Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/1144

Rh 1130 MYRON. STOTiMUS.] When Aristotiinus was killed, Myro and her sister were compelled by those into whose hands they had fallen to hang themselves. (Plut. de Virt. MuL p. -252.) 2. A Rhodian kdy mentioned by Suidas (s. v.) as having addicted herself to philosophy and litera- ture: she wrote fables, a;id a work called x/^emt yvmtKwv ^aathi^uv. (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol i. p. 6-28.) 3. See MoERO. [C. P. M.] MYRON (Mi^pwi'), historical. 1. An Athenian of the deme Phlya, in the tribe Cecropis, is mentioned by Plutarch (Solon, p. 84, c.) as the prosecutor of Megacles and the other Alcraaeonidae who had rendered themselves impious by the massacre of the partisans of Cylon, when they were prevailed on by Solon to submit their cause to the decision of an extraordinary court of three hundred persons. 2. Tyrant of Sicyon, the lather of Aristonymus, and grandfather of Cleisthenes. He gained the victory at Olympia in the chariot-race in the thirty- third Olympiad (u. c. 648). In commemoration of this victory he erected a treasury at Olympia, con- sisting of two chambers, lined with plates of brass. (Paus. vi. 19. § 1 ; Herod, vi. 126.) 3. One of the generals of Mithridates, sent by him, together with Menemachus, at the head of a large force of infantry and cavalry against the Romans in the course of the campaign of LucuUus. The two generals, with all their forces, were de- feated and cut to pieces. (Plut. Lucull. p. 502, a.) [C.P.M.] MYRON, a native of Priene, the author of an historical account of the first Messenian war, from the taking of Ampheia to the death of Aristodemus. His date cannot be ascertained accurately, but he belongs in all probability to the Alexandrine period, not earlier than the third century B. c. According to Pausanias he was an author on whose accuracy very little reliance could be placed. Both Diodorus and Myron placed Aristomenes in the first Mes- senian war. Miiller {Dorians, i. 7. § 9) affirms that this statement was " in the teeth of all tra- dition" ; but Grote {Hist, of Greece, vol. ii. p. 558) is inclined ' to think that censure too anqualified. There is, however, sufficient reason for believing that the old traditions suffered quite as much cor- ruption and interpolation at the hands of Myron, as at those of the poet Rhianus. (Paus. iv. 6, &c. ; Athen. vi. p. 271, f. xiv. p. Qbl, d. ; Voss. de Hist. Graec. p. 472, ed. Westermann.) [C. P. M.] MYRON (Mupwy), one of the most celebrated of the Greek statuaries, and also a sculptor and en- graver, was bom atEleutherae,in Boeotia, about B.c. 480. (Plin. //. N. xxxiv. 8. s. 19. § 3.) Pausanias calls him an Athenian, because Eleutherae had been admitted to the Athenian franchise. He was the disciple of Ageladas, the fellow-disciple of Polycleitus, and a younger contemporary of Phi- dias. Pliny gives for the time when he flourished the 87th Olympiad, or b. c. 431, the time of the beginning of the Peloponnesian war. (H. N. xxxiv. 8. 8. 19.) The chief characteristic of Myron seems to have been his power of expressing a great variety of forms. Not content with the human figure in its most difficult and momentary attitudes, he directed his art towards various other animals, and he seems to have been the first great artist who did so. To this characteristic Pliny no doubt refers, when he says, Primus hie multiplicassc veritatem videtuvj MYRON. numerosinr quam Polycletus (I. c. § 3). To this love of variety he seems in some degree to have sacrificed accuracy of proportion and intellectual expression. (Plin. I. c. ; comp. Cic. Brut. 18.) Neither did he pay much attention to minute details, distinct from the general effect, such as the hair, in which he seems to have followed, almost closely, the ancient conventional forms. (Plin. I. c.) Quinctilian (xii. 10) speaks of his works as softer than those of Gallon, Hegesias, and Calamis. The author of the Rhetorica ad Herennium (iv. 6) speaks of his heads as especially admirable. Myron's great works were nearly all in bronze, of which he used the variety called Delian, while Polycleitus preferred the Aeginetan. (Plin. H. JV. xxxiv. 2. s. 5 ; Diet. ofAntiq. s. v. aes.) The most celebrated of his statues were his Discobolus and his Cow. The encomiums lavished by various ancient writers on the latter work might surprise us if we did not remember how much more admiration is excited in a certain stage of taste by the accurate imitation of an object out of the usual range of high art, than by the most beautiful ideal representation of men or gods ; and there can be no doubt that it was almost a perfect work of its kind. Still the novelty of the subject was undoubtedly its great charm, which caused it to be placed at the head of Myron's works, and celebrated in many popular verses. Pliny says of it : " Myronem bucula maxime nobilitavit, cele- bratis versibus laudata." The Greek Anthology contains no less than thirty-six epigrams upon it, which, with other passages in its praise, are col- lected by Son tag in the UnterJiallungen filr Freunde der alien Literatur, pp. 100 — 119. Perhaps the best, at least the most expressive of the kind of admiration it excited, is the following epigram, which is one out of several epigrams on Myron's Cow by Ausonius {Epig. 58,): — " Bucula sum, caelo genitoris facta Myronis Aerea ; nee fiictam me puto, sed genitam. Sic me taurns init : sic proxima bucula mugit : Sic vitulus sitiens ubera nostra petit. Miraris, quod fallo gregem ^ Gregis ipse ma- gister Inter pascentes me numerare solet. ' These epigrams give us some of the details of the figure. The cow was represented as lowing and the statue was placed on a marble base, in the centre of the largest open place in Athens, where it still stood in the time of Cicero. (Cic. iii Verr, iv. 60.) In the time of Pausanias it was no longer there ; it must have been removed to Rome, where it was still to be seen in the temple of Peace, in the time of Procopius. {Bell. Goth, iv, 21.) A work of higher art, and far more interesting to us, was his Discobolus, of which there are several marble copies in existence. It is true that we can- not prove by testimony that any of these alleged copies were really taken from Myron's work, or from imitations of it ; but the resemblance between them, the fame of the original, and the well-known frequency of the practice of making such marble copies of celebrated bronzes, all concur to put the question beyond reasonable doubt. Of these copies we have the good fortune to possess one, in the Townley Gallery of the British Museum, which was found in the grounds of Hadrian's Tibnrtine Villa, in 1791 : another, found on the Esquiline in 1782, is in the Villa Massimi at Rome: a third.