Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/1023

Rh MEGELLUS. the senate and his legions disbanded. In B c, 294, Megellus was consul for the second time. Ill health detained him awhile at Rome, but a victor}- of the Saranites obliged him to take the field, and he signalised himself by taking in Samnium Milio- nia and Ferentinum, and Rusellae in Etruria, and by ravaging both territories. The accounts of both these consulates of Megellus are very obscure and contradictorj' — some assign to him different fields of action, and defeats instead of victories. It is, however, probable that some illegal or contemptuous conduct in his second consulship — for the temper of Megellus was obstinate and arbitrary in the extreme, and the Postumian gens notorious for its patrician pride — brought upon Megellus, at the ex- piration of his office, an impeachment by M. Scan- tius, tribune of the plebs, from which his services as the lieutenant of Sp. Carvilius in the campaign with Samnium, in B. c. 291% and the popularity of his general, rescued him. The third consulship of Megellus (b. c. 291) is better known: his impe- rious, perhaps his insane, extravagances made it remarkable. At the close of B. c. 292, Megellus was appointed interrex to hold the consular comitia. He followed the example of Appius Claudius Caecus in B. c. 297 (Liv. xxvii. 6), and nominated himself. His administration was answerable to his assump- tion of office. He refused to wait for the usual allot- ment of the consular provinces, and took Samnium for himself. He employed his legionaries, not in quenching the embers of an expiring Avar, but in levelling the woods on his own demesne. He vio- lentl}', and in defiance of a deputation from the senate, expelled the proconsul Q. Fabius Gurges from his command at Cominium, and undertook the siege. There his military talents once more displayed themselves ; he took Cominium and several other places, and acquired the important post of Venusia, where he recommended the senate to establish a numerous colony. His counsel was followed (Veil. i. 14), but the name of Megellus was carefully ex- cluded from the list of commissioners for establish- ing it. In revenge he divided among his soldiers the whole of the booty he had taken without making any reserve far the treasury, and he dis- banded his soldiers without awaiting the arrival of his successor. The senate refused him a triumph. Megellus appealed to the people who faintly sup- ported him, and, although only three tribunes fa- voured while seven opposed his claim, he triumphed in despite of the senate. For his many di linquencies Megellus, as soon as he went out of office, was prosecuted by two of the tribunes and condemned by all the three-and-thirty tribes. He was fined the sura of 500,000 asses, the hc;iviest mulct to which any Roman had been hitherto sentenced. (Comp. Pint. Caniill. 39.) According to the Fasti, indeed, Megellus triumphed in his second consul- ship — March 24th, B. c. 294, " De Samnitibus et Etrusceis" and Livy refers his dispute with the senate to this period. (Liv. ix. 44, x. 26", 27, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 47, id. Epit. xi ; Dionys. xvi. 15—18 ; Frontin. Strat i. 8, § 3.) 2. L. PosTUMius L. F. L. N. Mkgellus, son of the preceding, was praetor, according to the Fasti, but in what year is unknown. His father's unpopularity and disgrace had no effect on the for- tunes of the younger Megellus. He was consul in B. c. 262, the third year of the second Punic war. Sicily was assigned to both Megellus and his col- league, and the siege of Agrigentum, which they, MEGISTIAS. 1009 took after six arduous nioi.ths of blockade, em- ployed them during their whole period of office Megellus was censor in B. c. 253, the year of his death. (Fasti; Polyb. i. 17—20; Zonar. viii. 10 ; Diod. Fr. Hoeschel. xxiii. 5 j Oros. iv. 7 ; Liv. Epit. xvi.) [ W. B. D.] MEGES (Me'TTjy), a son of Phyleus by Eu- styoche, Ctimene, or Timandra, and a grandson of Augeas. He is mentioned among the suitors of Helen, and in forty ships he led his bands from Dulichium and the Echinades against Troy. (Hom. II. ii. 625, &c., V. 69, xiii. 692, xv. 520, &c., xix.269 ; Eustath. ad Hom. p. 303 ; Pans. x. 25. § 2 ; Strab. x. pp. 456, 459.) Polygnotus had painted him in the Lesche at Delphi as a wounded man. Accord- ing to Dictys Cretensis (iii. 10) he was killed in the Trojan war. [L. S.] MEGES (Mfc-77js), an eminent surgeon, born at Sidon in Phoenicia (Galen, De Meth. Med. vi. 6, vol. x. p. 454), who practised at Rome with great reputation and success, shortly before the time of Celsus, and therefore probably in the first century B. c. (Cels. De Medic, vii. praef.) He wrote some works which are highly praised and several times quoted by Celsus, but of which nothing re- mains. He is, perhaps, the same person who is quoted by Pliny (//. N. xxxii. 24 ), Galen {De Compos. Medicam. sec. Locos., iii. 3, v. 3, vol. xii. pp. 684, 845), and Scribonius Largus (De Compos. Medicam. c. 70. § 202, p. 227). A Greek frag- ment by Meges is preserved by Oribasius (Coll. Medic, xliv. 14), and was first published by Car- dinal Mai in his collection entitled " Classici Auc- tores e Codicibus Vaticanis editi," vol. iv. p. 27, Rome, 8vo. 1831, and is also to be found in Dr. Bussemaker's edition of the forty-fourth book of Oribasius, p. 72,Groning. 1 835, 8vo. [ W. A. G.] MEGILLUS or MEGELLUS (M^yiWos, MeyeKAos), a man of Eleia, in Lucania, was one of those who, under the auspices of Timoleon, recolo- nised Agrigentum, and gathered together the remnant of its citizens, about b. c. 338. (Plut. Tirnol. 35 ; Diod. xvi. 82, 83.) This was the first attempt to restore the city after its desolation by the Cartha- ginians in B. c. 406. (Diod. xiii. 81, &c.) [E. E.] MEGILLUS (MiyiWos), a Lacedaemonian, was one of the three commissioners for ratifying the short and hollow truce with Tissaphernes on behalf of Agesilaus, who had just crossed over to Asia, B. c. 396. (Xen. Hell. iii. 4. § 6.) The more common readings in Xenophon are Megialius and Megialus. One of the interlocutors in the "Laws" of Plato is Megillus, a Lacedaemonian. [E. E.] MKGILLUS (MeyiWus), a writer on arith- metic, mentioned in the &eooyoifxei>a'Api6ixriTiK'fjSy p. 28. (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. i. p. 852, vol. v. p. 649.) [C. P. M.] MKGI'STIAS (Mt7t(rT(as), a celebrated sooth- sayer, a native of Acarnania, who traced his de- scent up to Melampus. He was present at the battle of Thermopylae ; and though he foresaw by his art the fatal issue of the conflict, refused to quit his post, though requested to withdraw by Leonidas. He sent away his only son, but him- self remained and was killed. A separate monu- ment was erected to his memory with an inscription by his friend Simonides, which is quoted by Hero- dotus. (Herod, vii. 219, 221, 228.) Plutarch (Apopldh. Lacon. vol. ii. p. 221, c.) gives the name Themisteas to the soothsayer whom Leonidas wished to send away. [C. P. M.J 3t