Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/1018

1004 §23; Hes. Theog. 961; Diod. iv. 45). She was the wife of Jason, and the most famous among the mythical sorcerers. The principal parts of her story have already been given under, , and . After her flight from Corinth to Athens, she is said to have married king Aegeus (Pint. Thes. 12), or to have been beloved by Sisyphus. (Schol. ''ad Pind. Ol''. xiii. 74.) Zeus himself is said to have sued for her, but in vain, because Medeia dreaded the anger of Hera; and the latter rewarded her by promising immortality to her children. Her children are, according to some accounts, Mermerus, Pheres, or Thessalus, Alcimenes and Tisander, and, according to others, she had seven sons and seven daughters, while others mention only two children, Medus (some call him Polyxemus) and Eriopis, or one son Argus. (Apollod. i. 9. §28; Diod. iv. 54 ; Ptolem. Heph. 2; Schol. ''ad Eurip. Med''. 276.) Respecting her flight from Corinth, there are different traditions. Some say, as we remarked above, that she fled to Athens and married Aegeus, but when it was discovered that she had laid snares for Theseus, she escaped and went to Asia, the inhabitants of which were called after her Medes. (Medi, Paus. ii. 3. §7; Ov. Met. vii. 391, &c.) Others relate that first she fled from Corinth to Heracles at Thebes, who had promised her his assistance while yet in Colchis, in case of Jason being unfaithful to her. She cured Heracles, who was seized with madness, and as he could not afford her the assistance he had promised, she went to Athens. (Diod. iv. 54.) She is said to have given birth to her son Medus after her arrival in Asia, where, after her flight from Athens, she had married a king; whereas others state that her son Medus accompanied her from Athens to Colchis, where her son slew Perses, and restored her father Aeëtes to his kingdom. The restoration of Aeëtes, however, is attributed by some to Jason, who accompanied Medeia to Colchis. (Diod. iv. 54—56; Hygin. Fab. 26; Justin, xlii. 2; Tac. Ann. vi. 34.) There is also a tradition that in Thessaly Medeia entered into a contest with Thetis about her beauty, which was decided by Idomeneus in favour of Thetis (Ptolem. Heph. 5), and another that Medeia went to Italy, and there taught the Marrubians the art of fascinating and subduing serpents, whence she is said to have been called Anguitia or Angitia. (Serv. ad Aen. vii. 750; comp. .) At length Medeia is said to have become immortal, to have been honoured with divine worship, and to have married Achilles in Elysium. (Schol. ''ad Eurip. Med''. 10, ''ad Apollon. Rhod''. iv. 814; comp. Müller, Orchom. p. 264, 2d edit.)

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 MEDEIUS, another form for Medus, the son of Medeia, from whom the Medes in Asia were believed to have derived their name. (Hes. Theog. 1001; Cic. De Off. i. 31.)

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 ME′DEON, a son of Pylades and Electra, from whom the town of Medeon in Phocis was believed to have received its name. (Steph. Byz. s. v.)

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 MEDESICASTE, a daughter of Priam, and the wife of Imbrus, at Pedaeus. (Hom. Il. xiii. 173; Paus. x, 25, in fin.)

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 MEDITRI′NA, a Roman divinity of the art of healing, in whose honour the festival of the Meditrinalia was celebrated in the month of October. (Varro, De L. L. vi. 21; Paul Diac. p. 123, ed. Müller.) Varro connects the name with the verb mederi, to heal, and this seems to accord well with the rites observed at the festival of the goddess. (Dict, of Ant. s. v. Meditrinalia.)

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 ME′DIUS FI′DIUS. [.]

 ME′DIUS. 1. Dynast of Larissa in Thessaly, who was engaged in a war with Lycophron, tyrant of Pherae, in the year B. C. 395. In this he was assisted by the Boeotians, who had just concluded an alliance with the Argives, Corinthians, and Athenians, against the power of Sparta, and with their assistance he took the city of Pharsalus (Diod. xiv. 82). These events are omitted by Xenophon.

2. Son of Oxythemis, a native of Larissa in Thessaly, and a friend of Alexander the Great. He is mentioned as commanding a trireme during the descent of the Indus (Arrian, Ind. 18), but with this exception his name does not occur in the military operations of the king. He appears, however, to have enjoyed a high place in the personal favour of the monarch, and it was at his house that Alexander supped just before his last illness. Hence, according to those writers who represented the king to have been poisoned, it was at this banquet that the fatal draught was administered, and not without the cognizance, as it was said, of Medius himself. Others more plausibly ascribed the illness of Alexander to his intemperance upon the same occasion (Arrian, Anab. vii. 24, 25; Plut. Alex. 75; Diod. xvii. 117; Athen. x. p. 434. c). Plutarch speaks in very unfavourable terms of Medius, whom he represents as one of the flatterers to whose evil counsels the most reprehensible of the actions of Alexander were to be ascribed (De Adul. et Amic. 24). But no trace of this is to be found in the better authorities.

After the death of Alexander, Medius followed the fortunes of Antigonus, whose fleet we find him commanding in B. C. 314, when he defeated and took thirty-six ships of the Pydnaeans, who had espoused the party of Cassander (Diod. xix. 69). The following year (313) he took Miletus, and afterwards relieved the city of Oreus in Euboea, which was besieged by Cassander himself (Ib. 75). Again, in 312, he was despatched by Antigonus with a fleet of 150 ships, to make a descent in Greece, and landed a large army m Boeotia under Ptolemy; after which he returned to Asia to co-operate with Antigonus himself, at the Hellespont (Ib. 77). In 306 we find him present in the great sea-fight off Salamis in Cyprus, on which occasion he commanded the left wing of the fleet of Demetrius (Id. xx. 50). It appears also that he accompanied Antigonus on his unsuccessful expedition against Egypt in the same year (Plut. Demetr. 19), but after this we hear no more of him. His authority is cited by Strabo (xi. p. 530) in a manner that would lead us to conclude he had left some historical work, but we find no further mention of him as a writer. The Medius who is quoted by Lucian (Macrob. 11) concerning the age of Antigonus Gonatas, must evidently have been a different person, and one otherwise unknown. (See Geier, Alexandri M. Histor. Scriptores, p. 344, &c.)

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 ME′DIUS, a Greek physician who was a pupil of Chrysippus of Cnidos (Galen, De Ven. Sect. adv. Erasistr. Rom. Deg. c. 2, De Cur. Rat, per Ven. Sect. c. 2, vol. xi. pp. 197, 252), and who lived therefore probably in the fourth and third <section end="Medius 2." />