A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

MICON. MICYTHUS. 1083
broke out in B. c. 125, and is. said to have carried 71): another version of the story attributes the
off not less than 800,000 persons. (Oros. v. 11.) error to Apelles. (Aelian, 1. c.)
But notwithstanding this great calamity, that king- There is a tale that in one of his pictures Micon
dom appears to have risen to a very flourishing painted a certain Butes crushed beneath a rock, so
condition under the mild and equitable rule of Mi- that only his head was visible, and hence arose the
cipsa. Diodorus calls him the most virtuous of all proverb, applied to things quickly accomplished,
the kings of Africa, and tells us that he sought to Bov7drv M(KwV E"ypap~v, or ~E)Z-1ov Bo0V7Tr.
attract Greek men of letters and philosophers to his (Zenob. Proverb. i. 1], p. 87, Append. e Vatic. i.
court, and spent the latter part of his life chiefly 12, p. 260.)
in the study of philosophy. (Diod. xxxv. Exe. He was a statuary as well as a painter, and he
Vales. p. 607.) We learn also that he bestowed made the statue of the Olympic victor Callias, who
especial care upon the improvement of his capital conquered in the pancratium illn the 77th Olympiad.
city of Cirta, which rose to a high pitch of power (Paus. vi. 6. ~ 1; comp. v. 9. ~ 3.) The date exand prosperity. He not only adorned it with actly agrees with the time of Micon, and Pausanias
many public edifices, btet established there a number expressly says, MicKw eiro[Lo7ev od'aWyp&apo. Botof Greek- colonists. (Strab. xvii. p. 832.) tiger, in the course of a valuable section on Micon,
According to Diodorus (I. c), Micipsa left a son ascribes this statue to Micon of Syracuse (No. 3),
of his own name, but he is not mentioned by any to whom consequently he assigns the wrong date.
other author. [E. H. B.] (Btttiger, Arch. d. Malerei, vol. i. pp. 254-260.)
MICON, historical. [MIcioN, No. 2.] 2. Pliny distinguishes, by the epithet of minor,
MICON (MbKcwv), artists. 1. Of Athens, the son a second painter of this name, the father of Timaof Phanochus, was a very distinguished painter and rete. (H. 1. xxxv. 9. s. 35.)
statuary, contemporary with Polygnotus, about 3. A statuary of Syracuse, the son of Niceratus,
B. c. 460. He is mentioned, with Polygnotus, as made two statues of Hiero II. at Olympia, one on
the first who used for a colour the light Attic ochre horseback, the other on foot. They were made
(sil), and the black made from burnt vine twigs. after the death of Hiero, by command of his sons.
(Plin. II. N. xxxiii. 13. s. 56, xxxv. 6. s. 25.) (Paus. vi. 12. ~ 4.) The artist must therefore
Varro mentions him as one of those ancient painters, have flourished after B. c. 215. He may safely be
by departing from whose conventional forms, the assumed to be the same as the statuary of whom
later artists, such as Apelles and Protogenes, at- Pliny says, Micon athletis spectatur. (H. N. xxxiv.
tained to their great excellence. (L. L. viii. 12, 8. s. 19. ~ 30.) [P. S.]
ed. Miiller.) The following pictures by him are MI'CTIO, was a leading man at Chalcis, in
mentioned:-(1.) In the Poecile, at Athens, - Euboea, attached to the Roman, and opposed to
where, Pliny informs us (xxxv. 9. s. 35), Poly- the Aetolian party in that island during the war
gnotus painted gratuitously, but Micon for pay, - between Antiochus the Great and Rome, B. c. 192.
he paiinted the battle of Theseus and the Athenians He defended Chalcis by means of a league between
with the Amazons. (Schol. ad Aristoph. Lysist. the Chalcidians, Eretrians, and Carystians, and
679; Paus. i. 15. ~ 2.) (2.) According to some rejected the proposals of the Aetolians to remain
writers, Micon had a hand in the great picture of neutral between Antiochus and the Romans. In
the battle of Marathon, in the Poecile [comp. PA- B.C. 170 Mictio appeared before the senate at
NAENUS and POLYGNOTUS], and was fined thirty Rome as the chief of a deputation sent firom Chalcis
minae for having made the barbarians larger than to complain of the cruelty and extortions of two
the Greeks. (Sopater, in Ald. Ribet. Graec. p. 340; successive praetors in Greece, C. Lucretius and L.
Harpocr. s. v.) The celebrated figure, in that pic- Hortensius. Mictio, who was lame, was allowed
ture, of a dog which had followed its master to the to plead from a litter-a privilege till then unbattle, was attributed by some to Micon, by others heard of-and, on his return, was conveyed to
to Polygnotus. (Aelian, N. A. vii. 38.) (3.) He Brundisium in a carriage at the public cost. (Liv.
painted three of the walls of the temple of Theseus. xxxv. 38, 46, xliii. 7, 8.) [W. B. D.]
On the one wall was the battle of the Athenians MI'CYTHUS (Micvos). 1. Son of Choerus,
and the Amazons: on another the fight between was at first a slave in the service of Anaxilas,
the Centaurs and the Lapithae, where Theseus tyrant of Rhegium, but gradually rose to so high a
had already killed a centaur (no doubt in the cen- place in the confidence of his master, that Anaxilas
tre of the composition), while between the other at his death (B. C. 476) left him guardian of his.
combatants the conflict was still equal: the story infant sons, with charge to hold the sovereign
represented on the third side, Pausanias was unable power in trust for them until they should attain to
to make out. (Paus. i 17. ~ 2.) Micon seems to manhood. The administration of Micythus appears
have been assisted by Polygnotus in these works. to have been both wise and vigorous, so that he
(See Siebelis, ad loc.) (4.) The temple of the conciliated the affections of his subjects, and held
Dioscuri was adorned with paintings by Polygno- the government both of Rhegium and Messana,
tus and Micon: the former painted the rape of the undisturbed by any popular commotions.. One of
daughters of Leucippus; the latter, the departure the principal events of his reign was the assistance
(or, as Bittiger supposes, the return) of Jason and furnished by him to the Tarentines in their war
the Argonauts. (Paus. i. 18. ~ 1.) against the Iapygians (B. C. 473), which was
Micon was particularly skilful in painting horses terminated by a disastrous defeat, in which 3000
(Aelian, N. A. iv. 50); for instance, in his picture of the Rhegians perished, and the fugitives were
of the Argonauts, the part on which he bestowed pursued by the barbarians up to the very gates of
the greatest care was Acastus and his horses. (Paus. the city. But notwithstanding this blow, we find
1. c.) The accurate knowledge, however, of Simon, him shortly after (B. c. 471) powerful enough to
who was both an artist and a writer on horseman- found a new colony, the city of Pyxus, or Buxenship, detected an error in Micon's horses; he had tum; as it was afterwards called. It was doubtless
painted laisies on the lower eye-lids (Pollux, ii. fri'om jealousy of Micythus that Hieron, tyrant of