Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/1062

Rh 1048 MEROPE. lines have been pared off when the sheets were bound lip into a new vohirae, and in some places the original writing has been completely obliterated. What remains consists of 1. Four Carmina. The first, a fragment com- prising 23 lines in elegiac measure, is a description apparently of the Triclinium of Valentinian. The second, a fragment comprising 14 lines in elegiac measure, is a description of a garden probably attached to the Triclinium. The third, a fragment comprising 7 lines in elegiac measure, depicts the beauties of a garden, the property Viri Jul. Fausti. The fourth, a fragment in 46 hendeca- syllabics, is a birthday ode in honour of the son of Aetius Patricius. 11. A fragment, extending to 197 hexameters, of a panegyric on the third consulship of Aetius Patricius, to which is prefixed an introduction in prose, in a very wretched condition. This Aetius was consul for the first time A. D. 432, for the beoond time A. D. 437, for the third time A. d. 446. If we assume that the whole of these five scraps are by the same author, and that he is the Spanish Merobaudes who wrote De Ckristo^ a proposition which, although highly probable, cannot be strictly demonstrated, it follows, as a matter of course, that he must have been a Christian, although unques- tionably the terms in which he laments that the morals of the olden time and the ancient religion had passed away together, seem at first sight little favourable to such an idea. On the other hand, the reference to baptism {Carrn. i. sub fin.) is such as could scarcely have proceeded from a gentile. Niebuhr conjectures that the Disticha de Miraculis Chvisli., and the Carmen Paschale, placed side by side with the De Ck/isio, among the epigrams of Claudian (xcv. xcix.), to whom they confessedly do not belong, ought to be assigned to Merobaudes. (The fragments were first published by Niebuhr at Bonn, 8vo. 1823, again in 1824, and will be found, edited by Bekker, in the "Corpus Scriptorum His- toriae Byzantinae," in the same volume with Co- rippus, 8vo. Bonn, 1 836. See Rheinischcs Museum, 1843, p. 531. The inscription is in Orelli, No. 1183. With regard to Aetius, consult Hansen, De Vita Attn, 8vo. Dorpat. 1840 ; see also Nicol. Anton. Bibl. Hispaji. Vet. ii. 3.) [W. R.] ME'ROPE (MepoTrrj). 1. A daughter of Ocea- nus, and by Clymenus the mother of Phaeton. (Hygin. Ftt/;. 154.) 2. One of the Heliades or sisters of Phaeton. (Ov. Met. ii. 340, &c. ; Hygin. Fab. 154.) 3. A daughter of Atlas, one of the Pleiades, and the wife of Sisyphus of Corinth, by whom slie became the mother of Glaucus. In the constella- tion of the Pleiades she is the seventh and the least visible star, because she is ashamed of having had intercourse with a mortal man. (Apollod. i. 9. § 3, iii. 10. $ 1 ; Ov. Fast. iv. 175 ; Eustath. ad Horn. p. 1 155 ; Serv. ad Virg. Geoi-g. i. 138 ; comp. Horn. //. vi. 154 ; Schol. ad Find. Norn. ii. 16; Sisyphus.) 4. A daughter of Oenopion and Helice in Chios, is also called Ilaero, Aerope, and Maerope. She was beloved by Orion, who was, in consequence, blinded by her father. (Apollod. i. 4. $ 3 ; Hygin. Foet.Asir.n.U.) 5. The wife of Megareus, by whom she became the mother of Hippomenes. ( Hygin. Fab. 185.) 6. A daughter of Cypselus, and wife of Cres- phontes, and afterwards of Polyphontes, and MEROVEUS. mother of Aepytus. (Apollod. ii. 8. $ 5 ; Paus. iv. 3. § 3, &c. ; Hygin. Fab. 184; comp. Ak- PYTUS.) [L. S.] MEROPS (Mepor|/). 1. The father of Eumelus, king of the island of Cos, which he thus called after his daughter, while the inhabitants were called after him, Meropes. His wife, the nymph Ethe- mea, was killed by Artemis, because she had neg- lected to worship that goddess, and was carried by Persephone to the lower world. Merops, from a desire after his wife, wished to make away with himself, but Hera changed him into an eagle, whom she placed among the stars. (Hygin. Foet. Astr. ii. 16 ; Anton. Lib. 15 ; Eustath. ad Horn. p. 318 ; Eurip. Helen. 384. 2. Also called Maerops, a king of the Ethiopians, by whose wife, Clymene, Helios became the father of Phaeton. (Strab. i. p. 33 ; Ov. Met. i. 763, Irist. iii. 4. 30; comp. Welcker, Die Aeschyl. Tril. p. 572, &c.) 3. A king of Rhindacus, of Percote, on the Hellespont, is also called Macar, or Macareus. He was a celebrated soothsayer and the father of Cleiie, Arisbe, Amphius, and Adrastus. (Hom. //. ii. 831, xi. 329 ; Apollon. Rhod. i. 975 ; Strab. xiii. p. 586 ; Conon, Narrat. 41 ; Steph. Byz. s. v. ^Ap(a€r} ; Serv. ad Jen. ix. 264 ; Apollod. iii. 12. §5.) 4. A Trojan, who was slain by Turnns in his attack on the camp of Aeneas. (Virg. Aen. ix. 702.) [L. S.] MEROVEUS, a Prankish chieftain, of whom little is known that is authentic, beyond the fact that he was the grandfather of Clovis, the real founder of the Prankish monarchy in Gaul. The chroni- clers of the middle ages augmented this little by their fables, and Meroveus figured in the lists of the kings of the Prankish nation, of which he could have been only one among many petty chiefs. This list of French kings included Pharamundus or Pharamond, the reputed founder of the monarchy, and after him, in regular descent and succession, Clodion, Meroveus, Childericus or Childeric, and Chlodoveus or Clovis. Pharamundus is not men- tioned by Gregory of Tours, the best, as well as the first in point of time, of the early historians of France. Gregory, however, does mention Clodion, or, as he writes the name, Chlogion, and states that, according to some accounts, he resided in the castle of Dispargum, on the border of the Thoringi, the locality of which is much disputed ; that he surprised and took Camaracum (Caulbrai) and sub- dued all the country as far as the Sumina (Somme); he adds, that some affirmed that Meroveus was of the race of this Chlogion. (Greg. Turon. Histor. S Francor. ii. 9.) The date of this conquest is not ^ determined. Some place it before A. D. 428, in which year the Clodion who had occupied a part of Gaul was driven out by Aetius : others make this a second and later invasion, placi.ig it as late as A. d. 445, and consider the acquisition as permanent. That Meroveus succeeded Clodion is probable, but it could scarcely have been in mpre than a petty chieftainship. Whether he was the son of Clodion or his nephew is very doubtful : tM accounts of his descent vary ; one of them, whicr makes him the offspring of Clodion 's wife by a sea- monster, is obviously of later date, but may sug- gest the suspicion that he was illegitimate. The Chronicon of Ado of Vienne ascribes to the Franks under Meroveus the capture of Treven