MIL in raising opposition to Cæsar during that command- oner. -- freedom in the people. Miltiades, soon after, was MILTIADES, I. an Athenian, son of Cypselus, who obtained a victory in a chariot-race at the Olympic games, and led a colony of his countrymen to the Chersonesus. The cause of this step on his part was It seems that the Thracian Dolonci, a singular one. harassed by a long war with the Absinthians, were directed by the oracle of Delphi to take for their king the first man they met in their return home, who invited them to come under his roof and partake of his entertainments. The Dolonci, after receiving the oracle, returned by the sacred way, passed through Phocis and Boeotia, and, not being invited by either of these people, turned aside to Athens. Miltiades, as he sat in this city before the door of his house, observed the Dolonci passing by, and as by their dress and armour he perceived they were strangers, he call-who, by virtue of his office, commanded the right wing, ed to them, and offered them the rites of hospitality. and had an equal vote with the ten generals, prevailed They accepted his kindness, and, being hospitably upon him to come over to his way of thinking, and treated, revealed to him all the will of the oracle, with vote in favour of a battle. The vote of the polemarch which they entreated his compliance. Miltiades, dis- decided the question; and when the day of command posed to listen to them because weary of the tyranny came round to Miltiades, the battle took place. The of Pisistratus, first consulted the oracle of Delphi, and details of this conflict are given elsewhere. (Vil. the answer being favourable, he went with the Dolon- Marathon.)-Perhaps no battle ever reflected more ci. He was invested by the inhabitants of the Cher- lustre on the successful commander than that of Marsonese with sovereign power. The first measure he athon on Miltiades; though it should be observed, that took was to stop the farther incursions of the Absin- he whom all ages have regarded as the defender of thians, by building a wall across the isthmus. When liberty, began his career as an arbitrary ruler, and on he had established himself at home, and fortified his only one occasion in his whole life was engaged on dominions against foreign invasion, he turned his arms the side of freedom; but for the same man to be the against Lampsacus. His expedition was unsuccess- liberator of his own country and a despot in another, ful; he was taken in an ambuscade, and made pris- is no inconsistency, as the course of human events has His friend Croesus, king of Lydia. however, often shown.-The reward bestowed upon Miltiades was informed of his captivity, and procured his release after this memorable conflict was strikingly characby threatening the people of Lampsacus with his se- teristic. He and the polemarch Callimachus were verest displeasure. He lived a few years after he had alone distinguished from the other combatants in the recovered his liberty. As he had no issue, he left his painted porch, and stood apart with the tutelary gods kingdom and possessions to Stesagoras, the son of and heroes.-Miltiades now rose to the utmost height Cimon, who was his brother by the same mother. The of popularity and influence, insomuch that when he rememory of Miltiades was greatly honoured by the quested a fleet of seventy ships, without declaring how Dolonci, and they regularly celebrated festivals and he meant to employ them, but merely promising that exhibited shows in commemoration of a man to whom he would bring great riches to Athens, the people they owed their preservation and greatness. (Herod., readily agreed. He led them to the Isle of Paros, 6, 38.-Id., 6, 103.)-II. A nephew of the former, and under the pretence of punishing its people for their He demanded brother of Stesagoras. His brother, who had been compelled service in the Persian fleet, but really to adopted by Miltiades the elder, having died without avenge a personal injury of his own. issue, Miltiades the younger, though he had not, like one hundred talents as the price of his departure; but Stesagoras, an interest established during the life of the Parians refused, and resisted him bravely; and in his predecessor, and though the Chersonese was not an attempt to enter the town, he received a wound, and by law an hereditary principality, was still sent by the was obliged to withdraw his army. On his return he Pisistratida thither with a galley. By a mixture of was brought to trial for his life by Xanthippus, a man fraud and force he succeeded in securing the tyranny. of high consideration, on account of the failure of his On his arrival at the Chersonese, he appeared mourn- promises