According to the latter au-
thor, he conquered and colonized several islands, and at
last perished in an expedition against Sicily, to which
island he was fabled to have pursued Daidalus after the
?
thor, he conquered and colonized several islands, and at
last perished in an expedition against Sicily, to which
island he was fabled to have pursued Daidalus after the
?
Charles - 1867 - Classical Dictionary
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hathitrust.
org/access_use#pd-google
? M IN
M, or to -heir wont 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 nuch less convenient for tale or transfer, hut bet-
ter calci luted to maintain its value unimpaired by the
wear of constant circulation. --The only question that
remain? to be considered here is this: to what cause
wis it owing that the coins of Athens should have
bein executed tnroughout in a style of inelegance and
etir. 'ciiesa, a* a time, loo, when the coins of other
antrijts, far inferior in scienco and reputation to
A'. hcia, were finished in the most perfect workman-
ship 1 Tho 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 im-
possible to have made any considerable change in the
form or workmanship of the coin, without creating a
degree of suspicion against it, and eventually con-
tracting its circulation. (Walpote's Collection, vol. 1,
p. 433. --Cardwcll's Lectures, p. 9, scqq. )
Mincius, now Mineio, a river of Gallia Cisalpina,
flowing from the Lake Benacus, and falling into the
Po. ( Vtrg. , Eclog. , 7, 13. -- Id. , Georg. , 3, 15%-Id. ,
JEn, 10, 206. )
Miskiuks or Minykidzs, the daughters of Minyas,
king of Orchomonus, in Bccotia. They were three in
number, Leucippe, Aristippe, and Alcathoe. 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 re-
monstrated, but in vain; he then assumed the form
of various wild beasts; serpents filled their baskets;
vinos and ivy twined round their looms, while wine
tnd milk distilled from the roof; but their obstinacy
was unsubdued. He finally drove them mad; they
torn to pieces the son of Leucippe, and then went roam-
ing through the mountains, till Mercury touched them
with his wand, and turned them into a bat, an owl,
and a crow. (Corinna el Nicand. , ap. Anton. Lib. , 10.
--AZlian, V. H. , 3, 42. -- Ovid, Met. , 4, 1, scqq. --
Keightley's Mythology, p. 213. )
Minerva, an ancient Italian divinity, the same in
general with tho Pallas-Athene (IlaX/iac 'kdijvn) of
the Greeks, and to bo considered, therefore, in com-
mon 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, cf
all the liberal arts and sciences. In both the Homeric
poems she is spoken of as the daughter of Jupiter, and
Li one place it seems to be intimated that she had no
other parent. (It. , 5, 875, tcqq. ) 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 bo king of gods and men. Alarmed at this
prediction, the monarch of Olympus swallowed bis
spouse, who was thsn pregnant; but being seized,
after a ". irts, with racking pains in the head, the god
aummcrvxi >> uinar. to his aid, who, in obedience to the
commands of Jupiter, cleft the head of the latter with
? ? a blow jf his brazen hatchet, and Minerva immediate-
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? MINERVA.
? he had long been regarded ? ? the tutelary dc. ly of
Athens. We may therefore safely reject the legends
? f l>>f_ being the same with the Ne'ith (Hesych. , NVftj)
of Sais in Egypt, or a war-goddess imported from the
banks of the Lake Tritonis in Libya, and view in her
one of the deities worshipped by the agricultural Pe-
lagians, and therefore probably one of the powers
engaged in causing the productiveness of the earth.
