Melanion
"The Black One"; a chaste hermit who lived in the mountains, far away from civilization, and spent his time hunting. He appears in just one tradition, where he ends up as the husband of Atalanta, though he also appears in this role as Hippomenes.
Melanippe
"Black Horse"; the daughter of Aeolus (son of Hellen) and Hippe or Euippe (daughter of Cheiron). During the period her father was in exile for murder, Melanippe bore twin sons to Poseidon, Aeolus and Boeotus, whom she hid in an ox stall to be suckled by the beasts there. Upon his return her father decreed that these monstrous children should be burned, also blinding and imprisoning Melanippe. The children, however, survived and were reared by herdsmen. They were subsequently adopted by Theano, wife of Metapontus, king of Icaria, but when she had twins of her own the two pairs fought, Aeolus and Boeotus killing their half-brothers. Theano committed suicide and the two boys rescued their mother, whereupon she recovered her sight.
Some later, unreliable sources say that Melanippe was the daughter of Cheiron and that she was changed by the gods into an equine constellation.
Melanippus
One of the original Seven Against Thebes. Having originally wounded Tydeus, Mela-nippus was killed in the fight, Tydeus later being persuaded by Amphiaraus, who bore him a grudge, to drink his brains.
Meleager
Son of Oeneus and Althaea of Calydon. When he was just seven days old the Fates decreed that he should die when a brand, then on the fire, was finally consumed by the flames. Althaea immediately seized it and hid it away. Saved, Meleager later sailed with the Argonauts before returning to Calydon, where he married Cleopatra, the daughter of Idas and Marpessa.
Artemis later sent a boar to ravage the countryside around Calydon as punishment for Oeneus forgetting to include her in the sacrifice of first fruits. Numerous heroes took part in the hunt for the Calydonian Boar, but Meleager finally succeeded in killing it, skinned it, and gave the skin or head to Atalanta. This enraged his uncles, the sons of Thestius, who snatched it back from her, so Meleager killed them. Homer’s Iliad varies this, saying that Meleager killed them in a war against the Curetes. Althaea, in her anger, returned the magic brand to the fire, and Meleager died of a wasting sickness as it was consumed. His mother then killed herself. Meleager did, however, appear to survive long enough to have had a son, Parthenopaeus by Atalanta. Meleager’s sisters mourned him so bitterly that Artemis finally turned them, with the exception of Gorge and Deianeira, into guinea fowl, hence Meleagrides.
Meli(ad)ae
Nymphs of the manna ash tree who were born from the blood of the severed genitalia of Uranos. Having a warlike tendency, they were said to have invented bronze, or at least to have shown how it might be employed in making weapons, the shafts of spears commonly being made from ash, the trees they were said to inhabit.
Melicertes
Son of Athamas and Ino of Boeotia. Melicertes was carried by his mother when she leaped into the sea. His body was then carried ashore by a dolphin to the Corinthian isthmus. There it was found and given funeral rites by his uncle, Sisyphus, king of Corinth. These rites were the origin of the Isthmian Games. Melicertes was then given the new name, Palaemon, his tomb being the oldest sacred spot in the Isthmian sanctuary.
Melissa
The nymph who discovered honey.
Melpomene Greco-Roman One of the nine Muses and mother of the Sirens, her specific role being patroness of tragic poetry. She is often depicted wearing, or holding, a tragic mask as well as Heracles’ club.
Memnon
The son of Eos and Tithones (the half-brother of Priam) who was regarded as the handsome, black-skinned ruler of an eastern kingdom, possibly Persia or Ethiopia, from there bringing his forces to the aid of Troy during the Trojan War. He killed several famous Greeks during the war, including Antilochus, the gallant son of Nextor, but was himself killed by Achilles. Eos, his mother, persuaded Zeus to honor her son by causing birds, called Memnonides, to rise from his funeral pyre and fight above it until they fell back into the flames as a sacrifice. They were said to visit the hero’s tomb on the Hellespont every year to sprinkle water, known as the "tears of Eos," on the tomb.
