Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/1097

Rh MICON. broke out in B. c. 125, and is said to have carried otf not less than 800,000 persons. (Oros. v. 11.) But notwithstanding this great calamity, that king- dom appears to have risen to a very flourishing condition under the mild and equitable rule of Mi- cipsa. Diodorus calls him the most virtuous of all the kings of Africa, and tells us that he sought to attract Greek men of letters and philosophers to his court, and spent the latter part of his life chiefly in the study of philosophy. (Diod. xxxv. Eocc. Vales, p. 607.) We learn also that he bestowed especial care upon the improvement of his capital city of Cirta, which rose to a high pitch of power and prosperity. He not only adorned it with many public edifices, but established there a number of Greek colonists. (Strab. xvii. p. 832.) According to Diodorus (J. c), Micipsa left a son of his own name, but he is not mentioned by any other author. [E. H. B.] MICON, historical. [Micion, No. 2.] MICON (Mf/coi/), artists. 1. Of Athens, the son of Phanochus, was a very distinguished painter and slatuarj', contemporary Avith Polygnotus, about ii. c. 460. He is mentioned, with Polygnotus, as the first who used for a colour the light Attic ochre {ail ), and the black made from burnt vine twigs. (I'lin. H.N. xxxiii. 13. s. BQ., xxxv. 6. s. 25.) Varro mentions him as one of those ancient painters, by departing from whose conventional forms, the later artists, such as Apelles and Protogenes, at- tained to their great excellence, {L. L. viii. 12, ed. Mliller.) The following pictures by him are mentioned: — (1.) In the Foecile^ at Athens, — where, Pliny informs us (xxxv. 9. s. 35), Poly- gnotus painted gratuitously, but Micon for pay, — • he painted the battle of Theseus and the Athenians with the Amazons. (Schol. ad Aristoph. Lysist. 679 ; Pans. i. 15. § 2.) (2.) According to some writers, Micon had a hand in the great picture of the battle of Marathon, in the Poecile [comp. Pa- NAENU8 and Polygnotus], and was fined thirty minae for having made the barbarians larger than the Greeks. (Sopater, in Aid. Rliet. Graec. p. 340; Harpocr. s. v.) The celebrated figure, in that pic- ture, of a dog which had followed its master to the battle, was attributed by some to Micon, by others to Polygnotus. (Aelian, N. A. vii. 38.) (3.) He painted three of the walls of the temple of Theseus. On the one wall was the battle of the Athenians and the Amazons : on another the fight between the Centaurs and the Lapithae, where Theseus had already killed a centaur (no doubt in the cen- tre of the composition), while between the other combatants the conflict was still equal : the story represented on the third side, Pausanias was un.able to make out. (Pans. i. 17. § 2.) Micon seems to have been assisted by Polygnotus in these works. (See Siebelis, ad he.) (4.) The temple of the Dioscuri was adorned with paintings by Polygno- tus and Micon : the former painted the rape of the daughters of Leucippus ; the latter, the departure (or, as Bbttiger supposes, the return) of Jason and the Argonauts, (Paus. i. 18. § 1.) Micon was particularly skilful in painting horses (Aelian, N. A. iv. 50) ; for instance, in his picture of the Argonauts, the part on which he bestowed the greatest care was Acastus and his horses. (Paus. /. c.) The accurate knowledge, however, of Simon, who was both an artist and a writer on horseman- ship, detected an error in Micon 's horses ; he had painted lashes on the lower eye- lids (Pollux, ii. MICYTHUS. 1083 71): another version of the story attributes the error to Apelles. (Aelian, I. c.) There is a tale that in one of his pictures Micon painted a certain Butes crushed beneath a rock, so that only his head was visible, and hence arose the proverb, applied to things quickly accomplished, BouTTjj/ WiKwv ^ypacfjev, or ©arrov t) Boi/ttjs. (Zenob. Proverb, i. 11, p. 87, Append, e Vatic, i. 12, p. 260.) He was a statuary as well as a painter, and lie made the statue of the Olympic victor Callias, who conquered in the pancratium in the 77th Olympiad. (Paus. vi, 6. § 1 ; comp. v. 9. § 3.) The date ex- actly agrees with the time of Micon, and Pausanias expressly says, Mi/cwj/ kizoi-na^v 6 ^wypdcpos. Beit- tiger, in the course of a valuable section on Micon, ascribes this statue to Micon of Syracuse (No. 3), to whom consequently he assigns the wrong date. (Bottiger, Arch. d. Malerei, vol. i. pp. 254—260.) 2. Pliny distinguishes, by the epithet of minor, a second painter of this name, the father of Tima- rete. (H. iV. xxxv. 9. s. 35.) 3. A statuary of Syracuse, the son of Niceratus, made two statues of Hiero II. at Olympia, one on horseback, the other on foot. They were made after the death of Hiero, by command of his sons. (Paus. vi. 12. § 4.) The artist must therefore have flourished after b. c. 215. He may safely be assumed to be the same as the statuary of whom Pliny says, Micon athletis spectaiur. {H. N. xxxiv. 8. s. 19. § 30.) ^ [P. S.] MFCTIO, was a leading man at Chalcis, in Euboea, attached to the Roman, and opposed to the Aetolian party in that island during the war between Antiochus the Great and Rome, b. c. 192. He defended Chalcis by means of a league between the Chalcidians, Eretrians, and Carystians, and rejected the proposals of the Aetolians to remain neutral between Antiochus and the Romans. In B.C. 170 Mictio appeared before the senate at Rome as the chief of a deputation sent from Chalcis to complain of the cruelty and extortions of two successive praetors in Greece, C. Lucretius and L. Hortensius. Mictio, who was lame, was allowed to plead from a litter — a privilege till then un- heard of — and, on his return, was conveyed to Brundisium in a carriage at the public cost, (Liv. xxxv. 38, 46, xliii. 7, 8,) [W. B. D.] MI'CYTHUS {MlKvdos). 1. Son of Choenis, was at first a slave in the service of Anaxilas, tyrant of Rhegium, but gradually rose to so high a place in the confidence of his master, that Anaxilas at his death (b. c. 476) left him guardian of hia infant sons, with charge to hold the sovereign power in trust for them until they shoidd attain to manhood. The administration of Micythus appears to have been both wise and vigorous, so that he conciliated the aflfections of his subjects, and held the government both of Rhegium and Messana, undisturbed by any popular commotions. One of the principal events of his reign was the assistance furnished by him to the Tarentines in their war against the lapygians (b. c. 473), which was terminated by a disastrous defeat, in which 3000 of the Rhegians perished, and the fugitives were pursued by the barbarians up to the very gates of the city. But notwithstanding this blow, we find him shortly after (b.c, 471 ) powerful enough to found a new colony, the city of Pyxus, or Buxen- tum, as it was afterwards called. It was doubtless from jealousy of Micythus that Hieron, tyrant of