made to the people. His wound disabled ful, as if lamenting the recent death of his brother. him from defending himself, but he was brought into The principal inhabitants of the country visited the the assembly on a couch, while his brother Tisagoras new governor to condole with him, but their confidence defended him, principally by recalling his former serMiltiades seiz- vices. The memory of these, with pity for his presin his sincerity proved fatal to them. ed their persons, and made himself absolute in Cher-ent condition, prevailed on the people to absolve him sonesus; and, to strengthen himself, he married He from the capital charge; but they fined him fifty talgesipyla, the daughter of Olorus, king of the Thra- ents, nearly $53,000. As he could not immediately cians. When Darius marched against the Scythians, raise this sum, he was cast into prison, where he soon Miltiades submitted to him and followed in his train, after died of his wound, which had gangrened.-The and was left with the other Grecian chiefs of the army character of Miltiades is one on which, with the few to guard the bridge of boats by which the Persians materials that history has left, we should not judge crossed the Danube. He then proposed to break up too exactly. The outline which remains is one that, the bridge, and, suffering the king and army to perish if filled up, would seem fittest to contain the very by the Scythians, to secure Greece and deliver Iopia model of a successful statesman in an age when the from the Persian yoke. His suggestion was rejected, prime minister of Athens was likewise the leader of Heeren has briefly noticed the transition not for its treachery, but because Persia was to each her armies. of the tyrants his surest support against the spirit of which took place in the character of Athenian states men, from the warrior-like Miltiades and Themistocles, sive cast, not traceable in the productions of others to the warlike rhetorician Pericles, and thence to the who belonged to the same school. In the few fragorator, who to his rhetorical skill united no military ments which we have remaining of Mimnermus, he prowess. Miltiades, with great generalship, showed complains of the briefness of human enjoyment, the great power as a statesman, and some, but not much, shortness of the season of youth, and of the many as an orator. This is agreeable to his age. Wheth- miseries to which man is exposed. Mimnermus was er he was a true patriot, governed by high principle, the first who adapted the elegiac verse to those subit is now impossible to determine. He achieved one jects which, from this adaptation, are now usually congreat action, which for his country produced a most sidered as proper for it; Callinus, its inventor, having decisive result. The unfortunate close of his career used it as a vehicle for warlike strains. The ancient may be regarded by some as showing the ingratitude writers speak with great admiration of his poem on of democracies; but perhaps a judicious historian will Nanno, a young female musician of whom he was draw no conclusion of the kind, especially with so deeply enamoured, and who preferred him to youngimperfect materials before him as we possess of the er and handsomer rivals. The sweetness of his verlife of this illustrious Athenian. If the Athenians ses obtained for him also from the ancients the appelconceived that nothing he had done for them ought lation of Ligystades (Atyvorúdns, from λyús, “meto raise him above the laws; if they even thought lodious.")-The fragments of Mimnermus have been that his services had been sufficiently rewarded by the several times edited, in the collections of Stephens, station which enabled him to perform them, and by Brunck, Gaisford, and Boissonade; to which may be the glory he reaped from them, they were not un- added Bäch's separate edition, published at Leipzig grateful or unjust; and if Miltiades thought other-in 1826. (Wieland, Attisches Museum, vol. 1, p. 338. wise, he had not learned to live in a free state. (He--Schöll, Hist. Lit. Gr., vol. 1, p. 191. Encycl. rod., lib. 5 et 6-Corn. Nep., Vit. Milt.-Encycl. Us. Knowl., vol. 15, p. 230.-Müller, Hist. Lit. Gr., Us. Knowl., vol. 15, p. 227.-Thirlwall's Greece, p. 115, seqq.) vol. 2, p. 246.) MILTO. Vid. Aspasia II. his nomen. MILNIUS PONS, a bridge about two miles from Rome, over the Tiber, in a northerly direction. It was also called Mulvius. Its construction is ascribed to M. Æmilius Scaurus, who was censor A.U.C. 644, and its ancient appellation is probably a corruption of The modern name is Ponte Molle. If it be true that the bridge owed its erection to Æmilius, Livy, when he speaks of it (27, 51), must be supposed to mention it by anticipation. We learn from Cicero that the Pons Mulvius existed at the time of Catiline's conspiracy, since the deputies of the Allobroges were here seized by his orders. In later times, it witnessed the defeat of Maxentius by Constantine. (Zosim., 2, 16.