as in the general popular system, the goddess of wisdom 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. (Il., 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 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.-Id., 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.) 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 heroes 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 (avλóç) 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 (πohvкépaños), on account of the number of serpents whose mournful hissings had given origin to the instrument. MINERVA, an ancient Italian divinity, the same in Others (Hygin., fab., 165) say that the goddess formed general with the Pallas-Athene (IIañas 'A0ývn) of the pipe from the bone of a stag, and, bringing it with the Greeks, and to be considered, therefore, in com- her to the banquet of the gods, began to play upon it. mon with her, in one and the same article.-Minerva Being laughed at by Juno and Venus, on account of or Athene was regarded in the popular mythology as her green eyes and swollen cheeks, she went to a fountthe goddess of wisdom and skill, and, in a word, of ain on Mount Ida, and played before the liquid mirror. all the liberal arts and sciences. In both the Homeric Satisfied that the goddesses had had reason for their poems she is spoken of as the daughter of Jupiter, and mirth, she threw the pipe away. Marsyas unfortunatein one place it seems to be intimated that she had no ly found it, and, learning to play on it, ventured to beother parent. (Il., 5, 875, seqq.) In later writers, come the rival of Apollo. His fate is related elsehowever, the legend assumes a more extended form. where (vid. Marsyas). The favourite plant of MiIt is said that Jupiter, after his union with Metis, was nerva was the olive, to which she had given origin in informed by Heaven and Earth that the first child born her well-known contest with Neptune (vid. Cecrops), from this marriage, a maiden, would equal him in and the animals consecrated to her were the owl and strength and counsel; and that the second, a son, the serpent. Minerva was most honoured at Athens, would be king of gods and men. Alarmed at this the city to which she gave name ('A6ñvai, from’A&ývn), prediction, the monarch of Olympus swallowed his where the splendid festival of the Panathenæa was celspouse, who was then pregnant; but being seized, ebrated in her honour. This goddess is represented after a time, with racking pains in the head, the god with a serious and thoughtful countenance, her eyes summoned Vulcan to his aid, who, in obedience to the are large and steady, her hair hangs in ringlets over her commands of Jupiter, cleft the head of the latter with shoulders, a helmet covers her head; she wears a long a blow of his brazen hatchet, and Minerva immediate-tunic and mantle, she bears the ægis on her breast or ly leapel forth, in panoply, from the brain of her sire. on her arm, and the head of the Gorgon is in its cen(Theog., 886, seqq. — Tb., 924. — Schol. ad Theog., tre.-According to the explanation of Müller, the 890 Pind., Ol., 7, 63.—Schol., ad loc.-Schol. ad name Pallas-Athene appears to mean "the Athenian Apoll. Rhod., 4, 1310.) Still later authorities assign | maid” (Haλλáç being the same as wáλ2a5, which orithe task of opening the head of Jove to Prometheus ginally meant "maid"); and she thus forms a parallel (Euripides, Ion, 462.—Apollod., 1, 3), or to Hermes to "the Eleusinian maid” (Kópa) or Proserpina. As (Schol. ad Pind., Ol., 7, 66).—Minerva is in Homer, 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., Nnton) flame was maintained in her temples at Athens and of Saïs in Egypt, or a war-goddess imported from the Alalcomena. (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, 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 pév-os, μi-μvý-σкw, &c., and pedocles, ap. 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 (Tpirоyévɛia), 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 Tpıyλavn 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 Boeotia. 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 knew 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 Muller, 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 (Пpóμaxoç). 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 (auradopopia) at the the epic poetry we find the idea of the goddess' presiPanathenæa, 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 seqq.) 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 (iepòç yúμos) between Athene and Vulcan ("cui postea Attici, ne virginitas deæ interimeretur, commentorum spurcitiem obduxerunt."