Myrmecĭdes, an artist of Miletus, mentioned as making chariots so small that they could be covered by the wing of a fly. He also inscribed an elegiac distich on a grain of Indian sesamum. Cicero, bk. 4, Academica.—Ælian, Varia Historia, bk. 1.
Myrmĭdŏnes, a people on the southern borders of Thessaly, who accompanied Achilles to the Trojan war. They received their name from Myrmidon, a son of Jupiter and Eurymedusa, who married one of the daughters of Æolus son of Hellen. His son Actor married Ægina the daughter of the Asopus. He gave his name to his subjects, who dwelt near the river Peneus in Thessaly. According to some, the Myrmidons received their name from their having been originally ants, μυρμηκες. See: [Æacus]. According to Strabo, they received it from their industry, because they imitated the diligence of the ants, and like them were indefatigable, and were continually employed in cultivating the earth. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 1, li. 654.—Strabo.—Hyginus, fable 52.
Myron, a tyrant of Sicyon.——A man of Priene, who wrote a history of Messenia. Pausanias, bk. 4, ch. 6.——A celebrated statuary of Greece, peculiarly happy in imitating nature. He made a cow so much resembling life, that even bulls were deceived and approached her as if alive, as is frequently mentioned by many epigrams in the Anthologia. He flourished about 442 years before Christ. Ovid, Ars Amatoria, bk. 3, li. 319.—Pausanias.—Juvenal satire 8.—Propertius, bk. 2, poem 41.
Myronianus, an historian. Diogenes Laërtius.
Myronides, an Athenian general who conquered the Thebans. Polyænus.
Myrrha, a daughter of Cinyras king of Cyprus. She became enamoured of her father, and introduced herself into his bed unknown. She had a son by him, called Adonis. When Cinyras was apprised of the incest he had committed, he attempted to stab his daughter, and Myrrha fled into Arabia, where she was changed into a tree called myrrh. Hyginus, fables 58 & 275.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 10, li. 298.—Plutarch, Parallela minora.—Apollodorus, bk. 3.
Myrsĭlus, a son of Myrsus, the last of the Heraclidæ who reigned in Lydia. He is also called Candaules. See: [Candaules].
Myrsus, the father of Candaules. Herodotus, bk. 1, ch. 7.——A Greek historian in the age of Solon.
Myrtăle, a courtesan of Rome, mistress to the poet Horace, bk. 1, ode 33.
Myrtea, a surname of Venus. See: [Murtia].