-Cramer's Anc. Italy, vol. 1, p. 239.) MILYAS. Vid. Lycia. MINA (Mvu), a name given by the Athenians, not to a particular coin, as is commonly but erroneously imagined, but merely to a certain sum, or, in other words, to so much money of account. The mina was equivalent, as a sum, to 100 drachmæ, which would make, in our currency, a little more than $17 59 cts. The term was also employed as a weight, and was then equivalent to a little over 15 oz. avoirdupois weight.-This appears to be the proper place for a few remarks relative to Athenian coinage. No gold coins appear to have been minted at Athens, although the gold coinage of other places circulated there freely. (Consult Cardwell's Lectures on the Coinage of the Greeks and Romans, p. 112, seqq.) But the metal of the greatest importance to Athens was silver. It had been employed by them for their coinage from the earliest periods of their history; it was obtained in considerable quantity from their own neighbourhood (vid. Laurium); and it formed an imThe high MIMALLONES, a name given to the priestesses of Bacchus among the Thracians, according to Hesychius and Suidas, or, more correctly, to the female Bac-portant item in their national revenue. chantes in general. Suidas deduces the term from commendation given to this coinage by Aristophanes, the Greek piunois, “imitation," because the Baccha- refers, not to any delicacy of workmanship, but to the nals, under the influence of the god, imitated in their extreme purity of the metal; and the same cause wild fury the actions of men. Others, however, de- seems to have deterred the Athenians from excelling rive it from Mimas, a mountain of Thrace. Nonnus in the execution of their coins, which induced them enumerates the Mimallones among the companions of to preserve the greatest purity in the standard. The Bacchus in his Indian expedition. (Compare Persius, specimens, accordingly, of Athenian silver are very Sat., 1, 99. Ovid, A. A., 1, 541.- Sidon., Præf numerous, and, though evidently minted at periods Paneg. Anthem.) Bochart gives as the etymology of verv different from each other, retain so great a dethe word the Hebrew Memallelan ("garrula," "lo- gree of correspondence, as implies either much politquacula"); or else Mamal, "a wine-press." (Rolle, ical wisdom on the part of Athens, or, at least, a willRecherches sur le culte de Bacchus, vol. 1, p. 136.) ing acquiescence in the authority of public opinion. MIMAS, I. one of the giants that warred against the The most important property, in fact, of the Athenian gods. (Compare Eurip., Ion, 215.-Senec., Herc. coinage was its purity, carried to so great an extent Fur., 981-Apoll. Rhod, 3, 1227.)—II. A mountain that no baser metal appears to have been united with range of Ionia, terminating in the promontory Argen- it as an alloy. It may readily be supposed that the num, opposite the lower extremity of Chios. (Thu- | lead, which was found, together with the silver, in the cyd., 8, 34-Plin., 5, 29.-Amm. Marc., 31, 42.) mines of Laurium, was not always perfectly separaMIMNERMUS, an elegiac poet, a native of Colophon ted from it by the ancient process of refining: but the in Ionia, and contemporary with Solon. Müller, quo- quantity of that metal which has hitherto been discovting a fragment of Mimnermus' elegy entitled "Nan-ered in the silver coins of Athens is not likely to have no," says that he was one of the colonists of Smyrna been added designedly; and copper, which would from Colophon, and whose ancestors, at a still earlier have been more suitable for the purpose, does not period, came from Nelean Pylos. (Hist. Lit. Gr., appear to have been used at any period as an alloy, p. 115.) Müller also ascribes the melancholy char- much less in the way of adulteration. Connected acter of his poems to the reduction of Smyrna by with this superiority, and with the rude method of Alyattes. From Horace and Propertius we gather, minting which prevailed in former times, was the farthat his poems had reference, for the most part, to ther advantage possessed by the Athenian coin of bethose appetites which, in poetical language, are ex- ing less exposed to wear from constant use than is pressed by the name of love. (Horat., Epist., 1, 6, the case with the thinner lamina and the larger sur65.