-Müb The 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 MIN MIN have been raised by Ulysses. (Strab., l. c.-Cramer's | an early age is irresistible. (Hom., Il., 2, 65.—ld. ib., Anc. Italy, vol. 2, p. 185.) 13, 450.-Id. ib., 14, 321.-Id., Od., 19, 175.—Thu- MINOTAURUS, a celebrated monster, half man and 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 Tyrrhenum or Lower sea, a short distance above Centum Cellæ. It is now the Mignone. (Virg., En., 10, 183.-Rutil., Itin., 1, 277.) MINNEI 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 as- MINOS, an ancient king, who in history appears as the lawgiver of Crete. Those critics who consider all the personages of mythological history as little more than names to which is attached the history of social development, would view Minos simply as the concentration of that spirit of order, which about his time began to exhibit in the island of Crete forms of a regular polity. But we are not to consider, because there is much undoubtedly mythological about the history of Minos, that therefore he never existed. The concurrent testimony of Thucydides and Aristotle shows it to have been the general belief in their times, that Minos was the first among the Greeks who possessed any amount of naval power. According to the latter author, he conquered and colonized several islands, and at last perished in an expedition against Sicily, to which island he was fabled to have pursued Daedalus after the affair of Pasiphaë, and where the daughters of Cocalus suffocated him in a warm bath. (Vid. Cocalus.) In the second book of the "Politics," Aristotle draws a parallel between the Cretan and Spartan institutions, and he there ascribes the establishment of the Cretan laws to Minos. This comparison, aided probably by the connexion which existed between Crete and Sparta, Owing to colonies, as early as the time of Homer, has no doubt suggested the theory invented and supported by Müller, that Minos was a Doric prince; a theory, as Mr. Thirlwall asserts, utterly unknown to the ancients. The subject is ably discussed by him in his " History of Greece" (vol. 1, p. 135). Some post-Homeric authorities make Minos a judge in Hades in company with Eacus, Rhadamanthus being chief judge. In this character he appears in a short Platonic dialogue called "Minos," or "On law," which, however, some critics consider spurious. Minos, according to the legend, was a son of Jupiter; this being the usual method 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 MINTURNÆ, a town of Latium, on the river Liris, to have been that of leading the way in naval supremacy. 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 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.) : accustomed to make against the new religion, and which Minutius Felix gives in a fairer manner than any other. It is apparent that he has availed himself of the apology of Tertullian; but he has a mode of viewing his subject which is peculiarly his own, and his style is much purer and more elegant than that of his model. He may be regarded, in general, as one of the most elegant of the Latin ecclesiastical writers. The dialogue is between a heathen and a Christian, in which Minutius himself sits as a judge and moderator. By this contrivance he replies to the objections and arguments brought forward by the adversary, and refutes the calumny cast upon Christianity by the heathen philosophers, and at the same time, exposes the absurdities of their creed and worship, powerfully demonstrating the reasonableness and excellence of the Christian religion. Minutius Felix is said to have been originally a pagan.-Erasmus thought his work was lost. This mistake arose from the copyists of the middle ages having joined the production of Felix to the treatise of Arnobius against the Gentiles, of which it was regarded as the eighth book. Adrian Junius (de Jonghe), a celebrated critic of Holland, was the first to detect this false arrangement. Balduinus then printed the work of Felix separately. The honour of this discovery, however, on the part of Junius, has been contested by some. The best editions of his work are, that of Gronovius, Lugd. Bat., 1709, 8vo, and that of Davis, Cant., 1712, 8vo.) belonged to the Ausones; but when that nation ceas- | become acquainted with the charges the pagans were ed to exist, Minturnæ fell into the hands of the Romans, by whom it was colonized, A.U.C. 456. (Liv., 10, 21.-Vell. Paterc., 1, 14.