Her being represented, in the poetic creed, as the
goddess of arts and war alone, is merely a transition
from physical to moral agents, that will presently be
explained. (Miller, Proleg. , p. 244. --Sckwenck,'An-
ient. , p. 230. -- Welcker, Tril. , p. 282. )--The etymol-
ogy of the Latin name Minerva is doubtful. The first
part probably contains the same root (min, men, or
man) that we have in the Latin me-mini,mcn-s. Sec,
and also in the Greek piUtoc, pi-fiv^-onu, &c, and
the Sanscrit man-as. Cicero (N. D. , 3, 24) gives a
very curious etymology, "Minerva, quia minuit, aul
suio minalur;"' but some of the ancient grammarians
appear to have been more rational in considering it a
shortened form of Mcmincrva, since she was also the
goddess of memory. Festus connects it with the verb
monere. Miillcr supposes that the word, like the wor-
ship of the goddess herself, came to the Romans from
Elruria, and he makes the Etrurian original to have
been Menerfa or Mtnrfa. (Etrusk. , vol. 2, p. 48. )--
There were some peculiarities in the worship of Mi-
nerva by the Romans that deserve to be mentioned.
Her statue was usually placed in schools; and the
pupils were accustomed every year to present their
masters with a gift called Minerval. (Varro, R. R. ,
3. 2. --Compare Tcrtull. , de Idol. , c. 10. ) Minerva
also presided over olive-grounds (Varro,R. R. , 1,1);
and goats were not sacrificed to her, according to
Varro, because that animal was thnught to do peculiar
injury to tho olive. (R. R. , 1, 2. ) There was an
annual feclival of Minerva, celebrated at Rome in the
month of March, which was called Quinquatrus, be-
cause it lasted five davs. (Varro, L. L. , 5, 3. --(hid,
Fast, 3, 809. --Aul. Gell. , 2, 21. ) On the first day
sacrifices were offered to the goddess, and on the other
four there were gladiatorial combats, Sec. There was
also rather festival of Minerva, celebrated in June,
which was called Quinquatrus Minorcs. (Ovid, Fast. ,
6,651. )--There were several temples in Rome sacred
to Minerva. Ovid mentions one on the Csslian Hill,
. 11 which she was worshipped under the name of Mi-
nerva Capta, but the origin of the appellation is un-
known. (Fast. , 3, 835, seqq. ) It also appears from
several inscriptions, in which she is called Minerva
Medico, that this goddess was thought to preside over
the healing art. (Encycl. Us. Knovol. , vol. 15, p.
232. )--The most probable theory relative to Pallas-
Athene, or Minerva, is that of Muller,-which sees in
her the temperate celestial heat, and its principal
agent on vegetation, the moon. (Muller, Minerva Po-
lios, p. 5. ) This idea was not unknown to the ancients
themselves. Athene is by Aristotle expressly called
"the moon" (ap. Arnoh. ,adv Gent. ,3, p. 69. --Compare
lflr. . ap. Harpocr. , TptTo/invif. --Creuscr, Symliolik,
rrl. 4, p. 237. ) On the coins of Attica, anterior to
Um time of Pericles, there was a moon along with the
ov;! ar. d olive-branch. (Eekhel, D. N. , vol. 2, p. 163,
209 ) There was a torch-race (XauitadoQopla) at the
Picsthenaja, a contest with which none but light-bear-
ing deities were honoured, such as Vulcan, Prome-
theus, Pan (whom the ancients thence denominated
? ? Phanetes), &c. At the fest. val of the Skirophoria,
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? MI JS
MIN
b>><<e bten raised by Ulysses. (Strab , I. c. --Crame 's
Anc Italy, vol. 2,' p. 185. )
Minkkvaui, festivals at Rome in honour of Miner-
va. (Vid. Minerva, page 849,col. 1, line 37, tcqq. )
M mo, a small river of Etruria, falling into the Mare
Tynhenum or Lower sea, a short distance above Cen-
Inm Cells. It is now the Mtgnone. (Virg. , JEn. ,
10, 183. --Rulil. , Ilin. , 1, 277. )
Mi\r*i or Mincei, a people in the southern ex-
tremity of Arabia Felix. Their country was called
Miniisea, and their capital Carana. The name of the
alter is preserved in Almakarana, which is a strong
fortress. (Diod. , 3, 42. --Agalharch. , in Hudson's
Otogr. Mm. , vol. 1, p. 67. --Win. , 6, 28. )
Mi. nois, a patronymic of Ariadne, as daughter of
Minos. {Ovid, Mel. , 8, 157. )
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 conceit
tration of that spirit of order, which about his time be
tran 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 concur-
rent testimony of Thucydides and Aristotle shows it to
have been the general belief in their limes, that Minos
was the first among the Greeks who possessed any
amount of naval power.