-Propert., 1, 9, 11.) His mind, however, was of face of a modern coin; whether it were owing to the a melancholy turn, which gave to his writings a pen-smaller degree of hardness in the metal they employ dom and skill. She is in war opposed to Mars, the wild war-god, as the patroness and teacher of just and scientific warfare. She is therefore on the side of the Greeks, as he on that of the Trojans. But on the shield of Achilles, where the people of the besieged town are represented as going forth to lie in ambush, they are led by Mars and Minerva together (I., 18, 516), possibly to denote the union of skill and courage required for that service. (I., 13, 277.) Every prudent chief was esteemed to be under the patronage of Minerva, and Ulysses was therefore her especial fa ed, or to their want of mechanical contrivances, or to | as in the general popular system, the goddess of wis their knowledge that a compact and globular body is least liable to loss from friction, the Athenian coin was minted in a form more massive than our own, and much less convenient for tale or transfer, but better calculated to maintain its value unimpaired by the wear of constant circulation.-The only question that remains to be considered here is this: to what cause was it owing that the coins of Athens should have been executed throughout in a style of inelegance and coarseness; at a time, too, when the coins of other districts, far inferior in science and reputation to Athens, were finished in the most perfect workman-vourite, whom she relieved from all his perils, and ship? The fact is certainly remarkable; and the only explanation that has hitherto been given of it, may tend to illustrate still farther the beneficial effects of commerce in its influence on the Athenian mint. The ancient coinage, says Eckhel, had recommended itself so strongly by its purity, and had become so universally known among Greeks and barbarians by its primitive emblems, that it would have been impossible to have made any considerable change in the form or workmanship of the coin, without creating a degree of suspicion against it, and eventually contracting its circulation. (Walpole's Collection, vol. 1, p. 433.-Cardwell's Lectures, p. 9, seqq.) MINCIUS, now Mincio, a river of Gallia Cisalpina, flowing from the Lake Benacus, and falling into the Po. (Virg., Eclog., 7, 13.--Id., Georg., 3, 15.-Iḍ., En., 10, 206.) MINEIDES OF MINYEIDES, the daughters of Minyas, king of Orchomenus, in Boeotia. They were three in number, Leucippe, Aristippe, and Alcathoë. These females derided the rites of Bacchus, and continued plying their looms, while the other women ran through the mountains. Bacchus came as a maiden and remonstrated, but in vain; he then assumed the form of various wild beasts; serpents filled their baskets; vines and ivy twined round their looms, while wine and milk distilled from the roof; but their obstinacy was unsubdued. He finally drove them mad; they tore to pieces the son of Leucippe, and then went roaming through the mountains, till Mercury touched them with his wand, and turned them into a bat, an owl, and a crow. (Corinna et Nicand., ap. Anton. Lib., 10. -Elian, V. H., 3, 42. Ovid, Met., 4, 1, seqq. Keightley's Mythology, p. 213.) MINERVA, an ancient Italian divinity, the same in general with the Pallas-Athene (IIɑλλàç 'A¤ývŋ) of the Greeks, and to be considered, therefore, in common with her, in one and the same article.-Minerva or Athene was regarded in the popular mythology as the goddess of wisdom and skill, and, in a word, of all the liberal arts and sciences. In both the Homeric poems she is spoken of as the daughter of Jupiter, and in one place it seems to be intimated that she had no other parent. (I., 5, 875, seqq.) In later writers, however, the legend assumes a more extended form. It is said that Jupiter, after his union with Metis, was informed by Heaven and Earth that the first child born from this marriage, a maiden, would equal him in strength and counsel; and that the second, a son, would be king of gods and men. Alarmed at this prediction, the monarch of Olympus swallowed his spouse, who was then pregnant; but being seized, after a time, with racking pains in the head, the god summoned Vulcan to his aid, who, in obedience to the commands of Jupiter, cleft the head of the latter with a blow of his brazen hatchet, and Minerva immediately leapel forth, in panoply, from the brain of her sire. (Theog., 886, seqq. Ib., 924. Schol. ad Theog., 890-Pind., Ol., 7, 63.-Schol., ad loc.-Schol. ad Apoll. Rhod., 4, 1310.) Still later authorities assign the task of opening the head of Jove to Prometheus (Euripides, Ion, 462.-Apollod., 1, 3), or to Hermes (Schol. ad Pind., Ol., 7, 66).