of singing and of instrumentation (in spite of the primitive nature of the instruments) was brought to a high degree of perfection; and that, on the other hand, the public must have possessed a severely critical judgment in matters of music. The characteristic feature of ancient music is the great clearness of its form, resulting, above all, from the extreme precision of the rhythmic treatment. [In ancient Greece there were certain kinds or forms of music, which were known by national or tribal names, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Ionian, and Aeolian. Of these the Dorian and Phrygian are regarded by Plato as representing the mean in respect of pitch, while the highest varieties of the Lydian (called Mixo-lydian and Syntono-lydian) are contrasted with the Ionian and with the lower variety of the Lydian (afterwards known as Hypo-lydian), the last two being described as "slack," or low in pitch (Republic, p. 398, and Aristotle, Politics, viii 5 and 7). Each of these was regarded as expressive of a particular feeling. Thus, the Dorian was deemed appropriate to earnest and warlike melodies; the Phrygian was exciting and emotional; the Mixo-lydian pathetic and plaintive. The Aeolian was intermediate between the high-pitched Lydian and the low-pitched Ionian (Athenaeus, p. 624 e, f, and 526 The terms Ionian and Aeolian fell out of use, and the following names were generally applied to seven forms of music, beginning with the highest in pitch and ending with the lowest:-Mixo-lydian, Lydian, Phrygian, Dorian, Hypo-lydian, Hypo-phrygian, and Hypo-dorian. These seven forms were known as harmonice (harmonia meaning literally a "fitting" or "adjustment," hence the "tuning" of a series of notes, or the formation of a "scale"). They were afterwards known as tonoi, or tropoi, the Latin modi and our moods or "modes." But the term "modes" is ambiguous. According to some authorities (Westphal and his followers) the ancient "modes" differed from one another as the modern major mode differs from the minor, namely in the order in which the intervals follow one another, the difference in the "modes" thus depending on the place of the semi-tones in the octave. Others suppose that the terms Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian and the rest, were applied to different scales of the same "mode" in the modern sense of the term. Thus, Mr. D. B. Monro, in his Modes of Ancient Greek Music, 1894, maintains that, in the earlier periods of Greek music, (1) there is no distinction between "modes" (harmonice) and "keys" (tonoi or tropoi); and (2) that the musical scales denoted by these terms were primarily distinguished by difference of pitch (p. 101). To the passages quoted by Mr. Monro, from Plutarch (De Mutica, cc. 6, 8,15-17, 19), in support of the identity of the Greek "modes" and "keys" may be added Plutarch, de E apud Delphos, c. 10, where the "keys" (tonoi) are regarded as synonymous with the "modes" (harmonice).] As the basis of every melodic series of sounds the ancients had the tetrachord, a scale of four notes, to which according to tradition the earliest music was limited. The heptachord consisted of two tetrachords the central note was at once the highest of the first and the lowest of the second tetrachord. The heptachord was certainy in use before Terpander, who is said to have given to the lyre seven strings instead of four. [Strabo, p. 618. He really increased the compass of the scale from the two conjunct tetrachords of the seven-stringed lyre to a full octave, without increasing the number of the strings. This he did by adding one more string at the upper end of the scale, and taking away the next string but one. Aristotle, Problems, xix 32.] Thus arose the octachord or octave, and at last, after various additions, the following scale of notes was formed: From the lowest b onwards, this scale was divided into tetrachords in such a way that the fourth note was always also regarded as the first of the following tetrachord; [the intervals between the sounds of the tetrachord were, in ascending order, semi-tone, tone, tone]. This sequence was called the diatonic genus. Besides this there was also the chromatic, the tetrachords of which were as follows, b c d e e f g a [the intervals in this case were semi-tone, semi-tone, tone and a half]. Thirdly there was the enharmonic, the tetrachord of which [had for its intervals 1/4 tone, 1/4 tone, 2 tones, and accordingly] cannot be expressed in modern notation. [See also p, 707.] With