According to the latter au-
thor, he conquered and colonized several islands, and at
last perished in an expedition against Sicily, to which
island he was fabled to have pursued Daidalus after the
? flair of Pasiphae, and where the daughters of Cocalus
suffocated him in a warm bath. (Vid. Cocalus. ) In
the second book of tho "Politics," Aristotle draws a
paiallel between the Cretan and Spartan institutions,
and he there ascribes tho establishment of the Cretan
laws to Mines. This comparison, aided probably by
the connexion which existed between Crete and Sparta,
awing to colonies, as early as the time of Homer, has
no doubt suggested the theory invented and supported
by Miiller, 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 au-
thorities make Minos a judge in Hades in company
with . l. ';icns, Khadamanthus 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 le-
gend, was a son of Jupiter; this being the usual meth-
od 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 ho afterward delivered
unto men. For this purpose, he is related to have re-
tired to a cave in Crete, where he feigned that Jupi-
ter 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
< navy; a judge in Hades, but not the less for that a
luig of Crete. It is very curious that Crete, so fa-
mous at this age both for its naval power and for be-
? ? ing the birthplace of the Olympian cods, should never
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? M IN
MIR
belonged to the Ansones; but when that nation ceas-
ed to exist, MintiiriiT. fell into the hands of the Ro-
mans, by whom it was colonized, A. U. C. 456. (Civ. ,
1>>, 21. -- Veil. Paterc, 1, H. --Dion. Hal. , 1, 9. )--
It was one of those maritime towna which were re-
quired to furnish sailors and naval stores for the Ro-
man fleets. (Liv. , 27, 38. --Id. , 26, 3. ) According
to Frontinus, another colony was afterward sent thith-
er under the direction of Julius Csssar. Mintunisc,
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 Ltris;
when, after being put on shore and abandoned by the
crew of the vessel, he sought shelter in the cottage of
an old peasant. Rut this retreat not affording the
concealment requisite to screen htm from the pursuit
which was now set on foot, Marius had no other re-
source left but to plunge into the marshes, with
which the neighbourhood of Minturnse abounds. Here,
though almost buried in the mud, he could not escape
from his vigilant pursuers, hut was dragged out and
thrown into a dungeon at Mintumae. A public slave
was shortly after sent to despatch him; but this man,
a Cumbrian by birth, could not, as the historians re-
late, face the destroyer of his nation, though unarmed,
in chains, and in his seventieth year; such was at ill
the glare of his eye and terror of his voice. Struck
with this circumstance, the magistrates of Minturna:
determined to set Marius at liberty, since such seem-
ed to be the will of heaven. They farther equipped
a vessel which was destined to convey hiro to Africa.
(Plut. , Vit. Mar. -- Juv. ; Sal. , 10, 276. -- Compare
ha. , Epit. , 77. -- Appian, Bell. Civ. , 1, 61. -- Veil.
Paterc. , 2, 19. -- Vol. 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. , Jin. , 7, 47. --Lactant. , dj-c.
fals. Rel. , \, 21), were close to Minturnse, and held
a the highest veneration. (Cramer's Arte. Italy, vol.