—Dion. Hal., 1, 9.) It was one of those maritime towns which were required to furnish sailors and naval stores for the Roman fleets. (Liv., 27, 38.—Id., 26, 3.) According to Frontinus, another colony was afterward sent thither under the direction of Julius Cæsar. Minturnæ, however, is chiefly known in history from the events by which it was connected with the fallen fortunes of Marius. This general, in endeavouring to effect his escape into Africa from the pursuit of the victorious Sylla, was forced to put in at the mouth of the Liris; when, after being put on shore and abandoned by the crew of the vessel, he sought shelter in the cottage of an old peasant. But this retreat not affording the concealment requisite to screen him from the pursuit which was now set on foot, Marius had no other resource left but to plunge into the marshes, with which the neighbourhood of Minturnæ abounds. Here, though almost buried in the mud, he could not escape from his vigilant pursuers, but was dragged out and thrown into a dungeon at Minturnæ. A public slave was shortly after sent to despatch him; but this man, a Cimbrian by birth, could not, as the historians relate, face the destroyer of his nation, though unarmed, in chains, and in his seventieth year; such was still the glare of his eye and terror of his voice. Struck with this circumstance, the magistrates of Minturnæ determined to set Marius at liberty, since such seemed to be the will of heaven. They farther equipped a vessel which was destined to convey him to Africa. (Plut., Vit. Mar.-Juv., Sat., 10, 276. Compare Liv., Epit., 77. — Appian, Bell. Civ., 1, 61.- Vell. Paterc., 2, 19-Val. Max., 1, 5.) The grove and temple of the nymph Marcia, supposed by some to have been the mother of Latinus, and by others thought to be Circe (Virg., En., 7, 47.-Lactant., &c. fals. Rel., 1, 21), were close to Minturnæ, and held in the highest veneration. (Cramer's Anc. Italy, vol. 2, p. 131.) MINUTIA VIA, a Roman road, leading from the Porta Minulia or Trigemina, through the country of the Sabines, as far as Brundisium. (Schol. ad Horat., Epist., 1, 18, 20.) MINUTIUS, I. Augurinus, a Roman consul B.C. 458. He was defeated by the Equi, and would have ost his whole army had not the dictator Cincinnatus come to his aid. He was degraded by the latter to the rank of lieutenant or legatus, and at the same time deprived by him of his consular authority. (Liv., 3, 29.)-II. Rufus, a master of horse to the dictator Fabius Maximus. His disobedience to the commands of the dictator, who was unwilling to hazard an action, was productive of an extension of his prerogative, and the master of the horse was declared equal in power to the dictator. Minutius, soon after this, fought with ill success against Hannibal, and was only saved by the interference of Fabius; which circumstance had such an effect upon him, that he laid down his power at the feet of his deliverer, and swore that he would never act but by his directions. He was killed at the battle of Cannæ. (Liv., 23, 21.-Nep., Vit. Hannib., 5.)-III. Felix, a native of Africa, who is generally supposed to have flourished a short time after Tertullian, though some have undertaken to prove that he was contemporary with Marcus Aurelius. (Van Hoven, Epist. Crit. de vera ætate, &c. M. Minutii Felicis, Campis, 1762, 4to.) Lactantius (Inst. Div., 5, 1) and St. Jerome (Catal., S. S. Eccles., c. 58) state that he followed with reputation the employment of an advocate at Rome. We have only one work of his remaining, a dialogue entitled Octavius, and containing a demonstration of the truth of Christianity. It is an interesting production for those who wish to MINYA, a race of great celebrity in the most ancient epic poetry of Greece, but whose name seems to have been almost forgotten before the beginning of the period when fable gives place to history. The adventurers who embarked in the Argonautic expedition were all called Minyans, though they were mostly Eolian chieftains, and the same name recurs in the principal settlements which referred their origin to the line of Æolus. Iolcos itself, though founded by Cretheus, is said to have been inhabited by Minyans; and a still closer affinity is indicated by a legend, which describes Minyas, the fabulous progenitor of the race, as a descendant of Eolus. (Apoll. Rhod., 3, 1094. Schol., ad loc.) There are two ways in which this connexion may be explained, between which it is not easy to decide. The Minyans may have been a Pelasgic tribe, originally distinct from the Hellenes and this may seem to be confirmed by the tradition, that Cretheus, when he founded Iolcos, drove out the Pelasgians who were previously in possession of the land. (Pausan., 4, 36, 1.