Melpia, a village of Arcadia. Pausanias, bk. 8, ch. 38.
Melpŏmĕne, one of the Muses, daughter of Jupiter and Mnemosyne. She presided over tragedy. Horace has addressed the finest of his odes to her, as to the patroness of lyric poetry. She was generally represented as a young woman with a serious countenance. Her garments were splendid; she wore a buskin, and held a dagger in one hand, and in the other a sceptre and crowns. Horace, bk. 3, ode 4.—Hesiod, Theogony.
Memaceni, a powerful nation of Asia, &c. Curtius.
Memmia Sulpitia, a woman who married the emperor Alexander Severus. She died when young.
Memmia lex, ordained that no one should be entered on the calendar of criminals who was absent on the public account.
Memmius, a Roman citizen, accused of ambitus. Cicero, Letters to his brother Quintus, bk. 3.——A Roman knight, who rendered himself illustrious for his eloquence and poetical talents. He was made tribune, pretor, and afterwards governor of Bithynia. He was accused of extortion in his province, and banished by Julius Cæsar, though Cicero undertook his defence. Lucretius dedicated his poem to him. Cicero, Brutus.——Regulus, a Roman of whom Nero observed, that he deserved to be invested with the imperial purple. Tacitus, Annals, bk. 14, ch. 47.——A Roman who accused Jugurtha before the Roman people.——A lieutenant of Pompey, &c.——The family of the Memmii were plebeians. They were descended, according to some accounts, from Mnestheus the friend of Æneas. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 5, li. 117.
Memnon, a king of Æthiopia, son of Tithonus and Aurora. He came with a body of 10,000 men to assist his uncle Priam, during the Trojan war, where he behaved with great courage, and killed Antilochus, Nestor’s son. The aged father challenged the Æthiopian monarch, but Memnon refused it on account of the venerable age of Nestor, and accepted that of Achilles. He was killed in the combat, in the sight of the Grecian and Trojan armies. Aurora was so disconsolate at the death of her son, that she flew to Jupiter all bathed in tears, and begged the god to grant her son such honours as might distinguish him from other mortals. Jupiter consented, and immediately a numerous flight of birds issued from the burning pile on which the body was laid, and after they had flown three times round the flames, they divided themselves into two separate bodies, and fought with such acrimony, that above half of them fell down into the fire, as victims to appease the manes of Memnon. These birds were called Memnonides; and it has been observed by some of the ancients, that they never failed to return yearly to the tomb of Memnon in Troas, and repeat the same bloody engagement, in honour of the hero, from whom they received their name. The Æthiopians or Egyptians, over whom Memnon reigned, erected a celebrated statue to the honour of their monarch. This statue had the wonderful property of uttering a melodious sound every day, at sun-rising, like that which is heard at the breaking of the string of a harp when it is wound up. This was effected by the rays of the sun when they fell upon it. At the setting of the sun, and in the night the sound was lugubrious. This is supported by the testimony of the geographer Strabo, who confesses himself ignorant whether it proceeded from the basis of the statue, or the people that were then round it. This celebrated statue was dismantled by order of Cambyses, when he conquered Egypt, and its ruins still astonish modern travellers by their grandeur and beauty. Memnon was the inventor of the alphabet, according to Anticlides, a writer mentioned by Pliny, bk. 7, ch. 56. Moschus, Epitaphios Bionis.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 13, li. 578, &c.—Ælian, bk. 5, ch. 1.—Pausanias, bk. 1, ch. 42; bk. 10, ch. 31.—Strabo, bks. 13 & 17.—Juvenal, satire 15, li. 5.—Philostratus, on Apollodorus.—Pliny, bk. 36, ch. 7.—Homer, Odyssey, bk. 9.—Quintus Calaber [Smyrnæus].——A general of the Persian forces, when Alexander invaded Asia. He distinguished himself for his attachment to the interest of Darius, his valour in the field, the soundness of his counsels, and his great sagacity. He defended Milotus against Alexander, and died in the midst of his successful enterprises, B.C. 333. His wife Barsine was taken prisoner with the wife of Darius. Diodorus, bk. 16.——A governor of Cœlosyria.——A man appointed governor of Thrace by Alexander.——A man who wrote a history of Heraclea in Pontus, in the age of Augustus.
Memphis, a celebrated town of Egypt, on the western banks of the Nile, above the Delta. It once contained many beautiful temples, particularly those of the god Apis (bos Memphites), whose worship was observed with the greatest ceremonies. See: [Apis]. It was in the neighbourhood of Memphis that those famous pyramids were built, whose grandeur and beauty still astonish the modern traveller. These noble monuments of Egyptian vanity, which pass for one of the wonders of the world, are about 20 in number, three of which, by their superior size, particularly claim attention. The largest of these is 481 feet in height measured perpendicularly, and the area of its basis is on 480,249 square feet, or something more than 11 English acres of ground. It has steps all round with massy and polished stones, so large that the breadth and depth of every step is one single stone. The smallest stone, according to an ancient historian, is not less than 30 feet. The number of steps, according to modern observation, amounts to 208, a number which is not always adhered to by travellers. The place where Memphis formerly stood is not now known; the ruins of its fallen grandeur were conveyed to Alexandria to beautify its palaces, or to adorn the neighbouring cities. Tibullus, bk. 1, poem 7, li. 28.—Silius Italicus, bk. 14, li. 660.—Strabo, bk. 17.—Mela, bk. 1, ch. 9.—Diodorus, bk. 1.—Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride.—Herodotus, bk. 2, ch. 10, &c.—Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, bk. 8.——A nymph, daughter of the Nile, who married Ephesus, by whom she had Libya. She gave her name to the celebrated city of Memphis. Apollodorus, bk. 2, ch. 1.——The wife of Danaus. Apollodorus, bk. 2, ch. 1.
Memphītis, a son of Ptolemy Physcon king of Egypt. He was put to death by his father.
Mena, a goddess worshipped at Rome, and supposed to preside over the monthly infirmities of women. She was the same as Juno. According to some, the sacrifices offered to her were young puppies that still sucked their mother. Augustine, City of God, bk. 4, ch. 2.—Pliny, bk. 29, ch. 4.