S, p 131. )
Minutia Via. a Roman road, leading from the Por-
ta SfiTWiii 31 Trigemina, through the country of the
Sabines, as . dc as Brundisium. (Schoi. 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 legatui, and at the same
time deprived by him of his consular authority. (Lit> ,
3, 29. )--II. Rufus, a mast. . of horse to the dictator
Fabius Mazimus. 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 roaster of the horse was declared equal in power
to the dictator. Minutjus, soon after this, fought with
ill success against Hannibal, and was only saved by
the interference of Fabius; which circumstance had
soch 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 Cannae. (Lip. , 23, 21. --Nep. , Vit. Hannib. ,
5 )--III. Felix, a r. itivc of Africa, who is generally
supposed to have flourished a short time after Tertul-
lian, though some have undertaken to prove that he
? ? was contemporary with Marcus Aurelius. (Van Ho
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? MIS
MIT
md of a Thessalian Orchomenua Minyeus. (Pliny,
4, 8. ) In considering the elements of which the Hel-
lenic race was composed, it must not be overlooked
thai the Dolopes, who were seated on the western con-
fines of Phthia, and are described in the Iiiad (9, 484)
as originally subject to its king, retained their name
and an independent existence, as members of the
freat Hellenic confederacy, to a very late period.
[I'aujan. , HI, 8, 2, acq. ) If, according to either of the
views just suggested, we consider Minyans and JEo-
iiar. s as the same people, wo find the most flourishing
if the <F,olian settlements in the north of Bceotia.
Hare the city of Orchomenus rose to great power and
opulence in the earliest period of which any recollec-
tion 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 ad-
miration 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 Orcho-
meniaus were fabled to have been called Minyans;
and the city continued always to be distinguished from
others of the same name, as the Minyean Orchome-
nus. Minyas, according to the legend, was the first
cf 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 Chrysoge-
nea, &c. {Haitian. , 9, 36, i. --ThirlwaWs Hist. Gr. ,
vol. 1, p. 91. --Compare Midler, OrchomcnuM und die
Minycr, p. 139, seqq. )
Minyas, a king of Orchomenus in Bceotia, son of
Chryses, and grandson of Neptune. He was famed
for bis opulence, and for tho treasury or structure
which he built to contain his riches. (Consult re-
marks towards the end of the article Minyaj. )
Misbnum, I. Prohontorium. a promontory of Cam-
pania, forming tho upper extremity of the Bay of Na-
ples, now Cape Miscno. It was so named, according
V> Virgil (JEn, 6, 234), from Misenus, the trumpeter
? f iEneaa, who was drowned and interred here (Com-
pare Proper! . , 3, 18. --Stat. Sih. , 3, 1. ) Other ac-
counts speak of Misenus as a companion of Ulysses.
\Strabo, 245. )--II. A town and harbour on the prom-
ontory of the same name. Miscnum was probably first
uaed by the Cuimeans as a harbour (Dion. Hal, 7, 5).
In the reign of Augustus it became one of the first
naval stations of the Roman empire, being destined to
guard the coast of the Tuscan Sea. (Suet. , Aug. , 48.
--Florus, 1, 10. ) In process of time, a town grew up
around the harbour, the inhabitants of which were
called Misenenses. (Veget. , 5, 1. ) The neighbour-
hood of this place abounded with marine villas, among
which may be mentioned that of C. Marius, too luxu-
rious, aa Plutarch observes, for such a soldier. (Com-
pare Plin. , 18, 6. ) It was purchased afterward by Lu-
cullus for 500,200 denarii. According to Seneca
(Ep. , 61), it stood on the brow of the hill overlooking
the aea. Some years after it came into the possession
of Tiberius, as we learn from Phasdrus (2, 36), who
has made it the scene of one of his fables. It was
here that emperor ended his days. (Suet. , Tib. , 74 )
--Pliny the elder was stationed at Misenum, aa com-
mander of the fleet, at the time of the great eruption
of Vesuvius, in which he perished. (Cramer'* Arte.
Italy, vol. 2, p. 154, teqq. )
? ? Misenus, a Trojan, conspicuous for both his prowess
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? MITHRADATES.
MITHRADATES.
o">> the successors of Alexander the Great; and, being
in actire and enterprising prince, he greatly extended
his paternal dominions, whence he if frequently sur-
named tlic founder (Krionyc) of the kingdom of Pontus.
