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

1130 MYRON. MYRON.
STOTIMUS.] When Aristotimus was killed, Myro naumerosior quam Polycletis (I.c. ~ 3). To this
and her sister were compelled by those into whose love of variety he seems in some degree to have
hands they had fallen to hang themselves. (Plut. sacrificed accuracy of proportion and intellectuas
de Virt. Mul. p. 252.) expression. (Plin. 1. c.; comp. Cic. Brut. 18.)
2. A Rhodian lady mentioned by Suidas (s. v.) Neither did he pay much attention to minute details,
as having addicted herself to philosophy and litera- distinct from the general effect, such as the hair, in
ture: she wrote fables, and a work called Xpelat which he seems to have followed, almost closely,?yvaLcwv araoAiwv. (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. i. the ancient conventional forms. (Plin. 1. e.)
p. 628.) Quinctilian (xii. 10) speaks of his works as
3. See MOERO. [C. P. M.] softer than those of Callon, Hegesias, and Calamis.
MYRON (Mv'pwv), historical. 1. An Athenian The author of the Rhetorica ad Herennium (iv. 6)
of the deme Phlya, in the tribe Cecropis, is mentioned speaks of his heads as especially admirable.
by Plutarch (Solon, p. 84, c.) as the prosecutor of Myron's great works were nearly all in bronze,
Megacles and the other Alcmaeonidae who had of which he used the variety called Delian, while
rendered themselves impious by the massacre of the Polycleitus preferred the Aeginetan. (Plin. H.'N.
partisans of Cylon, when they were prevailed on xxxiv. 2. s. 5; Diet. of Antiq. s. v. aes.)
by Solon to submit their cause to the decision of an The most celebrated of his statues were his
extraordinary court of three hundred persons. Discobolus and his Cow. The encomiums lavished
2. Tyrant of Sicyon, the father of Aristonymus, by various ancient writers on the latter work
and grandfather of Cleisthenes. He gained the might surprise us if we did not remember how
victory at Olympia in the chariot-race in the thirty- much more admiration is excited in a certain stage
third Olympiad (B. C. 648). In commemoration of of taste by the accurate imitation of an object out
this victory he erected a treasury at Olympia, con- of the usual range of high art, than by the most
sisting of two chambers, lined with plates of brass. beautiful ideal representation of men or gods; and
(Paus. vi. 19. ~ 1; Herod. vi. 126.) there can be no doubt that it was almost a perfect
3. One of the generals of Mithridates, sent by work of its kind. Still the novelty of the subject
him, together with Menemachus, at the head of a was undoubtedly its great charm, which caused it
large force of infantry and cavalry against the to be placed at the head of Myron's works, and
Romans in the course of the campaign of Luctllus. celebrated in many popular verses. Pliny says of
The two generals, with all -their forces, were: de- it: " Myronem bucula maxime nobilitavit, celefeated and cut to pieces. (Plut. Lucull. p. 502, bratis versibus laudata." The Greek Anthology
a.).. [C. P. M.] contains no less than thirty-six epigrams upon it,
MYRON, a native of Priene, the author of an which, with other passages in its praise, are colhistorical account of the first Messenian war, from lected by Sontag in the Unterhaltungenfiir Freunde
the taking of Ampheia to the death of Aristodemus. der alien Literatur, pp. 100-119. Perhaps the
His date cannot be ascertained accurately, but he best, at least the most expressive of the kind of
belongs in all probability to the Alexandrine period, admiration it excited, is the following epigram,
not earlier than the third century B. C. According which is one out of several epigrams on Myron's
to Pausanias he was an author -on whose accuracy Cow by Ausonius (Epig. 58.)
very little reliance could be placed. Both Diodorus Bucula sum, caelo genitoris facta Myronis
and Myron placed Aristomenes in the first Messenian war. MUller (Doians i. 7. ~ 9) affirms Aerea; nec factam me -puto, sed genitam.
semian war.: Muiller (Doi-ians, i. 7. ~ 9) affirms Sic me taurius'init: sic proxima bucula mugit:
that this statement was " in the teeth of all tra- Sic me tauusinit: sicproita bucla mugit
dition"; but Grote (Hist. of Greece, vol. ii. p. 558) itulus sitiens ubera nostra petit.
is inclined to think that censure. too anqualified. Miraris, quod fallo gregem? Gregis ipse maThere is, however, sufficient reason for believing gister
Inter pascentes me numeiare solet."
that the old traditions suffered quite as much corruption and interpolation at the hands of Myron, These epigrams give us some of the details of
as at those of the poet Rhianus.' (Paus. iv. 6, &c.; the figure. The cow was represented as lowing
Athen. vi. p. 27'1, f. xiv. p. 657, d.; Voss. de HiNt. and the statue was placed on a marble base, in the
Graec. p. 472, ed. Westermann.)' [C. P. M.] centre of the largest open place in Athens, where
MYRON (MuJpwv), one of the most celebrated it still stood in the time of Cicero. (Cic. in Verr.
of the Greek statuaries, and also a sculptor and en- iv. 60.) In the time of Pausanias it was no longer
graver, was born at Eleutherae, in Boeotia, about B.C. there; it must have been removed to Rome, where
480. (Plin. ZI. N. xxxiv. 8. s. 19. ~ 3.) Pausanias it was still to be seen in the temple of Peace, in the
calls him an, Athenian, because Eleutherae had time of Procopius. (Bell. Goth. iv. 21.)
been admitted to the Athenian franchise. He was A work of higher ait, and far more interesting
the disciple of Ageladas, the' fellow-disciple of to us, was his Discobolus, of which there are several
Polycleitus, and a younger contemporary of Phi- marble copies in existence. It is true that we candias. Pliny gives for the time when he flourished not prove by testimony that any of these alleged
the 87th Olympiad, or B. C. 431, the time of the copies were really taken from Myron's work, or
beginning of the Peloponnesian war. (H. V. xxxiv. from imitations of it; but the resemblance between'8. s. 19.) them, the fame of the original, and the well-known
The chief characteristic of Myron seems to have frequency of the practice of making such marble
been his power of expressing a great variety of copies of celebrated bronzes, all concur to put the
forms. Not content with the human figure in its question beyond reasonable doubt. Of these copies
most difficult and momentary attitudes, he directed we have the good fortune to possess one, in the
his art towards various other animals, and he seems Townley Gallery of the British Museum, which
to have been the first great artist'who did so. To was found in the grounds of Hadrian's Tiburtine
this characteristic Pliny no doubt refers, when he Villa, in 1791: another, found on the Esquiline in
says, Primus hic..mltilicasse veritatem videtur, 1782, is in the Villa Massimi at Rome: a third,