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

1086 MILO. MILON.
the murder of Clodius at Bovillae on the Appian- extant oration-and sent it to him at Marseille.
road, January 20th, B. C. 52. The details of the Milo remarked, "I am glad this was not spoken,
meeting, the quarrel, and its catastrophe, are related since I must have been acquitted, and then had
in the account of Clodius [No. 40]. never known the delicate flavour of these MarseilleThe immediate effect of the death of Clodius mullets." M. Brutus also some time afterwards
was to depress the Miloniaa, and to re-animate the composed as a rhetorical exercise a defence of Milo.
Clodian faction. Milo at first meditated voluntary He took a diffireut andan easier view of the cause
exile. But the excesses of his opponents made his than Cicero. The murder of Cfodius according
presence once more possible at Rome. The tri- to Brutus, was a benefit to the commonwealth;
bune of the plebs, M. Caelius, attended him to the according to Cicero, it was a necessary act of selfforum, and Milo addressed the assembly in the defence. Both pleas are singularly weak. Howwhite robe of a candidate, and proceeded with his ever useful and - merited the death of Clodius
consular canvass. But a more powerful, though might be to the state, inflicted by a private hand it
secret opponent had meanwhile risen up against was a pernicious precedent; and although the meetMilo. His competitors in the comitia were P. ing at Bovillae may have been accidental, the
Plautius Hypsaeus [HYPsAEus, No. 5] and Q. necessity for self-defence ceased with the flight of
Metellus Scipio. Cn. Pompey had married a Clodius, and the pretence wholly fails when'it is
daughter of Scipio, and from Hypsaeus he expected remembered that Milo's escort was much the more
aid in gratifying the prime object of his ambition numerous and the better-armed.
-the dictatorship. A bill for his appointment Milo's exile was a heavy blow to his numerous
was not indeed promulgated. But the senate no- creditors. His houses at Rome, his numerous
minated him sole consul. Pompey immediately villas, and his bands of fighting men were put up
brought forward three laws, which, from their im- to auction, and Cicero did not escape suspicion of
mediate reference to the circumstances Qf the times, having purchased through an agent, Philotimus,
were in fact privilegia. In the first he specially some of the Annian property below its real worth.
noticed the murder at Bovillae, the conflagration of Cicero, on his return from Cilicia in B. C. 51,
the curia hostilia and the Porcian Basilica, and the showed that he felt the imputation by offering to
attack upon the house of M. Lepidus the interrex. cancel the purchase or to increase the price. He
In the second he introduced more stringent penalties however, owed no gratitude to Milo, who had
for ambitus, and in the third he increased the espoused his cause because it suited his own inseverity of the existing laws against sodalitia, or terest, and his undertaking the defence of so noillegal interference with the.freedom of the comitia. torious a criminal with extreme risk to himself
The time allowed for trials de Vi, A4mbitu, Sodalitiis, amply discharged his real or supposed obligations.
was also much shortened, only three days being The close of Milo's life was as inglorious as his
assigned to the accusation, the defence, and the ex- political career had been violent and disgraceful.
amination of witnesses. M. Caelius opposed these Milo expected a recall from Caesar, when, in B. C.
laws on the ground that they were privilegia and 49, the dictator permitted many of the exiles to
retrospective. But Pompey stifled all opposition by return. But better times were come, and Rome
surrounding his house and gardens with soldiers, and neither needed nor wished for the presence of a
withdrawing himself from the senate and the forum, bankrupt agitator. Milo's former friend the exon pretence of dreading Milo's violence. A variety tribune M. Caelius, praetor in B. c. 48, promulgated
of charges and recriminations was brought forward a bill for the adjustment of debts-a revolutionary
by either faction. The slaves of Milo and Clodius measure for which the senate, where the Caesarian
were respectively required to be given up to torture, party had then a majority, expelled him from his
and perjury and intimidation, the forms of law, office. Caelius, himself a man of broken fortunes,
and the abuse of justice, were put in active re- required desperate allies, and he accordingly invited
quisition. Milo, however, was not without hope, Milo to Italy, as the fittest tool for his purposes.
since the higher aristocracy, from jealousy of Pom- At the head of the survivors of his gladiatorial bands,
pey, supported him, and Cicero undertook his de- reinforced by Samlnite and Bruttian herdsmen, by
fence. His trial opened on the 4th of April, B. c. criminals and run-away slaves, Milo appeared in
52. He was impeached by the two Clodii, nephews Campania, and proclaimed himself a legatus of Cn.
of the deceased, de Vi, by Q. Petulcius and L. and Sextus Pompey. He found, however, no adCornificius, de Azmbitu, and by P. Fulvius Neratus, herents, and retreated into Lucania, where he was
de Sodalitiis. L. Domitius-Ahenobarbus, a consular, met by the praetor Q. Pedius, and slain under the
was appointed quaesitor or instigator by a special walls of an obscure fort in the district of Thurii.
law of Pompey's, and all Rome and thousands of Milo, in B. C. 57, married Fausta, a daughter of
spectators from Italy thronged the forum and its the dictator Sulla. She proved a faithless wife, and
avenues from dawn to sunset during these memor- Sallust the historian was soundly scourged by
able proceedings. But Milo's chances of acquittal, Milo for an intrigue with her. (The authorities
faint even had justice been decorously adminis- for Milo's life are Cicero's well-known oration and
tered, were wholly marred by the virulence of the passages in Orelli's Onorm. Tall.; Plutarch's
his adversaries, who insulted and obstructed the lives of Pompey, Cicero, and Caesar; Dion Cass.
witnesses, the process, and the conductors of the xxxix. 6-8, 18-21, xli, 48-55; Appian, B.C. ii.
defence. Cnu. Pompey availed himself of these 16, 20-24, 48; Caes. B. 0. iii. 21-23; see Drudisorders to line the forum and its encompassing mann, Gesch. Roms, vol. i. p.43,&c.) [W. B. D.]
hills with soldiers. Cicero was intimidated and MILON (MS';wv) of Crotona, son of Diotimus,
Milo was condemned. Had he even been acquitted an athlete, famous for his extraordinary bodily
on the first count de Vi, the two other charges of strength. He was six times victor in wrestling at
bribery and conspiracy awaited him. He therefore the Olympic games, and as often at the Pythian;
went into exile. Cicero, who could not deliver, but having entered the lists at Olympia a seventh
re-wrote and expanded the defence of Milo-the time, he was worsted by the superior agility of his