He also ruled over Cappadocia and Phrygia. He was
put to death by Antigonus, B. C. 302, at Ciua in
Mysia, at the age of 84, according to Lucian (Macrob. ,
c. 13), because he was suspected of favouring the in-
terests of Cassandcr.
? M IN
M, or to -heir wont 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 nuch less convenient for tale or transfer, hut bet-
ter calci luted to maintain its value unimpaired by the
wear of constant circulation. --The only question that
remain? to be considered here is this: to what cause
wis it owing that the coins of Athens should have
bein executed tnroughout in a style of inelegance and
etir. 'ciiesa, a* a time, loo, when the coins of other
antrijts, far inferior in scienco and reputation to
A'. hcia, were finished in the most perfect workman-
ship 1 Tho 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 im-
possible to have made any considerable change in the
form or workmanship of the coin, without creating a
degree of suspicion against it, and eventually con-
tracting its circulation. (Walpote's Collection, vol. 1,
p. 433. --Cardwcll's Lectures, p. 9, scqq. )
Mincius, now Mineio, a river of Gallia Cisalpina,
flowing from the Lake Benacus, and falling into the
Po. ( Vtrg. , Eclog. , 7, 13. -- Id. , Georg. , 3, 15%-Id. ,
JEn, 10, 206. )
Miskiuks or Minykidzs, the daughters of Minyas,
king of Orchomonus, in Bccotia. They were three in
number, Leucippe, Aristippe, and Alcathoe. 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 re-
monstrated, but in vain; he then assumed the form
of various wild beasts; serpents filled their baskets;
vinos and ivy twined round their looms, while wine
tnd milk distilled from the roof; but their obstinacy
was unsubdued. He finally drove them mad; they
torn to pieces the son of Leucippe, and then went roam-
ing through the mountains, till Mercury touched them
with his wand, and turned them into a bat, an owl,
and a crow. (Corinna el Nicand. , ap. Anton. Lib. , 10.
--AZlian, V. H. , 3, 42. -- Ovid, Met. , 4, 1, scqq. --
Keightley's Mythology, p. 213. )
Minerva, an ancient Italian divinity, the same in
general with tho Pallas-Athene (IlaX/iac 'kdijvn) of
the Greeks, and to bo considered, therefore, in com-
mon 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, cf
all the liberal arts and sciences. In both the Homeric
poems she is spoken of as the daughter of Jupiter, and
Li one place it seems to be intimated that she had no
other parent. (It. , 5, 875, tcqq. ) 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 bo king of gods and men. Alarmed at this
prediction, the monarch of Olympus swallowed bis
spouse, who was thsn pregnant; but being seized,
after a ". irts, with racking pains in the head, the god
aummcrvxi >> uinar. to his aid, who, in obedience to the
commands of Jupiter, cleft the head of the latter with
? ? a blow jf his brazen hatchet, and Minerva immediate-
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? MINERVA.
? he had long been regarded ? ? the tutelary dc. ly of
Athens. We may therefore safely reject the legends
? f l>>f_ being the same with the Ne'ith (Hesych. , NVftj)
of Sais in Egypt, or a war-goddess imported from the
banks of the Lake Tritonis in Libya, and view in her
one of the deities worshipped by the agricultural Pe-
lagians, and therefore probably one of the powers
engaged in causing the productiveness of the earth.
Her being represented, in the poetic creed, as the
goddess of arts and war alone, is merely a transition
from physical to moral agents, that will presently be
explained. (Miller, Proleg. , p. 244. --Sckwenck,'An-
ient. , p. 230. -- Welcker, Tril. , p. 282. )--The etymol-
ogy of the Latin name Minerva is doubtful. The first
part probably contains the same root (min, men, or
man) that we have in the Latin me-mini,mcn-s. Sec,
and also in the Greek piUtoc, pi-fiv^-onu, &c, and
the Sanscrit man-as. Cicero (N. D. , 3, 24) gives a
very curious etymology, "Minerva, quia minuit, aul
suio minalur;"' but some of the ancient grammarians
appear to have been more rational in considering it a
shortened form of Mcmincrva, since she was also the
goddess of memory. Festus connects it with the verb
monere. Miillcr supposes that the word, like the wor-
ship of the goddess herself, came to the Romans from
Elruria, and he makes the Etrurian original to have
been Menerfa or Mtnrfa. (Etrusk. , vol. 2, p. 48. )--
There were some peculiarities in the worship of Mi-
nerva by the Romans that deserve to be mentioned.
