Milinus, a Cretan king, &c.
Milionia, a town of the Samnites, taken by the Romans.
Mīlo, a celebrated athlete of Crotona in Italy. His father’s name was Diotimus. He early accustomed himself to carry the greatest burdens, and by degrees became a monster in strength. It is said that he carried on his shoulders a young bullock four years old, for above 40 yards, and afterwards killed it with one blow of his fist, and ate it up in one day. He was seven times crowned at the Pythian games, and six at Olympia. He presented himself a seventh time, but no one had the courage or boldness to enter the lists against him. He was one of the disciples of Pythagoras, and to his uncommon strength the learned preceptor and his pupils owed their life. The pillar which supported the roof of the school suddenly gave way, but Milo supported the whole weight of the building, and gave the philosopher and his auditors time to escape. In his old age Milo attempted to pull up a tree by the roots and break it. He partly effected it, but his strength being gradually exhausted, the tree, when half cleft, re-united, and his hands remained pinched in the body of the tree. He was then alone, and being unable to disentangle himself, he was eaten up by the wild beasts of the place, about 300 years before the christian era. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 15.—Cicero, de Senectute.—Valerius Maximus, bk. 9, ch. 12.—Strabo, bk. 16.—Pausanias, bk. 6, ch. 11.——Titus Annius, a native of Lanuvium, who attempted to obtain the consulship at Rome by intrigue and seditious tumults. Clodius the tribune opposed his views, yet Milo would have succeeded had not an unfortunate event totally frustrated his hopes. As he was going into the country, attended by his wife and a numerous retinue of gladiators and servants, he met on the Appian road his enemy Clodius, who was returning to Rome with three of his friends and some domestics completely armed. A quarrel arose between the servants. Milo supported his attendants, and the dispute became general. Clodius received many severe wounds, and was obliged to retire to a neighbouring cottage. Milo pursued his enemy in his retreat, and ordered his servants to despatch him. Eleven of the servants of Clodius shared his fate, as also the owner of the house who had given them a reception. The body of the murdered tribune was carried to Rome, and exposed to public view. The enemies of Milo inveighed bitterly against the violence and barbarity with which the sacred person of a tribune had been treated. Cicero undertook the defence of Milo, but the continual clamours of the friends of Clodius, and the sight of an armed soldiery, which surrounded the seat of judgment, so terrified the orator, that he forgot the greatest part of his arguments, and the defence he made was weak and injudicious. Milo was condemned and banished to Massilia. Cicero soon after sent his exiled friend a copy of the oration which he had delivered in his defence, in the form in which we have it now; and Milo, after he had read it, exclaimed, “O Cicero, hadst thou spoken before my accusers in those terms, Milo would not be now eating figs at Marseilles.” The friendship and cordiality of Cicero and Milo were the fruits of long intimacy and familiar intercourse. It was by the successful labours of Milo that the orator was recalled from banishment and restored to his friends. Cicero, For Milo.—Paterculus, bk. 2, chs. 47 & 68.—Dio Cassius, bk. 40.——A general of the forces of Pyrrhus. He was made governor of Tarentum, and that he might be reminded of his duty to his sovereign, Pyrrhus sent him as a present a chain, which was covered with the skin of Nicias the physician, who had perfidiously offered the Romans to poison his royal master for a sum of money. Polyænus, bk. 8, &c.——A tyrant of Pisa in Elis, thrown into the river Alpheus by his subjects for his oppression. Ovid, Ibis, li. 325.
Milōnius, a drunken buffoon at Rome, accustomed to dance when intoxicated. Horace, bk. 2, satire 1, li. 24.
Miltas, a soothsayer, who assisted Dion in explaining prodigies, &c.