—Minerva is in Homer, whose son Telemachus she also took under her protection, assuming a human form to be his guide and director. In like manner, Cadmus, Hercules, Perseus, and other herocs were favoured and aided by this goddess. As the patroness of arts and industry in general, Minerva was regarded as the inspirer and teacher of able artists. Thus she taught Epeus to frame the wooden horse, by means of which Troy was taken; and she also superintended the building of the Argo. She was likewise expert in female accomplishments; she wove her own robe and that of Juno, which last she is said to have embroidered very richly. (I.,5, 735.—Ib., 14, 178.) When the hero Jason was setting out in quest of the golden fleece, Minerva gave him a cloak wrought by herself. (Apoll. Rhod., 1, 721.) She taught this art also to mortal females who had won her affection. (Od., 20, 72.) When Pandora was formed by Vulcan for the ruin of man, she was attired by Minerva. (Theog., 573.) In the Homeric hymn to Vulcan (H. 20), this deity and Minerva are mentioned as the joint benefactors and civilizers of mankind by means of the arts which they taught them, and we shall find them in intimate union also in the mythic system of Attica.-The invention of the pipe (avñóç) is also ascribed to this goddess. When Perseus, says Pindar (Pyth., 12, 15, seqq.-Schol., ad loc.), had slain Medusa, her two remaining sisters bitterly lamented her death. The snakes which formed their ringlets mourned in concert with them, and Minerva, hearing the sound, was pleased with it, and resolved to imitate it: she in consequence invented the pipe, whose music was named many-headed (поhνKÉpaños), on account of the number of serpents whose mournful hissings had given origin to the instrument. Others (Hygin., fab., 165) say that the goddess formed the pipe from the bone of a stag, and, bringing it with her to the banquet of the gods, began to play upon it. Being laughed at by Juno and Venus, on account of her green eyes and swollen checks, she went to a fountain on Mount Ida, and played before the liquid mirror. Satisfied that the goddesses had had reason for their mirth, she threw the pipe away. Marsyas unfortunately found it, and, learning to play on it, ventured to become the rival of Apollo. His fate is related elsewhere (vid. Marsyas).-The favourite plant of Minerva was the olive, to which she had given origin in her well-known contest with Neptune (vid. Cecrops), and the animals consecrated to her were the owl and the serpent. Minerva was most honoured at Athens, the city to which she gave name ('Añvaι, from 'Alývη), where the splendid festival of the Panathenæa was celebrated in her honour. This goddess is represented with a serious and thoughtful countenance, her eyes are large and steady, her hair hangs in ringlets over her shoulders, a helmet covers her head; she wears a long tunic and mantle, she bears the ægis on her breast or on her arm, and the head of the Gorgon is in its centre. According to the explanation of Müller, the name Pallas-Athene appears to mean "the Athenian maid” (IIa2λáç being the same as múλλağ, which originally meant "maid"); and she thus forms a parallel to "the Eleusinian maid" (Kópa) or Proserpina. As this is her constant title in Homer, it is manifest that she had long been regarded as the tutelary deity of | ler). This goddess is also said to have given fire to Athens. We may therefore safely reject the legends the Athenians (Plut., Vit. Cim., 10), and perpetual of her being the same with the Neith (Hesych., Nnion) flame was maintained in her temples at Athens and of Saïs in Egypt, or a war-goddess imported from the Alalcomenæ. (Pausan., 1, 26, 7.—Id., 9, 34, 1.) banks of the Lake Tritonis in Libya, and view in her It could hardly have been from any other cause than one of the deities worshipped by the agricultural Pe- that of her being regarded as the moon, that the noclasgians, and therefore probably one of the powers turnal owl, whose broad, full eyes shine so brightly in engaged in causing the productiveness of the earth. the dark, was consecrated to her; although some inHer being represented, in the poetic creed, as the deed maintain that this bird was sacred to her as the goddess of arts and war alone, is merely a transition goddess of wisdom, since the peculiar formation of its from physical to moral agents, that will presently be head gives it a particular air of intelligence. (Lawexplained. (Müller, Proleg., p. 244.-Schwenck, An- rence's Lectures, p. 147, Am. ed.) The shield or deut., p. 230.-Welcker, Tril., p. 282.)