Her statue was usually placed in schools; and the
pupils were accustomed every year to present their
masters with a gift called Minerval. (Varro, R. R. ,
3. 2. --Compare Tcrtull. , de Idol. , c. 10. ) Minerva
also presided over olive-grounds (Varro,R. R. , 1,1);
and goats were not sacrificed to her, according to
Varro, because that animal was thnught to do peculiar
injury to tho olive. (R. R. , 1, 2. ) There was an
annual feclival of Minerva, celebrated at Rome in the
month of March, which was called Quinquatrus, be-
cause it lasted five davs. (Varro, L. L. , 5, 3. --(hid,
Fast, 3, 809. --Aul. Gell. , 2, 21. ) On the first day
sacrifices were offered to the goddess, and on the other
four there were gladiatorial combats, Sec. There was
also rather festival of Minerva, celebrated in June,
which was called Quinquatrus Minorcs. (Ovid, Fast. ,
6,651. )--There were several temples in Rome sacred
to Minerva. Ovid mentions one on the Csslian Hill,
. 11 which she was worshipped under the name of Mi-
nerva Capta, but the origin of the appellation is un-
known. (Fast. , 3, 835, seqq. ) It also appears from
several inscriptions, in which she is called Minerva
Medico, that this goddess was thought to preside over
the healing art. (Encycl. Us. Knovol. , vol. 15, p.
232. )--The most probable theory relative to Pallas-
Athene, or Minerva, is that of Muller,-which sees in
her the temperate celestial heat, and its principal
agent on vegetation, the moon. (Muller, Minerva Po-
lios, p. 5. ) This idea was not unknown to the ancients
themselves. Athene is by Aristotle expressly called
"the moon" (ap. Arnoh. ,adv Gent. ,3, p. 69. --Compare
lflr. . ap. Harpocr. , TptTo/invif. --Creuscr, Symliolik,
rrl. 4, p. 237. ) On the coins of Attica, anterior to
Um time of Pericles, there was a moon along with the
ov;! ar. d olive-branch. (Eekhel, D. N. , vol. 2, p. 163,
209 ) There was a torch-race (XauitadoQopla) at the
Picsthenaja, a contest with which none but light-bear-
ing deities were honoured, such as Vulcan, Prome-
theus, Pan (whom the ancients thence denominated
? ? Phanetes), &c. At the fest. val of the Skirophoria,
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? MI JS
MIN
b>><<e bten raised by Ulysses. (Strab , I. c. --Crame 's
Anc Italy, vol. 2,' p. 185. )
Minkkvaui, festivals at Rome in honour of Miner-
va. (Vid. Minerva, page 849,col. 1, line 37, tcqq. )
M mo, a small river of Etruria, falling into the Mare
Tynhenum or Lower sea, a short distance above Cen-
Inm Cells. It is now the Mtgnone. (Virg. , JEn. ,
10, 183. --Rulil. , Ilin. , 1, 277. )
Mi\r*i or Mincei, a people in the southern ex-
tremity of Arabia Felix. Their country was called
Miniisea, and their capital Carana. The name of the
alter is preserved in Almakarana, which is a strong
fortress. (Diod. , 3, 42. --Agalharch. , in Hudson's
Otogr. Mm. , vol. 1, p. 67. --Win. , 6, 28. )
Mi. nois, a patronymic of Ariadne, as daughter of
Minos. {Ovid, Mel. , 8, 157. )
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 conceit
tration of that spirit of order, which about his time be
tran 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 concur-
rent testimony of Thucydides and Aristotle shows it to
have been the general belief in their limes, that Minos
was the first among the Greeks who possessed any
amount of naval power.