Many great monuments, known as Mem-nonia, were supposed to have been erected by the Greeks in Memnon’s honor, though the most famous of these, the Colossus of Memnon, erected near the Egyptian city of Thebes, was in fact a statue of the pharaoh Amenophis, or Amenhotep III. It was famous because it "sang" at dawn when the sun’s heat caused cracks in the statue to expand. Queen Zenobia repaired the statue when she invaded Egypt in 270 a.d., after which it sang no more.
Memnonia
The collective name for the many monuments said to have been erected in honor of Memnon. They usually took the form of columns and represented Memnon in a cult emphasizing immortality. The most famous example is the Colossus of Memnon near Egyptian Thebes. This, however, had nothing to do with Memnon, being in fact a huge statue of a pharaoh, Amenophis or Amenhotep III.
Memnonides
Birds that Zeus caused to rise, at the request of Eos, from the funeral pyre of Memnon. They fought above the fire until they fell back onto it as a sacrifice. They were said to visit the hero’s tomb on the Hellespont near Troy each year to sprinkle it with water, which became known as the "tears of Eos."
Menelaus
Son of Atreus and Aerope and younger brother of Agamemnon, the two being collectively referred to as the Atridae, the sons of Atreus. As youths the two brothers took refuge with King Tyndareus of Sparta. There, from all the suitors for her hand, Helen, Tyndareus’s beautiful daughter, chose Menelaus, who first extracted a promise from all her other suitors that should her life ever be in danger they would join arms in her service. Agamemnon forcibly married Helen’s sister, Clytemnestra.
When the Dioscuri were immortalized, Menelaus succeeded Tyndareus as the king of Sparta, the city to which he welcomed Paris, unaware he had come to abduct Helen. When he did so—some saying that Helen had fallen in love with Paris as much as he with her— Menelaus called on all those who had vied for her hand to honor their oath and come to her aid.
Led by Agamemnon, the Greek fleet assembled at Aulis, but Agamemnon considered that even though their fleet was undoubtedly strong, they needed further support. As a result Agamemnon, Menelaus, and Palamedes went to Ithaca to persuade Odysseus to join them. Having sailed from Aulis, the fleet, having made one error en route, landed at Tenedos in sight of Troy. It was probably from there that Menelaus, Odysseus, and Palamedes went as envoys to Priam to request the return of Helen. They were greeted courteously in Troy by Antenor, who advised his fellow Trojans that Helen should be returned, but the Trojans remained obdurate. So the Trojan War started.
While Achilles sulked in his tent and the war appeared to be going against the Greeks, Menelaus and Paris agreed to settle the dispute in single combat. However, just as Paris was about to lose, Aphrodite carried him away and the fighting recommenced, Patroclus now returning to the fray wearing the armor of Achilles, who still stubbornly refused to take part. When Patroclus was killed by Hector, Menelaus, who had recently killed Euphor-bus, and Ajax the Greater recovered his body.
Following the fall of Troy after the stratagem of the Wooden Horse proved successful, Menelaus and Odysseus killed and mutilated Deiphobus, who had forcibly married Helen following the demise of Paris. Menelaus then prepared to execute Helen but was once more overcome by her beauty and led her safely back to the Greek ships, taking along Hermione as part of his booty. However, before leaving to return home, Menelaus forgot to sacrifice to Athene, so his return journey took eight years, and it was only after wrestling with Proetus that he finally managed to navigate back to Sparta. There he married Hermione to Neoptolemus.
Menetheus
Rebellious Athenian who led the uprising against Theseus when Theseus returned from his imprisonment in Tartarus. Theseus fled to Scyros and Menetheus succeeded him as king, though the sons of Theseus were afterwards restored to the throne.
Menoeceus
1. Father of Jocasta who was directly descended from the original Sparti, the "Sown Men" who helped Cadmos establish the city. Hence he was also one of the Sparti, for the name applied to descendants as well. Following Oedipus’s marriage to his mother, Jocasta, the blind seer Teiresias stated that only the voluntary sacrifice of one of the Sparti would free Thebes of the plague ravaging the city. Menoeceus threw himself from the walls to his death.
