Milo
or
Milon (
Μίλων).
1.
Of Crotona, a celebrated athlete, six times victor in wrestling at the Olympic Games, and
as often at the Pythian. He was one of the followers of Pythagoras, and also commanded the
army which defeated the Sybarites, B.C. 511. Many stories are related of his extraordinary
feats of strength: such as his carrying a heifer four years old on his shoulders through the
stadium at Olympia, and afterwards eating the whole of it in a single day. Passing through a
forest in his old age, he saw the trunk of a tree which had been partially split open by
wood-cutters, and attempted to rend it further, but the wood closed upon his hands, and thus
held him fast, in which state he was attacked and devoured by wolves (
Gell. xv. 16).
2.
Titus Annius Milo Papiniānus, was born at Lanuvium, of
which place he was in B.C. 53 dictator or chief magistrate. As tribune of the plebs, B.C. 57,
Milo took an active part in obtaining Cicero's recall from exile; and from this time he
carried on a fierce and memorable contest with P. Clodius. In 53 Milo was candidate for the
consulship, and Clodius for the praetorship of the ensuing year. Each of the candidates kept
a gang of gladiators, and there were frequent combats between the rival ruffians in the
streets of Rome. At length, on the 20th of January, 52, Milo and Clodius met apparently by
accident at Bovillae, on the Appian Way. An affray ensued between their followers, in which
Clodius was slain. At Rome such tumults followed upon the burial of Clodius that Pompey was
appointed sole consul in order to restore order to the State. Milo was brought to trial. He
was defended by Cicero; but was condemned, and went into exile at Massilia (Marseilles). The
soldiers who lined the Forum intimidated Cicero, and he could not deliver the oration which
he had prepared. Milo returned to Italy in 48, in order to support the revolutionary schemes
of the praetor, M. Caelius; but he was slain under the walls of an obscure fortress in
Thurii. Milo, in 57, married Fausta, a daughter of the dictator Sulla , a worthless woman
with whom the historian Sallust carried on an intrigue, for which he was soundly beaten by
Milo. See the articles
Cicero; Clodius;
Pompeius.