—The etymol- corslet, moreover, with the Gorgon's head on it, seems ogy of the Latin name Minerva is doubtful. The first to represent the full-orbed moon; and finally, the epipart probably contains the same root (min, men, or thet Glaucopis, which is, as it were, appropriated to man) that we have in the Latin me-min-i, men-s, &c., Athene, is also given to Selene, or the Moon. (Emand also in the Greek μév-os, μ-μvý-σkw, &c., and pedocles, up. Plut., de Fac., in Orb. Lun., 16, 21.the Sanscrit man-as. Cicero (N. D., 3, 24) gives a Eurip., Fr. incert., 209.) In accordance with this very curious etymology, "Minerva, quia minuit, aut theory, the epithet Tritogencia (Tpiroyέvela), so often quia minatur;" but some of the ancient grammarians applied to Minerva, has been ingeniously explained by appear to have been more rational in considering it a considering it indicative of the three phases of the shortened form of Meminerva, since she was also the moon, just as the term Tptyλavn is applied to Hecgoddess of memory. Festus connects it with the verb ate. (Welcker, Trilogie, p. 283.) There are two monere. Müller supposes that the word, like the wor- other interpretations of this epithet, which have had ship of the goddess herself, came to the Romans from general currency, both of which, however, are inferior Etruria, and he makes the Etrurian original to have to the one just mentioned. The first of these supposes been Menerfa or Menrfa. (Etrusk., vol. 2, p. 48.)—it to signify Head-sprung, as the word rptrú is said There were some peculiarities in the worship of Mi- to have signified head in some of the obscurer dialects nerva by the Romans that deserve to be mentioned. of Greece (that of the Athamanes, according to NiHer statue was usually placed in schools; and the cander of Colophon, Hesych., s. v.: Etym. Mag., and pupils were accustomed every year to present their Photius, s. v. that of the Cretans, Eustath., ad Il., masters with a gift called Minerval. (Varro, R. R., 4, p. 524; 8, p. 696: Od., 3, p. 1473: that of the 3, 2.-Compare Tertull., de Idol., c. 10.) Minerva Boeotians, Tzetz. ad Lyc., 519). But accounts like also presided over olive-grounds (Varro, R. R., 1, 1); this are very suspicious, and the later Greeks would and goats were not sacrificed to her, according to have made little scruple about coining a term, if they Varro, because that animal was thought to do peculiar wanted it to suit any purpose. The other interpretainjury to the olive. (R. R., 1, 2.) There was an tion, which makes the banks of the river or lake Triton annual festival of Minerva, celebrated at Rome in the the birthplace of Minerva, has found a great number month of March, which was called Quinquatrus, be- of supporters; but, as so many countries sought to apcause it lasted five days. (Varro, L. L., 5, 3.—Ovid, propriate this Triton to themselves, the choice among Fast., 3, 809.-Aul. Gell., 2, 21.) On the first day them might seem difficult. The contest, however, sacrifices were offered to the goddess, and on the other has lain between the river or lake Triton in Libya, four there were gladiatorial combats, &c. There was and a small stream of the same name in Baotia. The also another festival of Minerva, celebrated in June, ancients in general were in favour of the former; but, which was called Quinquatrus Minores. (Ovid, Fast., as there is no reason to suppose that the Greeks krew 6,651.) There were several temples in Rome sacred anything of the Libyan Triton in the days of Homer, to Minerva. Ovid mentions one on the Calian Hill, or probably till after the colony had been settled at in which she was worshipped under the name of Mi- Cyrene, this theory seems to have little in its favour. nerva Capta, but the origin of the appellation is un- Müller, therefore, at once rejects it, and fixes on the known. (Fast., 3, 835, seqq.) It also appears from banks of the Boeotian brook as the natal spot of the several inscriptions, in which she is called Minerva | goddess. (Orchom., p. 355.) Here, however, Homer Medica, that this goddess was thought to preside over again presents a difficulty, for the practice of assigning the healing art. (Encycl. Us. Knowl., vol. 15, p. birthplaces on earth to the gods does not seem to have 232.) The most probable theory relative to Pallas- prevailed in his age.-The moon-goddess of the AtheAthene, or Minerva, is that of Müller, which sees in nians probably came by her moral and political characher the temperate celestial heat, and its principal ter in the following manner. It was the practice of agent on vegetation, the moon. (Müller, Minerva Po- the different classes and orders in a state to appropriate lias, p. 5.) This idea was not unknown to the ancients the general tutelary deity to themselves by some suitthemselves. Athene is by Aristotle expressly called able appellation. The Attic peasantry, therefore, "the moon" (ap. Arnob., adv. Gent., 3, p. 69.-Compare named Athene the Ox-yoker (Bovdeía), the citizens Istr.. ap. Harpocr., Tpirounvis.