According to the latter au-
thor, he conquered and colonized several islands, and at
last perished in an expedition against Sicily, to which
island he was fabled to have pursued Daidalus after the
? flair of Pasiphae, and where the daughters of Cocalus
suffocated him in a warm bath. (Vid. Cocalus. ) In
the second book of tho "Politics," Aristotle draws a
paiallel between the Cretan and Spartan institutions,
and he there ascribes tho establishment of the Cretan
laws to Mines. This comparison, aided probably by
the connexion which existed between Crete and Sparta,
awing to colonies, as early as the time of Homer, has
no doubt suggested the theory invented and supported
by Miiller, 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 au-
thorities make Minos a judge in Hades in company
with . l. ';icns, Khadamanthus 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 le-
gend, was a son of Jupiter; this being the usual meth-
od 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 ho afterward delivered
unto men. For this purpose, he is related to have re-
tired to a cave in Crete, where he feigned that Jupi-
ter 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
< navy; a judge in Hades, but not the less for that a
luig of Crete. It is very curious that Crete, so fa-
mous at this age both for its naval power and for be-
? ? ing the birthplace of the Olympian cods, should never
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? M IN
MIR
belonged to the Ansones; but when that nation ceas-
ed to exist, MintiiriiT. fell into the hands of the Ro-
mans, by whom it was colonized, A. U. C. 456. (Civ. ,
1>>, 21. -- Veil. Paterc, 1, H. --Dion. Hal. , 1, 9. )--
It was one of those maritime towna which were re-
quired to furnish sailors and naval stores for the Ro-
man fleets. (Liv. , 27, 38. --Id. , 26, 3. ) According
to Frontinus, another colony was afterward sent thith-
er under the direction of Julius Csssar. Mintunisc,
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 Ltris;
when, after being put on shore and abandoned by the
crew of the vessel, he sought shelter in the cottage of
an old peasant. Rut this retreat not affording the
concealment requisite to screen htm from the pursuit
which was now set on foot, Marius had no other re-
source left but to plunge into the marshes, with
which the neighbourhood of Minturnse abounds. Here,
though almost buried in the mud, he could not escape
from his vigilant pursuers, hut was dragged out and
thrown into a dungeon at Mintumae. A public slave
was shortly after sent to despatch him; but this man,
a Cumbrian by birth, could not, as the historians re-
late, face the destroyer of his nation, though unarmed,
in chains, and in his seventieth year; such was at ill
the glare of his eye and terror of his voice. Struck
with this circumstance, the magistrates of Minturna:
determined to set Marius at liberty, since such seem-
ed to be the will of heaven. They farther equipped
a vessel which was destined to convey hiro to Africa.
(Plut. , Vit. Mar. -- Juv. ; Sal. , 10, 276. -- Compare
ha. , Epit. , 77. -- Appian, Bell. Civ. , 1, 61. -- Veil.
Paterc. , 2, 19. -- Vol. 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. , Jin. , 7, 47. --Lactant. , dj-c.
fals. Rel. , \, 21), were close to Minturnse, and held
a the highest veneration. (Cramer's Arte. Italy, vol.
S, p 131. )
Minutia Via. a Roman road, leading from the Por-
ta SfiTWiii 31 Trigemina, through the country of the
Sabines, as . dc as Brundisium. (Schoi. 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 legatui, and at the same
time deprived by him of his consular authority. (Lit> ,
3, 29. )--II. Rufus, a mast. . of horse to the dictator
Fabius Mazimus. 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 roaster of the horse was declared equal in power
to the dictator. Minutjus, soon after this, fought with
ill success against Hannibal, and was only saved by
the interference of Fabius; which circumstance had
soch 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 Cannae. (Lip. , 23, 21. --Nep. , Vit. Hannib. ,
5 )--III. Felix, a r. itivc of Africa, who is generally
supposed to have flourished a short time after Tertul-
lian, though some have undertaken to prove that he
? ? was contemporary with Marcus Aurelius. (Van Ho
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? MIS
MIT
md of a Thessalian Orchomenua Minyeus. (Pliny,
4, 8. ) In considering the elements of which the Hel-
lenic race was composed, it must not be overlooked
thai the Dolopes, who were seated on the western con-
fines of Phthia, and are described in the Iiiad (9, 484)
as originally subject to its king, retained their name
and an independent existence, as members of the
freat Hellenic confederacy, to a very late period.