2. Son of Creon, king of Thebes, who, following a prophesy by Teiresias, took his own life. He has frequently been confused with Menoeceus, but the two characters are quite distinct, even if their fates are remarkably similar.
Mentor
"Adviser"; the right-hand man to Odysseus who managed that great hero’s affairs in Ithaca while he was away at the Trojan War. On one occasion Athene assumed the identity of Mentor to give advice to the young Tele-machus, or to reconcile the feud between Odysseus and the kinsmen of the suitors of Penelope that Odysseus had killed on his return from Troy.
Mercur~ius, ~y
God of eloquence, skill, trading, and thieving and messenger to the gods who was early identified with the Greek Hermes, whose role he echoes. Legend made him the son of Maia, a popular deity, though lacking real prestige. Augustus was the only emperor to show any real interest in him. His temple on the Aventine Hill, built c. 495 B.C., was a gathering place for tradesmen and merchants of all kinds, their gatherings holding special significance during the month of May, when the temple had been founded (May was the month sacred to his mother, Maia). His festival was celebrated on May 15.
Romans seemed to enjoy forming special associations based loosely on the worship of Mercurius, where businessmen would meet, coming together for mutual pleasure but never adverse to doing a little business at the same time. As such the worshippers of Mercurius, businessmen in general, were never considered quite gentlemen. Mercurius gradually absorbed the attributes of Hermes and was often depicted as wearing winged sandals (talaria) and carrying a winged staff that was entwined with serpents, a caduceus.
Astronomical: The smallest and innermost of the planets in the solar system, named after the Roman messenger of the gods because of its relatively swift motion across the sky. The planet lies at an average distance of 58 million kilometers (36 million miles) from the sun and has no satellites. It is approximately one-third the size of earth, having an equatorial diameter of 4,880 kilometers (3,032 miles).
Meriones
Simply referred to as the companion of Idomeneos when the latter joined the Greek fleet prior to sailing to Troy.
Mermaid
In ancient Greek mythology, mermaids appear under the name of Nereides, who have many of the characteristics normally associated with these fabulous sea dwellers. They attract men and will marry them yet will disappear at once if the man attempts to talk to them. Ancient Greek mermaids do not have the characteristic fishy attributes of later European mermaids and are thus fully human in form. They do, however, like other sea deities, have the ability to alter their shape at will. Usually benevolent, and having mermen as their male counterparts, mermaids could be destructive and were sometimes, in this role, identified with Sirens.
Mermaids persist into modern Greek folklore, where they are known as Gorgones, regarded as the sisters or daughters of Alexander the Great.
Merman
The male counterpart of the mermaid who, in ancient Greek tradition, was usually the son of a sea deity, such as Triton, the son of Poseidon and Amphitrite. While mermaids were usually equated with the Nereides, mermen could be identified with the conch shell-wielding Tritons.
Merope
One of the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione, thus one of the Pleiades. She married the mortal Sisyphus and became the mother of Glaucus. Subsequently, when she and her sisters were transferred to the heavens, she became the dimmest of the group, as she had married a mere mortal, unlike her sisters, who all married gods.
Messina, Strait of
The narrow channel of water that separates Sicily from the toe of Italy. Legend said that this treacherous stretch of water contained the whirlpool Charybdis on one side, opposite the cave inhabited by the monstrous Scylla.
Mestra
The daughter of Erysichthon.
Metaneira
Wife of Celeus (king of Eleusis) and mother of Abas, Demophoon, and Triptolemus. When Demeter came to Eleusis during her fruitless search for Persephone, Metaneira employed her as the nurse to the infant Demophoon, not knowing the true identity of the goddess. When Demeter attempted to make Demo-phoon immortal by immolating him, Me-taneira disturbed the goddess, who had to make her identity known. Abas derided the goddess for the way in which she consumed a drink in one gulp and was rewarded by being turned into a lizard. Triptolemus, however, fared better, for he was taught the arts of agriculture, which he took to all four corners of the world.
