1092 MINITCIUS. conduct suspected. On inquiry, suspicion was justified, and Minucia was buried alive. (Li v. viii. 15.) [W. B. D.] MINU'CIA GENS was originally, in some of its branches at least, patrician [Augurinus] ; but more frequently occurs in history as a plebeian house. Its principal cognomens were Augurinus, Basilus, Rufus, and Therm us. Minicius and Municius are frequently confounded with Mi- nucius. The following coin of the Minucia gens bears on the obverse the head of Pallas, and on the reverse Jupiter in a chariot hurling a thunder-bolt, with the legend L. Minucius. Who this L. Mi- nucius was is unknown. [W. B. D.] COIN Oy MINUCIA GENS. MINUCIA'NUS (MivovKiaySs). 1. A Greek rhetorician, was a contemporary of the celebrated rhetorician Hermogenes of Tarsus (fl. A. D. 170), with whom he was at variance. This we learn from the Scholiast on Hermogenes, and thus the difficulty which Fabricius experienced {Bibl. Grace. vol. vi. p. 107), is removed, as it is evident that this Minucianus was a different person from the one following. (Schol. ad Hermog. pp. 26, 48, 49, 71, 77, ^% 111, 179, 180, 181, 200, 287 ; comp. Schol. ad Aphthon. p. 226, Spengel ; Westermann, Ge«cMchle der Griech. Beredtsamkeit, § 95, n. 10.) 2. An Athenian, the son of Nicagoras, was also a Greek rhetorician, and lived in the reign of Gal- lienus (a. d. 260 — 268). Suidas (s. v.) tells us that Minucianus was the author of Texi^rj 'pii]TopiKri, npoyvfivdaiJiaTa, and Aoyo'i 5id(popoi. The Texj/77 was commented on by the sophist Pancratius (Suidas, s. v. UayKp. ; Eudoc. p. 301), and is also referred to by Tzetzes (Chil. iv. 693, vi. 739, xii. 570), but, as Westermann suggests, it may have been written by the elder Minucianus [No. 1]. A portion of this work, entitled Ufpl iinx^ipi]fxdT(i}v., is extant, and bears the title ^livovKiavov rj NiKa- 'y6pov. It was published along with Alexander Numenius and Phoebammon, accompanied with a Latin version, by L. Nermann, Upsal. 1690, 8vo., and is also printed in the Aldine collection of Greek rhetoricians, pp. 731 — 734, and in the ninth volume of Walz's Rketores Graeci. The work of Minucianus, entitled llpoyvixv6.iJixa.ra, was com- mented on by Menander of Laodiceia (Suidas, s. v. Mej/ai/S.). The eloquence of Minucianus is praised by Himerius. (^Ed. vii. p, 166, Or, xxiii. p. 802, ed. Wernsdorf. ; Fabric. BUd. Grace, vol. vi. pp. 107, 103; Westermann, Ibid, § 98, n. 15.) MINUCIA'NUS, CORNbyLIUS, a friend and neighbour of the younger Pliny, who calls him
- 'ornamentum regionis nieae, seu dignitate, seu
moribus," and speaks of him in other very laud- atory terms in a letter addressed to Falco, in which he requests the latter to confer the rank of mi- litary tribune upon Minucianus {Ep. vfi. 22). Three of Pliny's letters (iii. 9, iv. 11, viii. 12) are addressed to this Minucianus. MINU'CIUS. 1. M. Minucius, tribune of the ^.lebs in B. c. 401, when he impeached two of MISAGENES. the consular tribunes of the preceding year for mis- conduct in the war with Veii. (Liv, v. 11, 12.) 2. M. Minucius Fessus, one of the first augurs elected from the plebs after the extension of the law de Sacerdotiis in B. c. 300, by the tribunes Q. and Cn. Ogulnius. (Liv. x. 9.) 3. Q. Minucius, was legatus to the consul, M. Claudius Marcellus, during the sitge of Ciipua, B. c. 210. (Liv. xxvi. 33.) 4. P. and Q. MiNUCii, legionary tribunes in the war of Rome with the Boian Gauls in B. c. 193. (Liv. XXXV. 5.) 5. L. Minucius, legatus of the praetor Q, Ful- vius Flaccus in the nearer Spain, b. c, 180, His evidence as to the state of the province when ex- amined by the senate dilFered from the account given by the praetor. (Liv. xl, 35, 36.) 6. Tib. Minucius, praetor peregrinus in b. c. 180, died earlv in his official year. (Liv. xl. 35, 37.) 7. — Minucius, died intestate before the city- praetorship of C. Verres, in b. c. 75 — 74. His property therefore belonged to his gens ; but Verres issued a special edict regarding it, which Cicero held up to ridicule {in Verr. i. 45. § 115). 8. Cn. Minucius, a person about whose political opinions Cicero wrote to Cornificius in B. c. 43 {ad Fam. xii. 25). [W. B. D.] MINU'CIUS FELIX. [Felix.] MINU'CIUS NATA'LIS. [Natalis.] MINU'CIUS PACA'TUS. [Irenaeus,No.3.] MI'NYAE (MiJ/yat), an ancient race of heroes at Orchomenos, lolcos, and other places. Their an- cestral hero, Minyas, is said to have migrated from Thessaly into the northern parts of Boeotia, and there to have established the powerful race of the Minyans, with the capital of Orchomenos. As the greater part of the Argonauts were descended from the Minyans, they are themselves called Minyae ; and the descendants of the Argonauts founded a colony in Lemnos, which was called Minyae. Thence they proceeded to Elis Triphylia, and to the island of Thera. (Herod, i. 146, iv. 145; Pind. 01. xiv. 4, Pyth. iv. 69 ; Apollon. Rhod. i. 229 ; Strab. ix. pp. 404, 414, viii. pp. 337, 347 ; Paus. vii. 2. § 2, ix 36 ; comp. Miiller, Orchovi. u. die Minyer.) [L. S.] MI'N YAS (Mil/was), a son of Chryses, and the ancestral hero of the race of the Minyans ; but the accounts of his genealogy vary very much in the ditTerent traditions, for some call him a son of Orchomenus or Eteoclos, others of Poseidon, Aleus, Ares, Sisyphus, or Halmus. He is further called the husband of Tritogeneia, Clytodora, or Phan( syra. Orchomenus, Presbon, Athamas, Diochthot das, Eteoclymene, Periclymene, Leucippe, Arsinc and Alcithoe, are mentioned as his children. (Paii ix. 36. § 3, &c., 38. § 2 ; Schol. ad Apollon Rh i, 230, ad Pind. 01. xiv. 5, Pjfth. iv. 120 ; Tzet ad Lye. Sl5.) He is said to have built the fii treasury, of which ruins are said to be still extant (Paus. ix. 38. § 2.) His tomb was shown at Or chomenos in Boeotia (ix. 38. § 3). [L. S.] MISA (Mi'o-a), a mystic being in the Orphid mysteries, perhaps the same as Cybele, or an att ' bute of her. (Orph. Hymn. 41 ; Hesvch. s. MicraTis.) [L. S.] MISA'GENES, a Numidian, son of Masinissa, was appointed by bis father to command the forces which he sent to the assistance of the Romans in the war against Perseus, B. c. 171. He appears