-Schol., ad Il., 2.) But in this case we are led to conclude, from the celebrity to which the Minyans attained in the Greek legends, that they were not a rude and feeble horde, which the Eolians reduced to subjection, but were already so far advanced in civilization and power, that the invaders were not ashamed of adopting their name and traditions, and of treating them as a kindred people. It may, however, also be conceived, and perhaps accords better with all that we hear of them, that the appellation of Minyans was not originally a national name, peculiar to a single tribe, but a title of honour, equivalent to that of "heroes" or "warriors," which was finally appropriated to the adventurous Eolians, who established themselves at Iolcos and on the adjacent coast. If we take this view of it, all the indications we find of the wealth and prosperity of the Minyans will serve to mark the progress of the Æolian states in which the name occurs; and it will only remain doubtful, whether the Eolians or Hellenes were not more closely connected with other tribes in the north of Thessaly, among which the name of the Minyans likewise appears, than the common tradition would lead us to suppose. We hear of a town called Minya on the borders of Thessaly and Macedonia (compare Steph. Byz., s. v. Mivva, and 'Ahμwnia), in making Misenus acquainted with the lituus, since both the lituus and tuba were unknown in Homeric times. He has merely, however, followed in this the custom of the tragic writers. (Consult Heyne, Excurs. vii., ad Æn., 6.)—The ashes of Misenus were interred on the promontory, fabled to have been called Misenum after his name, and which is now still denominated Miseno. (Virg., Æn., 6, 232, seqq.) MISITHEUS, father-in-law of Gordian III. (Vid. Gordianus III.) and of a Thessalian Orchomenus Minyeus. (Pliny, | Eolus, the god of the winds, but merely as a patro4,8.) In considering the elements of which the Hel-nymic denoting his origin from a mortal father named lenic race was composed, it must not be overlooked Eolus. The same poet is guilty of an anachronism that the Dolopes, who were seated on the western confines of Phthia, and are described in the Iliad (9, 484) as originally subject to its king, retained their name and an independent existence, as members of the great Hellenic confederacy, to a very late period. (Pausan., 10, 8, 2, seq.) If, according to either of the views just suggested, we consider Minyans and Eolians as the same people, we find the most flourishing of the Eolian settlements in the north of Boeotia. Here the city of Orchomenus rose to great power and opulence in the earliest period of which any recollection was preserved. Homer compares the treasures which flowed into it to those of the Egyptian Thebes. The traveller Pausanias, who was familiar with all the wonders of art in Greece and Asia, speaks with admiration of its most ancient monument, as not inferior to any which he had seen elsewhere. This was the treasury of Minyas, from whom the ancient Orchomenians were fabled to have been called Minyans; and the city continued always to be distinguished from others of the same name, as the Minyean Orchomenus. Minyas, according to the legend, was the first of men who raised a building for such a purpose. His genealogy glitters with names which express the traditional opinion of his unbounded wealth. Thus he is the son of Chryses, whose mother is Chrysogenea, &c. (Pausan., 9, 36, 4.-Thirlwall's Hist. Gr., vol. 1, p. 91.-Compare Müller, Orchomenus und die Minyer, p. 139, seqq.) MINYAS, a king of Orchomenus in Boeotia, son of Chryses, and grandson of Neptune. He was famed for his opulence, and for the treasury or structure which he built to contain his riches. (Consult remarks towards the end of the article Minyæ.) to be derivatives. (Pott, Etymol. Forsch, vol. 1, p. xlvii., seqq.-Rosen, in Journal of Education, No. 9, p. 334, seq.-Encycl. Us. Knowl., vol. 15, p. 289.) MITHRA OF MITRA, a deity of Persia, generally supposed to have been the Sun. His worship was, in process of time, introduced at Rome, and altars were there erected to him, with the inscription, "Deo Soli Mithra," or " Deo Invicto Mithra." He is generally represented in sculpture as a young man, his head surmounted with a Phrygian bonnet, and in the attitude of supporting his knee upon a bull that lies on the ground. He holds with one hand a horn of the animal, while with the other he plunges a dagger into its neck. Mithras here represents the generative Sun, in the full bloom of youth and power, while the bull indicates the earth, containing in its bosom the seeds or germes of things, which the sun-god causes to come forth in an abundant flood from the wound inflicted by his dagger of gold. (Creuzer, Symbolik, par Guigniaut, vol. 1, p. 356.)