Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/898

884 the reverse Pallas in a chariot, drawn by four horses. COIN OF C. LICINIUS MACER. MACER, MA'RCIUS, was a captain of gla- diators in Otho's amiy, A. D. 69. Ascending the stream of the Po with a detachment of the Ra- venna fleet, Macer drove the Vitellians from the left bank of the river, but shortly before the final defeat of his party at Bedriacum was himself re- pulsed, and displaced by Otho from his command. Macer's name was erased by Vitellius from the list of supplementary consuls for a. d. 69. (Tac. Hist. ii. 23, 35, 36, 71.) Plutarch {0th. 10) mentions Otho's gladiators, but not the name of their leader. [W. B. D.] MACER, POMPE'IUS, was one of the prae- tors in A. D. 1 5, and put the question to the senate, whether there should be an extension of the Lex Majestatis. His praetorship therefore marks the epoch at which the government of Tibe- rius began to assume its worse and darker features. (Tac. Ann. i. 7'2 ; Suet. Tib. 58 ; comp. Dion Cass. Ivii. 19 ; Sen. de Ben. iii. 26 ; and see Ma- Jestas, s. V. Diet, of Antiq.) [ W. B. D.] MACER, SEPU'LLIUS, only known from coins, a specimen of which is annexed. The ob- verse represents the head of Julius Caesar, and the reverse Victory, holding in one hand a spear, and in the other a small statue of Victory. COIN OF SEPULLIUS MACER. MACERI'NUS, the name of a very ancient family of the patrician Gegania Gens. [Gkgania Gens.] 1. T. Geganius Macrrinus, consul b. c. 492, with P. Minucius Augurinus, during which year there was a great famine at Rome, in consequence of the lands being uncultivated in the preceding year, when the plebs had retired to the Sacred Mountain. (Li v. ii. 34 ; Dionys. vii. 1 ; Oros. ii. 5.) 2. L. Genucius (Macerinus), brother of No. 1, was sent into Sicily during his brother's consul- ship to obtain corn. (Dionys. vii. I.) 3. M. Geganius, M. f. Macerinus, was three times consul ; first in B. c. 447, with C. Julius Julus ; a second time in B. c. 443, with T. Quin- tius Capitolinus Barbatus, in which year he con- quered the Volscians, and obtained a triumph on account of his victory ; and a third time in B. c. 437, with L. Sergius Fidenas. (Liv. iii. 65^ iv. 8—10, 17 ; Dionys. xi. 51, 63 ; Diod. xii. 29, 33, 43 ; Zonar. vii. 19.) The censorship, which was instituted in his second consulship, he filled in B. c. 435, with C. Furius Paciiua Fusus. These censors MACHANIDAS. first held the census of the people in a public villa of the Campus Martins. It is also related of them that they removed Mam. Aemilius Mamercinus from his tribe, and reduced him to the condition of an aerarian, because he had proposed and carried a bill limiting the time during which the censorship was to be held from five j'ears to a year and a half. (Liv. iv. 22, 24, ix. 33, 34.) 4. Proculus Geganius Macerinus, probably brother of No. 3, was consul B. c. 440, with L. Menenius Lanatus. (Liv. iv. 12; Diod. xii. 36.) For the events of the year, see Lanatus, No. 4. 5. L. Geganius Macerinus, consular tribune B.C. 378. (Liv. vi. 31 ; Diod. xv. 57.) 6. M. Geganius Macerinus, consular tribune B. c. 367. (Liv. vi. 42.)

MACHAEREUS (Μαχαιρεύς), i.e. the swords- man, a son of Daetas of Delphi, who is said to have slain Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, in a quarrel about the sacrificial meat at Delphi. (Strab. ix. p. 421 ; Pind. Nem. vii. 62, with the scholiast.) [L. S.]  MACHA'NIDAS, tyrant of Lacedaemon about the beginning of the second century B. c, was ori- ginally, perhaps, the leader of a band of Tarentine mercenaries in the pay of the Spartan government. The history of Lacedaemon at this period is so ob- scure that the means by which Machanidas obtained the tyranny are unknown. He was probably at first associated with Pelops, son and successor of Lycurgus on the double throne of Sparta ; but he eclipsed or expelled his colleague, and for his crimes and the terror he inspired he is termed emphati- cally " the tyrant." Like his predecessor Lvcur- cus, Machanidas had no hereditary or plausible title to the crown, but, unlike him, he respected neither the ephors nor the laws, and ruled by the swords of his mercenaries alone. Argos and the Achaean league found him a restless and relentless neighbour, whom they could not resist without the aid of Macedon ; and Rome — at that crisis, the 1 1 th year of the second Punic war, anxious to de- tain Philip IV. in Greece, and, as usual, unscrupu- lous in the choice of its instruments — employed him as an active and able ally. Machanidas reve- renced the religious prejudices of Greece as little as the political rights of his own subjects. Towards the close of the Aetolian war, in b. c. 207, while the Grecian states were negotiating the terms of peace, and the Eleians were making preparations for the next Olympic festival, Machanidas projected an inroad into the sacred territory of Elis. The design was frustrated by the timely arrival of the king of Macedon in the Peloponnesus, and Ma- chanidas withdrew precipitately to Sparta, But the project marks both the man and the era — an era equally void of personal, national, and ancestral faith. At length, in b. c. 207, after eight months' careful preparation, Philopoemen, captain-general of the cavalry of the Achaean league, delivered Greece from Machanidas. The Achaean and La- cedaemonian armies met between Mantineia and Tegea. The Tarentine mercenaries of Machanidas routed and chased from the field the Tarentine mercenaries of Philopoemen. They pursued, how- ever, too eagerly ; and when Machanidas led them back, the Lacedaemonian infantry had been broken, and the Achaeans were strongly intrenched behind a deep foss. In the act of leaping his horse over the foss Machanidas fell by the hand of Philo- poemen. To commemorate their leader's valour.