[I'aujan. , HI, 8, 2, acq. ) If, according to either of the
views just suggested, we consider Minyans and JEo-
iiar. s as the same people, wo find the most flourishing
if the <F,olian settlements in the north of Bceotia.
Hare the city of Orchomenus rose to great power and
opulence in the earliest period of which any recollec-
tion 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 ad-
miration 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 Orcho-
meniaus were fabled to have been called Minyans;
and the city continued always to be distinguished from
others of the same name, as the Minyean Orchome-
nus. Minyas, according to the legend, was the first
cf 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 Chrysoge-
nea, &c. {Haitian. , 9, 36, i. --ThirlwaWs Hist. Gr. ,
vol. 1, p. 91. --Compare Midler, OrchomcnuM und die
Minycr, p. 139, seqq. )
Minyas, a king of Orchomenus in Bceotia, son of
Chryses, and grandson of Neptune. He was famed
for bis opulence, and for tho treasury or structure
which he built to contain his riches. (Consult re-
marks towards the end of the article Minyaj. )
Misbnum, I. Prohontorium. a promontory of Cam-
pania, forming tho upper extremity of the Bay of Na-
ples, now Cape Miscno. It was so named, according
V> Virgil (JEn, 6, 234), from Misenus, the trumpeter
? f iEneaa, who was drowned and interred here (Com-
pare Proper! . , 3, 18. --Stat. Sih. , 3, 1. ) Other ac-
counts speak of Misenus as a companion of Ulysses.
\Strabo, 245. )--II. A town and harbour on the prom-
ontory of the same name. Miscnum was probably first
uaed by the Cuimeans as a harbour (Dion. Hal, 7, 5).
In the reign of Augustus it became one of the first
naval stations of the Roman empire, being destined to
guard the coast of the Tuscan Sea. (Suet. , Aug. , 48.
--Florus, 1, 10. ) In process of time, a town grew up
around the harbour, the inhabitants of which were
called Misenenses. (Veget. , 5, 1. ) The neighbour-
hood of this place abounded with marine villas, among
which may be mentioned that of C. Marius, too luxu-
rious, aa Plutarch observes, for such a soldier. (Com-
pare Plin. , 18, 6. ) It was purchased afterward by Lu-
cullus for 500,200 denarii. According to Seneca
(Ep. , 61), it stood on the brow of the hill overlooking
the aea. Some years after it came into the possession
of Tiberius, as we learn from Phasdrus (2, 36), who
has made it the scene of one of his fables. It was
here that emperor ended his days. (Suet. , Tib. , 74 )
--Pliny the elder was stationed at Misenum, aa com-
mander of the fleet, at the time of the great eruption
of Vesuvius, in which he perished. (Cramer'* Arte.
Italy, vol. 2, p. 154, teqq. )
? ? Misenus, a Trojan, conspicuous for both his prowess
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? MITHRADATES.
MITHRADATES.
o">> the successors of Alexander the Great; and, being
in actire and enterprising prince, he greatly extended
his paternal dominions, whence he if frequently sur-
named tlic founder (Krionyc) of the kingdom of Pontus.
He also ruled over Cappadocia and Phrygia. He was
put to death by Antigonus, B. C. 302, at Ciua in
Mysia, at the age of 84, according to Lucian (Macrob. ,
c. 13), because he was suspected of favouring the in-
terests of Cassandcr.