-Creuzer, Symbolik, called her the Worker ('Epyávn), while the military vol. 4, p. 237.) On the coins of Attica, anterior to men styled her Front-fighter (Пpóuaxos). As these the time of Pericles, there was a moon along with the last were the ruling order, their view of the character owl and olive-branch. (Eckhel, D. N., vol. 2, p. 163, of the goddess became the prevalent one; yet even in 209.) There was a torch-race (λauradopopía) at the the epic poetry we find the idea of the goddess' presiPanathena, a contest with which none but light-bear-ding over the arts still retained. (Müller, Minering deities were honoured, such as Vulcan, Prome- va Polias, p. 1.-Keightley's Mythology, p. 153, theus, Pan (whom the ancients thence denominated Phanetes), &c. At the festival of the Skirophoria, the priest of the sun and the priestess of Athene went together in procession. (Aristoph., Eccles., 18.) A title of Athene was "All-Dew" (Pandrosos). In the ancient legends of Athens, mention was made of a sacred marriage (iepòs yúuos) between Athene and Vulcan ("cui postea Attici, ne virginitas deœ interimeretur, commentorum spurcitiem obduxerunt."-Mül seqq.) MINERVE PROMONTORIUM, a promontory of Campania, closing the Bay of Naples to the southwest. It was sometimes called Surrentinum Promontorium, from the town of Surrentum in its vicinity; and also not unfrequently the Sirens' Cape. (Strab., 247.) It is now Punto della Campanella. The name of Minervæ Promontorium was given it from a temple of that goddess which stood here, and which was said to have been raised by Ulysses. (Strab., l. c.-Cramer's | an early age is irresistible. (Hom., Il., 2, 65.—Id. ib., Anc. Italy, vol. 2, p. 185.) 13, 450.-Id. ib., 14, 321.-Id., Od., 19, 175.—Thucyd., 1, 3-Plat., Leg., lib. 1 et 2.-Id., Min.-Aristot., Polit., lib. 2 et 7.—Encycl. Us. Knowl., vol. 15, p. 248.) MINERVALIA, festivals at Rome in honour of Minerva. (Vid. Minerva, page 849, col. 1, line 37, seqq.) MINIO, a small river of Etruria, falling into the Mare Tynhenum or Lower sea, a short distance above Cen- MINOTAURUS, a celebrated monster, half man and tum Cellæ. It is now the Mignone. (Virg., En., half bull, the offspring of Pasiphae, wife of Minos, by 10, 183.-Rutil., Itin., 1, 277.) a bull. According to the legend, the Cretans had hesMINE EI or MINI, a people in the southern ex-itated to give Minos the royal dignity after the death tremity of Arabia Felix. Their country was called Minnæa, and their capital Carana. The name of the latter is preserved in Almakarana, which is a strong fortress. (Diod., 3, 42.-Agatharch., in Hudson's Geogr. Min., vol. 1, p. 57.-Plin., 6, 28.) MINOIS, a patronymic of Ariadne, as daughter of Minos. (Ovid, Met., 8, 157.) of Asterion, whereupon, to prove his claim to it, he asserted that he could obtain whatever he prayed for. Then, sacrificing to Neptune, he besought him to send him a bull from the bottom of the sea, promising to offer up whatever should appear. Neptune sent the bull, and Minos received the kingdom. The bull, however, being of a large size and of a brilliant white hue, MINOS, an ancient king, who in history appears as appeared to Minos too beautiful an animal to be slain, the lawgiver of Crete. Those critics who consider all and he put him in his herd, and substituted an ordinary the personages of mythological history as little more bull. Neptune, offended at this act, made the bull run than names to which is attached the history of social wild, and inspired Pasiphaë with a strange passion for development, would view Minos simply as the concen- him, which she was enabled to gratify by the contritration of that spirit of order, which about his time be- vance of Daedalus. Her offspring was the Minotaur. gan to exhibit in the island of Crete forms of a regular Minos, in compliance with an oracle, made Dædalus polity. But we are not to consider, because there is build for him the labyrinth. In this he placed the Minomuch undoubtedly mythological about the history of taur, where he fed him on human flesh, and afterward Minos, that therefore he never existed. The concur- on the youths and maidens sent from Athens. (Vid. rent testimony of Thucydides and Aristotle shows it to Androgeus.) Theseus, by the aid of Ariadne, killed the have been the general belief in their times, that Minos monster (vid. Theseus and Labyrinthus), thereby delivwas the first among the Greeks who possessed any ering the Athenians from the cruel obligation of sending amount of naval power. According to the latter au- their children to be devoured.