Metis
The supreme spirit of mild wisdom, the daughter of Oceanos and Tethys who advised Zeus on how he might make his father, Cronos, disgorge his brothers and sisters. Zeus subsequently married her, but when she became pregnant an oracle predicted that the child would be a girl but that any son born to Metis would depose Zeus, as he had his own father. As a result Zeus swallowed Metis. The oracle was proved correct when, while walking on the shore of Lake Triton, Zeus suffered an agonizing headache. Hermes persuaded Hephaistos, or some say Prometheus, to cleave open Zeus’s skull, and the fully grown, fully armed Athene, his daughter by Metis, sprang from the wound.
Mezentius
The arrogant, blasphemous, and brutal king of Caere who, exiled from his own city, allied with Turnus against Aeneas, but Aeneas killed him. A variant says that Mezentius, having been defeated in single combat by Ascanius, changed his allegiance and thenceforth fought with Aeneas.
Midas
The name of several historical and one legendary king of Phrygia. The natural or adopted son of Gordius, Midas succeeded him as king of Phrygia. Having rescued Silenus from some peasants who had chained him up, he was offered a reward, the offer being made either by Silenus himself or by his master, Dionysos. Midas famously requested that he should have the power to turn everything he touched to gold. However, when his food and wine, all his family and servants, and even his furniture had been turned to gold, Midas realized his mistake and begged Dionysos to rid him of the accursed gift. Dionysos advised him to bathe at the source of the River Pactolus, near Mount Tmolus, which has ever since carried gold. The curse was removed and everything that had been turned into gold was restored to its original form.
Later Midas was involved in the musical contest between Marsyas and Apollo. The judge, Tmolus, asked Midas for his opinion.
Midas voted for Marsyas, and Apollo, angered by this response, made Midas’s head sprout asses’ ears. Thenceforth Midas wore a tall Phrygian cap to conceal his shame yet could not help but reveal his secret to his barber, who, unable to keep the secret to himself, whispered it to the reeds in the river, or alternatively to a hole in the ground. Either the reeds then began to whisper the secret among themselves, eternally, "King Midas has asses’ ears," or a reed grew from the hole, and that started to spread the secret.
Milanion
Variant spelling of Melanion.
Miletus
The son of Apollo by Aria. He fled with Sarpedon from Minos to Asia Minor, where he founded the kingdom that bore his name.
Mimas
One of the 24 Gigantes, the huge sons of Ge who tried to avenge the imprisonment of their brothers, the Titans, by attacking Olympus. Led by Alcyoneus and including Porphyrion, Ephialtes, Pallas, Enceladus, and Polybutes, the giants were finally defeated by the gods of Olympus with the help of Heracles, who provided them with a magical herb of invulnerability and always lowered the final blow.
Astronomical: One of the satellites of Saturn lying third closest to the planet between the orbits of Janus and Enceladus.
Minerva
Goddess of education and business who later developed into the goddess of war. Closely related to the Greek Athene, Minerva owes her origins to a warlike primal goddess of the Etruscans, a goddess of battle, death, and sexuality. Later development of Minerva shows her shedding many of her savage aspects. She became patroness of cultural development, the arts and sciences, industry, and particularly domestic skills. She was also regarded, in a somewhat higher form, to be the patroness of heroes who undertook spiritual or magical tasks. Her sacred animal was the owl, an attribute directly absorbed from the Greek cult of Athene. She was honored at the Quin-quatria festival, which was originally held on 19 March.
Minoan civilization
A Bronze Age civilization, c. 2600-1250 B.C., that was named by Sir Arthur Evans after the legendary king of Crete, King Minos. It was a remarkable civilization, the first true civilized society within Europe. Neolithic people appear to have first reached Crete c. 6000 B.C. and established their main settlement at Knossos, near modern Iraklion, otherwise living in caves and refuges. However, c. 2600 B.C. many of these smaller settlements moved down from the mountains to the coastal regions, a move that was essential for future developments. Some 600 years after the first founding moves had taken place, Minoan culture had become firmly established, its skill and artistry best illustrated by the magnificent palace complexes that were built; these were destroyed by some natural catastrophe that seems to have struck Crete c. 1700 B.C.