regard to the musical instruments it may be mentioned that only stringed instruments (cp. especially CITHARA and LYRA) and the flute (q.v.), which closely resembled our clarionet, were employed in music proper; and that the other instruments, such as trumpets (see SALPINX), Pan's pipes (see SYRINX), cymbals (cymbala), and kettledrums (see TYMPANUM), were not included within its province. In proportion to the amount of attention paid to music by the Greeks, it early became the subject of learned research and literary treatment. The philosopher PHYTHAGORAS occupied himself with musical acoustics; he succeeded in representing numerically the relations of the octave, the fifth, and the fourth. For representing the symphonic relations the Pythagorean school invented the monochord or canon, a string stretched over a sounding board and with a movable bridge, by means of which the string could be divided into different lengths; it was on this account known as the school of the Canonici as opposed to the Harmonici, who opposed this innovation and continued to be satisfied with a system of scales ("harmonies") sung by the sole guidance of the ear. Amongst the Canonici were philosophers such as PHILOLAUS ARCHYTAS, DEMOCRITUS, PLATO, and ARISTOTLE. LASUS of Hermione, the master of Pindar, is mentioned as the first author of a theoretical work on music. The "harmonic" ARISTOXENUS (q.v.) of Tarentum, a pupil of Aristotle, was held by the ancients to be the greatest authority on music; from his numerous works was drawn the greatest part of subsequent musical literature. Of other writers on music we may mention the well-known mathematician EUCLID, and the great astronomer CLAUDIUS PTOLEMAeUS, who perfected musical acoustics. Among the Romans, a native development of music was completely wanting. They had, indeed, an ancient indigenous musical instrument, the short and slender Latian flute with four holes; but their national art of flute-playing was, at an early period, thrown into the background by the Etruscan, which was practised as a profession by foreigners, freedmen, and people of the lowest classes of the Roman population. Among the nine old guilds, said to have been instituted by king Numa, there was one of flute-players (tibicines), who assisted at public sacrifices. With the Greek drama, Greek dramatic music was also introduced; it was, however, limited to flute-playing (cp. FLUTE). Stringed instruments were not originally known at Rome, and were not frequently employed till after the second Punic War. Indeed, as Greek usages and manners in general gained ground with the beginning of the 2nd century, so also did Greek music. Greek dances and musical entertainments became common at the meals of aristocratic families, and the younger members of respectable households received instruction in music as in dancing. Though it was afterwards one of the subjects of higher education, it was never considered a real and effective means of training. Entertainments like our concerts became frequent towards the end of the Republic, and formed part of the musical contests instituted by Nero, a great lover of music, in A.D. 60, on the model of the Greek contests. Domitian had an Odeum built on the Campus Martius (Field of Mars) for the musical entertainments of the Agon Capitotinus, instituted by him in A.D. 86, and celebrated at intervals of four years to the end of the classical period. -Passages bearing on music in Roman literature have no independent value, as they are entirely drawn from Greek sources.-For Roman military music, see LITUUS (2) and TUBA.
MYRMIDONES
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A race in Southern Thessaly, said to have originally dwelt in the island of Aegina and to have emigrated from it with Peleus. They fought before Troy under their chieftain Achilles. For legends about their origin, see AeACUS.
MYRON
MYRRHA Mother of Adonis by her own father Cinyras. (Cp. ADONIS.)
MYRTILUS Son of Hermes, charioteer of (Enomaus, whose defeat by Pelops was due to his treachery. When he demanded the reward that had been settled, the half of the realm of Cenomaus, Pelops threw him into the sea near Geraestus in Eubcea, and that part of the Aegean was thence called the Myrtoan Sea. (Cf. CENOMAUS and <smalLCaps>PELOPS.)
MYS
MYSTAE
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The Greek term for those who had been initiated into the mysteries of the lesser Eleusinia. (See ELEUSINIA.)
MYSTERIES
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