-Such is the mythologithor, he conquered and colonized several islands, and at cal story. Its meaning is uncertain. It very likely be last perished in an expedition against Sicily, to which longs to that class of mythological tales which express island he was fabled to have pursued Daedalus after the a political fact, and the connexion in which Theseus affair of Pasiphaë, and where the daughters of Cocalus stands with the Minotaur adds probability to this theory; suffocated him in a warm bath. (Vid. Cocalus.) In for the exploits of Theseus are generally such effects as the second book of the "Politics," Aristotle draws a would be produced in historical times by the course of parallel between the Cretan and Spartan institutions, events in the formation of a polity. Such, at least, and he there ascribes the establishment of the Cretan are his exploits in and about Attica, and there appears laws to Minos. This comparison, aided probably by no sound reason to exclude this from the number. It the connexion which existed between Crete and Sparta, may then, perhaps, be assumed, that, under the slaying owing to colonies, as early as the time of Homer, has of the Minotaur, is shadowed forth the abolition of cerno doubt suggested the theory invented and supported tain obstacles existing in the way of free intercourse by Müller, that Minos was a Doric prince; a theory, as between Athens and Crete. But the descent of the Mr. Thirlwall asserts, utterly unknown to the ancients. Minotaur from Pasiphaë (IIaσipún), probably a name The subject is ably discussed by him in his "History of the moon, and from the Bull, one of the zodiacal of Greece" (vol. 1, p. 135). Some post-Homeric au- signs, may perhaps imply some astronomical fact conthorities make Minos a judge in Hades in company nected with the recurrence of the tribute paid to Crete. with Eacus, Rhadamanthus being chief judge. In The affection of Ariadne for Theseus, in mythological this character he appears in a short Platonic dialogue language, may be taken to mean a union of Cretan and called "Minos," or "On law," which, however, some Attic tribes. It should be observed that Schwenck, critics consider spurious. Minos, according to the le- | in his very fanciful but ingenious treatise on mythologend, was a son of Jupiter; this being the usual meth-gy, considers the first two syllables of the word Minood taken by mythographers to express a person so ancient that they could put him on a level with no mere mortal; and from Jupiter as his father he is said to have learned those laws which he afterward delivered unto men. For this purpose, he is related to have retired to a cave in Crete, where he feigned that Jupiter his father dictated them unto him, and every time he returned from the cave he announced some new law. -Minos is chiefly remarkable as belonging to a period when history and mythology interlace, and as uniting in his own person the chief characteristics of both. He is the son of Jupiter, and yet the first possessor of a navy; a judge in Hades, but not the less for that a king of Crete. It is very curious that Crete, so famous at this age both for its naval power and for being the birthplace of the Olympian gods, should never afterward have attained anything like that celebrity which its position seemed to promise. Its office seems to have been that of leading the way in naval suprema- MINTURNE, a town of Latium, on the river Liris, cy. Too insulated for power of a durable nature, it and only three or four miles from its mouth its exwas lost in the confederate or opposing glories of Ath- tensive ruins sufficiently mark the place which it ocens and Sparta; but while they were yet in their infan-cupied out of these the neighbouring town of Tracy, its insular form (together, perhaps, with some Asiatic jetta was built. (Strabo, 233.-Ptol., p. 66.—Plin., refinement) gave it that concentrated energy which in 3, 5.) We are informed by Livy (8, 25) that this town taur to be identical with ueig or μýv, μnvós (the moon), as also with the root of the German mond and the English moon, so that we get the two parents of the Minotaur in the two parts of its name. This might lead us to believe that the name suggested the genealogy, and that the latter part referred, not to a bull's being the father of the Minotaur, but to the fact that horns were a symbol of the moon-goddess. In this case, the slaying of the Minotaur by Theseus might mean the introduction of the Attic worship in place of the previously prevalent Doric form. (Höck, Kreta, vol. 2, p. 63.-Schwenck, Andeut., p. 65.—Encycl. Useful Knowl., vol. 15, p. 248.) MINTHE, a daughter of Cocytus, loved by Pluto. Proserpina discovered her husband's amour, and changed his mistress into an herb, called by the same name, and still, at the present day, denominated mint. (Ovid, Met., 10, 729.) |