Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/1040

Rh 1026 MEMMIUS. MEMMIUS. and his relative Peleia in marriage. The fruit of this marriage was a son, who was likewise called Melus, and whom he caused to be brought up in the sanctuary of Venus. On the death of Adonis, the elder Melus hung himself from grief, and his wife followed his example. Aphrodite then meta- morphosed Melus into an apple (ij.t]ou), and his wife into a dove (TreAeta). The younger Melus was ordered by the goddess to return with a colony to Delos, where he founded the town of Delos. There the sheep were called from him jutjAo, be- cause he first taught the inhabitants to shear them, and make cloth out of their wool. (Serv. ad Virg. Eclog. viii. 37.) 3. A son of the river-god Scamander. (Ptolem. Heph. ap. Phot Bibi. 152.) [L. S.] MEMBLIARUS (Me^gAfapos), a son of Poe- cilus, a Phoenician, and a relation of Cadmus. Cadmus left him at the head of a colony in the island of Thera or Calliste. (Herod, iv. 147; Paus. iii. 1. § 7.) [L. S.] ME'MMIA, SULPI'CIA, one of the three wives of Alexander Severus. Her father was a man of consular rank ; her grandfather's name was Catulus. (Laraprid. Alea:. Sev. c. 20.) [W. R.] ME'MMIA GENS, a plebeian house at Rome, whose members do not occur in history before b. c. 173. But from the epoch of the Jugurthine war, B. c. Ill, they held frequent tribunates of the plebs ; and in the age of Augustus they must have been a conspicuous branch of the later Roman nobility, since Virgil derives the Memmii from the Trojan Mnestheus (Aen. v. 117 ; comp. Tac. Ami. xiv. 47). The Memmia Gens bore the cognomens Gallus, Gemellus, PoUio, Quirinus, Regulus: all the members of the gens are given under Mem- Mius. [W. B. D.]

ME′MMIUS. 1. , was the aedile who first exhibited the Cerealia at Rome, as we learn from the annexed coin ; but the name does not occur in any ancient writer. The obverse has, with a head which may be that of Quirinus: the reverse has , and represents Ceres sitting ; a serpent at her feet ; in her right hand, three ears of corn ; in her left, a distaff. The date of the introduction of the Cerealia at Rome (Dionys. vii. 72 ; Liv. xxii. 56 ; Ovid. Fast. iv. 397), and consequently of the aedileship of Memmius Quirinus, is unknown, though it must have been previous to 216. (Liv. l. c.)

 2. C. Memmius Gallus, was praetor for the second time in b. c. 173. Sicily was his province, and he remained in it as propraetor during the next year. (Liv. xlii. 9, 10, 27.) The annexed coin of the Memmia gens, which bears on the re- verse L. memmi. GAL., may have been struck by Some relation of C. Memmius Gallus. COIN OP L. memmius GALLUS. 3. T. Memmius, was sent by the senate in b. c. 170 as its commissioner to hear the complaints of the provincials in Achaia and Macedonia against the Roman magistrates in those districts. (Liv. xliii. 5.) 4. Q. Memmius, was legatus from the senate to the Jewish nation about B.c. 163 — 2. (Maccab. ii. 11.) 5. C. Memmius, tribune of the plebs in b. c. Ill, was an ardent opponent of the oligarchical party at Rome during the Jugurthine war. His exposure of its venality, incompetence, and traffic with Jugurtha first opened the command of the legions to the incorruptible Metellus Numidicus, and finally to the low-born but able C. Marius, and thus laid the foundation of ultimate victory and triumph. (Sail. Jug. 27, 30 — 34.) Among the nobles impeached by Memmius were L. Cal- purnius Bestia [Bestia, No. 1], and M. Aemilius Scaurus. (Cic. de Orat. ii. 70, pro Font. 7.) Memmius was slain with bludgeons by the mob of Saturninus and Glaucia, while a candidate for the consulship in B. c. 100. (Cic. in Cat. iv. 2; Appian, B. C. i. 32 ; Liv. Epit. Qd ; Flor. iii. 16.) Sallust {Jug. 31 ) gives a speech of Memmius which, however, is rather a dramatic than an autlientic version of the original, and he had a higher opinion of the tribune's eloquence than Cicero {Brut. 36) altogether sanctions. In the " Life of Terence " (3), ascribed to Suetonius, is preserved a fragment of Memmius's speech '''de Se" — the defence, pro- bably, at which the judices rejected the evidence of Memmius's enemy M. Aemilius Scaurus (Cic pro Font. 7), and there is another doubtful frag- ment in Priscian (viii. 4). (Compare Ellendt, Proleg. in Cic. Brut. Ixi. ; Meyer, Fragm. Rom, Orat. p. 138.) From some forensic witticisms of L. Licinius Crassus [Crassus, No. 23], it would appear that Memmius had the by-name of " Mordax." (Cic. de Orat. ii. 69. § 240, 66. § 267 ; Quint. Inst. vi. 3. § Q7.) 6. L. Memmius, was an orator of some emi- nence during the war of Sulla with the Marian party, b. c. 87—81. (Cic. Brut. 36, 70, 89.) From Cicero {pro Seact. Rose. 32) it would appear that Memmius was a supporter of C. Marius. 7. C. Memmius, brother, probably, of the pre- ceding (Cic. Brut. 36), married a sister of Cn. Pompey. He was Ponipey's propraetor in Sicily, and his quaestor in Spain, during the Sertorian war, B. c. 76, and was slain in battle with Serto- rius near Saguntum. (Cic. pro Balb. 2 ; Plut. Pomp. 11, SeH. 21 ; Oros. v. 23.) 8. C. Memxmius L. f. Gemellus, son of No. 6, was tribune of the plebs in B. c. QQ., when he opposed the demand of L. Lucullus for a triumph, on his return from the Mithridatic war. (Pint. Lucuil. 37.) Memmius was a man of profligate character. He wrote indecent poems (Plin. Ep, V. 3 ; Ovid. Trist. ii. 433 ; Gell. xix. 9), made overtures to Cn. Pompey 's wife (Suet. III. Qr. 14), 