However, so secure was the Minoan civilization by that time that they simply picked up where they had left off, this time constructing on the same sites palaces that were even larger and more elaborate than their predecessors. The most impressive of these buildings were those at Knossos and Phaistos, remarkable ruins today. Their construction denotes the rise of architecture to the fore of Minoan artistic expression. Some were on several stories with theatrical touches such as the characteristic inverted pillar with a wider top than base. Walls were lined with the finest materials and decorated with frescoes that remain a familiar trademark of the Minoans. Even today the ruins are extraordinary, if somewhat baffling, as they appear to have served more than simply as houses for the ruling classes.
The palaces, around which Minoan civilization is clearly centered, were the focal point of state and religious life. It was within their confines, or within specially constructed arenas, that the famous bull-leaping ceremonies took place. Religious life within the Minoan society centered around the omnipresent bull, but the leading divinity appears to have been a goddess, the Mistress of the Animals who reflects the earthly and pastoral origins of the Minoans. The second wave of Minoan society, which had risen from the remains of that destroyed c. 1700 B.C., collapsed suddenly c. 1450 B.C., though Knossos seems to have struggled on for 70 years or so.
There are many theories surrounding the sudden collapse of such a highly organized society. Original theory placed the blame firmly on an invasion by the Achaean Greeks (also know as Mycenaeans) from the mainland, for they certainly made wide-ranging expeditions, and it is possible they could have easily stormed the undefended Minoan society, which felt so secure on its island home. A later theory blamed the eruption of the volcanic island of Santorini, itself a Minoan colony. Current theory suggests that the eruption, which would have caused havoc over a wide area of the Mediterranean, occurred about 50 years before the collapse of the Minoan society and that the fall of Minoan civilization was indeed caused by invaders.
The central importance of Crete, and of the Minoans, is reflected in the myths that center around the island. It was the home of Minos, Rhadamanthus, and the Minotaur. It was to Crete that Rhea turned when looking for somewhere to secrete the infant Zeus. He-phaistos even supplied the island with a giant bronze guard, Talos, who survived until the arrival of Jason and Medea. There is little doubt that without the rise of the Minoan civilization Greek tradition would be sadly the poorer.
Minos
King of Crete, son of Zeus and Europa, brother of Rhadamanthus and Sarpedon, husband of Pasiphae, and father by her of Glaucus, Androgeos, Ariadne, and Phaedra. His life, like that of Sarpedon, seems to have lasted for several generations, giving rise to some very famous incidents.
Claiming sole rule over the island of Crete, Minos beseeched Poseidon to send him a bull from the sea, which he would then sacrifice to the god and thereby prove the legitimacy of his claim. Poseidon duly sent the bull and Minos was awarded the kingdom, building his palace at Knossos, but seeing the beauty of the bull Minos kept it, sacrificing another, lesser animal in its place. To punish him, Poseidon made his wife fall in love with the bull. To allow her to mate with the animal, Minos employed Daedalus to construct a wooden cow. This he did, the result of the union between Pasiphae and the Cretan Bull being the monstrous Minotaur. After it had run wild on the island the Cretan Bull was captured by Heracles and taken to the mainland. There it once again ran wild until it was caught by Theseus, by which time it had become known as the Marathonian Bull; Theseus took it to Athens for sacrifice to Athene.
Minos was not always faithful to his wife. He chased Britomartis until she threw herself into the sea to escape him, whereupon she was deified by Artemis and became the goddess Dictynna. Angry at his philandering ways, Pasiphae cast a spell on him that caused his body to produce snakes and scorpions, which killed his mistresses. He was cured of this curse by Procris, another of his lovers, who received his infallible spear and unbeatable hound, Laelaps, as payment.