—The mysteries of Mithras were celebrated with much pomp and splendour on the revival of the Persian religion under the Sassanidæ, but we do not read of the worship of the sun under this name in the earlier Greek writers. (Hyde, Hist. Rel., Vet. Pers., c. 4, p. 109.) The word is evidently the same as mitra, one of the names of the sun in Sanscrit. It also appears in many ancient Persian names, MISENUM, I. PROMONTORIUM, a promontory of Cam- as Μιθραδάτης or Μιτραδάτης (Herod. 1, 110) ; pania, forming the upper extremity of the Bay of Na- Merpobúrne (Herod., 3, 120); '10aμírpns (Herod., 9, ples, now Cape Miseno. It was so named, according 102); Zipoμirpns (Herod., 7, 68); and in Merpaios, to Virgil (En., 6, 234), from Misenus, the trumpeter Miopivns, or Miophvns (Xen., Hist. Gr., 2, 6. —Arof Æneas, who was drowned and interred here. (Com-rian, Exp. Al., 1, 17.—Id. ib., 3, 16), which appear pare Propert., 3, 18.-Stat. Silv., 3, 1.) Other accounts speak of Misenus as a companion of Ulysses. (Strabo, 245.)-II. A town and harbour on the promontory of the same name. Misenum was probably first MITHRADATES or MITHRIDATES, a common name used by the Cumæans as a harbour (Dion. Hal., 7, 5). among the Medes and Persians, which appears to In the reign of Augustus it became one of the first have been formed from Mithra or Mitra, the Persian naval stations of the Roman empire, being destined to name for the sun, and the root da, signifying "to guard the coast of the Tuscan Sea. (Suet., Aug., 48. give," which occurs in most of the Indo-Germanic -Florus, 1, 10.) In process of time, a town grew up languages. The name, however, was written in sevaround the harbour, the inhabitants of which were eral ways. In Herodotus (1, 110) we find Mirpadacalled Misenenses. (Veget., 5, 1.) The neighbour-ns; in Xenophon (Anab., 7, 8, 25), Mi@pidúτng; hood of this place abounded with marine villas, among in the Septuagint (Ezra, 1, 8.-Id., 4, 7), Miopadúrns; which may be mentioned that of C. Marius, too luxu- and in Tacitus (Ann., 12, 10), Meherdates. On the rious, as Plutarch observes, for such a soldier. (Com- Greek coins it is written Mithradates. A large class pare Plin., 18, 6.) It was purchased afterward by Lu- of names in different dialects of the Indo-Germancullus for 500,200 denarii. According to Seneca ic languages have the same termination as Mithra(Ep., 51), it stood on the brow of the hill overlooking dates. Thus, in Sanscrit, we find the names Derathe sea. Some years after it came into the possession datta, Haradutta, Indradatta, Somadatta, that is, of Tiberius, as we learn from Phædrus (2, 36), who "given by the gods," "given by Hara or Siva," "by has made it the scene of one of his fables. It was Indra," "by Soma, or the moon ;" and in Greek, such here that emperor ended his days. (Suet., Tib., 74.) names as Theodotus, Diodotus, Zenodotus, and He-Pliny the elder was stationed at Misenum, as com- rodotus. In Persian names the same termination ocmander of the fleet, at the time of the great eruption curs, as in the Hormisdates of Agathias; the Pharanof Vesuvius, in which he perished. (Cramer's Anc. dates and Pherendates of Herodotus (7, 67; 9, 76); Italy, vol. 2, p. 154, seqq.) and the Madates of Curtius (5, 3).-The most celebrated race of princes of the name of Mithradates were the kings of Pontus, who were descended from Artabazes, one of the seven Persian nobles who overthrew the magi, B.C. 521. (Florus, 3, 5.-Diod. Sic., 19, 40.-Polyb., 5, 43.) The following is a list of these kings.-I. MITHRADATES I, of whom little is known. (Aristot., de Rep., 5, 10.)-II. MITHRADATES II., succeeded Ariobarzanes II., B.C. 363. He took an active part in the various wars which were carried on MISENUS, a Trojan, conspicuous for both his prowess in arms and his skill on the clarion or lituus. He of ten signalized himself by the side of Hector in the fight; and, after the fall of Troy, accompanied Æneas to Italy, on the shores of which country, near the city of Cume, he lost his life, having been drowned amid the breakers by a Triton who was envious of his musical skill. (Virg., Æn., 6, 164.) Virgil calls him Eolides, not as indicating any divine descent from |