Miltiădes, 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 causes of this appointment are striking and singular. The Thracian Dolonci, harassed by a long war with the Absynthians, 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. This was Miltiades, whom the appearance of the Dolonci, their strange arms and garments, had struck. He invited them to his house, and was made acquainted with the commands of the oracle. He obeyed, and when the oracle of Delphi had approved a second time the choice of the Dolonci, he departed for the Chersonesus, and was invested by the inhabitants with sovereign power. The first measure he took was to stop the further incursions of the Absynthians, by building a strong wall across the isthmus. When he had established himself at home, and fortified his dominions against foreign invasion, he turned his arms against Lampsacus. His expedition was unsuccessful; he was taken in an ambuscade, and made prisoner. His friend Crœsus king of Lydia was informed of his captivity, and he procured his release by threatening the people of Lampsacus with his severest displeasure. He lived a few years after he had recovered his liberty. As he had no issue, he left his kingdom and his possessions to Stesagoras the son of Cimon, who was his brother by the same mother. The memory of Miltiades was greatly honoured by the Dolonci, and they regularly celebrated festivals and exhibited shows in commemoration of a man to whom they owed their greatness and preservation. Some time after Stesagoras died without issue, and Miltiades the son of Cimon, and the brother of the deceased, was sent by the Athenians with one ship to take possession of the Chersonesus. At his arrival Miltiades appeared mournful, as if lamenting the recent death of his brother. The principal inhabitants of the country visited the new governor to condole with him; but their confidence in his sincerity proved fatal to them. Miltiades seized their persons, and made himself absolute in Chersonesus; and to strengthen himself he married Hegesipyla, the daughter of Olorus the king of the Thracians. His prosperity, however, was of short duration. In the third year of his government his dominions were threatened by an invasion of the Scythian Nomades, whom Darius had some time before irritated by entering their country. He fled before them, but as their hostilities were but momentary, he was soon restored to his kingdom. Three years after he left Chersonesus and set sail for Athens, where he was received with great applause. He was present at the celebrated battle of Marathon, in which all the chief officers ceded their power to him, and left the event of the battle to depend upon his superior abilities. He obtained an important victory [See: [Marathon]] over the more numerous forces of his adversaries; and when he had demanded of his fellow-citizens an olive crown as the reward of his valour in the field of battle, he was not only refused, but severely reprimanded for presumption. The only reward, therefore, that he received for a victory which proved so beneficial to the interests of universal Greece, was in itself simple and inconsiderable, though truly great in the opinion of that age. He was represented in the front of a picture among the rest of the commanders who fought at the battle of Marathon, and he seemed to exhort and animate his soldiers to fight with courage and intrepidity. Some time after Miltiades was entrusted with a fleet of 70 ships, and ordered to punish those islands which had revolted to the Persians. He was successful at first, but a sudden report that the Persian fleet was coming to attack him, changed his operations as he was besieging Paros. He raised the siege and returned to Athens, where he was accused of treason, and [♦]particularly of holding a correspondence with the enemy. The falsity of these accusations might have appeared, if Miltiades had been able to come into the assembly. A wound which he had received before Paros detained him at home, and his enemies, taking advantage of his absence, became more eager in their accusations and louder in their clamours. He was condemned to death, but the rigour of the sentence was retracted on the recollection of his great services to the Athenians, and he was put into prison till he had paid a fine of 50 talents to the state. His inability to discharge so great a sum detained him in confinement, and soon after his wounds became incurable, and he died about 489 years before the christian era. His body was ransomed by his son Cimon, who was obliged to borrow and pay the 50 talents, to give his father a decent burial. The crimes of Miltiades were probably aggravated in the eyes of his countrymen when they remembered how he made himself absolute in Chersonesus; and in condemning the barbarity of the Athenians towards a general who was the source of their military prosperity, we must remember the jealousy which ever reigns among a free and independent people, and how watchful they are in defence of the natural rights which they see wrested from others by violence and oppression. Cornelius Nepos has written the life of Miltiades the son of Cimon; but his history is incongruous and not authentic; and the author, by confounding the actions of the son of Cimon with those of the son of Cypselus, has made the whole dark and unintelligible. Greater reliance in reading the actions of both the Miltiades is to be placed on the narration of Herodotus, whose veracity is confirmed, and who was indisputably more informed and more capable of giving an account of the life and exploits of men who flourished in his age, and of which he could see the living monuments. Herodotus was born about six years after the famous battle of Marathon, and Cornelius Nepos, as a writer of the Augustan age, flourished about 450 years after the age of the father of history. Cornelius Nepos, Lives.—Herodotus, bk. 4, ch. 137; bk. 6, ch. 34, &c.—Plutarch, Cimon.—Valerius Maximus, bk. 5, ch. 3.—Justin, bk. 2.—Pausanias.——An Archon of Athens.
[♦] ‘paticularly’ replaced with ‘particularly’
Milto, a favourite mistress of Cyrus the younger. See: [Aspasia].
Milvius, a parasite at Rome, &c. Horace, bk. 2, satire 7.——A bridge at Rome over the Tiber, now called Pont de Molle. Cicero, Letters to Atticus, bk. 13, ltr. 33.—Sallust, Catilinæ Coniuratio, ch. 45.—Tacitus, Annals, bk. 13, ch. 47.
Milyas, a country of Asia Minor, better known by the name of Lycia. Its inhabitants, called Milyades, and afterwards Solymi, were among the numerous nations which formed the army of Xerxes in his invasion of Greece. Herodotus.—Cicero, Against Verres, bk. 1, ch. 38.