Minos was regarded by the Greeks as having been the ruler of a vast sea empire that encompassed all of Greece. He was apparently considered so important that it was said that he had a face-to-face audience with Zeus every nine years. While besieging Nisa, the port of Megara, Scylla, the daughter of Nisus, king of Megara, fell in love with Minos. She cut off the lock of hair on which her father’s life depended and let Minos into the city. Minos, however, was so offended by her parricide that he left her, and she swam after his ship until her father’s soul, changed into a sea eagle, pounced on her, and she was turned into the bird Ciris. Others say that Minos drowned the treacherous maiden and she was turned into the fish Ciris. Minos made war on Athens after his son, Androgeos, had been killed at the instigation of Aegeus. Having defeated the city, Minos imposed an annual tribute of seven maids and seven youths who were to be fed to the Minotaur. Theseus traveled with what was to be the last of these shipments and, with the help of Ariadne, successfully killed the Minotaur.
Shortly afterwards, Daedalus and his son, Icarus, who had been imprisoned by Minos, escaped on wings made of feathers and wax. Minos pursued Daedalus to Sicily and was killed there by the daughters of King Cocalos, in whose house Daedalus was hiding. The soldiers who had accompanied Minos then founded the city of Heraclea Minoa, which contained the tomb of Minos, but this was destroyed by Theron when he founded the new city of Acragas.
The laws Minos passed on Crete were regarded as so exemplary in their justice that after his death Minos joined Aeacus and his brother, Rhadamanthus, in the Underworld as one of the judges who considered the past lives of the newly dead, deciding the region each should be sent to.
Minotaur
The monstrous offspring of the union between the Cretan Bull and Pasiphae, wife of Minos, who had lain with the animal inside a wooden cow built for her by Daedalus. So horrified was Minos with the appearance of the creature, usually depicted as having a bull’s head and a man’s body, that he commanded the master engineer Daedalus to construct the Cretan Labyrinth to contain it. Having defeated Athens, Minos extracted from that city an annual tribute of seven youths and seven maidens who were fed to the monster. However, this came to an end when Theseus, the son of Aegeus, made himself a member of the tribute and, with the help of Minos’s daughter, Ariadne, killed the Minotaur and escaped from its labyrinthine prison, fleeing from the island with his conspirator.
The Minotaur appears to represent some distorted memory of the importance of the bull in Minoan religion, where numerous frescoes and statuettes attest to the bizarre, and potentially lethal, ceremony of bull-leaping. The tribute from Athens also seems to echo some memory of the supremacy of Crete, the death of the Minotaur possibly also echoing the collapse of the Minoan civilization.
Minthe
A nymph who was pursued by Hades and changed by Persephone into the plant that still carries her name—mint.
Minyan
The Minyans were one of the invading civilizations that entered Greece, along with the Ionians, c. 2000 B.C. It was their mastery of horses and wheeled vehicles that enabled them to quickly suppress any resistance. They brought with them Poseidon, who was often referred to as the "Earth-shaker," a deity who reflected the thundering of horses’ hooves. Possibly at this time he was a sky god, later becoming a marine deity to reflect the later mastery of the sea by the Minyans when the Achaeans entered the country c. 1450 B.C. and replaced Poseidon with their own sky god, Zeus. The Minyans also brought with them the eternal Earth Goddess, the mate of the sky god. Her worship merged with that of the pre-Hellenic Great Goddess and so developed into Demeter. Their name appears to be derived from Minyas, the king of Orchomenus.
Minyas
Eponym of the Minyan people, king of Orchomenus and father of Leucippe, Arsippe, and Alcathoe. These girls resisted the introduction of the worship of Dionysos, even mocking it, preferring instead to sit at home weaving while their fellow women were out on the mountainside worshipping the god. One night they heard mysterious music and their stools were surrounded by a strange growth of ivy. They went mad, tore Leucippe’s son to pieces, and joined the other revelers in the mountains.
Mithras
The form by which the ancient Iranian deity Mitra was introduced into the Roman Empire in 68 B.C.; this form was worshipped throughout the empire, with temples reaching as far north as Britain. By c. 250 a.d. the cult rivaled Christianity in its strength. A favorite of the Roman legionaries, Mithras was a god of the sun, justice, contract, and war who was worshipped by only men, and in secret. His cult developed a savage ritual of bloody baptism, or Taurobolium, in which the votary sits in a trench over which a bull is sacrificed, thus bathing the man below in blood.
