changed by Artemis out of compassion into guinea fowls and removed to the island of Leros, where they mourned part of the year for their brother. The life and adventures of Meleager were a favourite subject in ancient literature and art. Meleager is represented as a tall, vigorous youth with curly hair, holding a javelin or a boar’s head, and accompanied by a dog.
See R. Kekulé, De fabula meleagrea dissertatio (1861); Surber, Die Meleagersage (Zürich, 1880); articles on “Meleager” and “Meleagrides” in Roscher’s Lexikon der Mythologie; L. Preller, Griechische Mythologie; Apollodorus i. 8; Homer, Iliad, ix. 527; Diod. Sic. iv. 34; Dio Chrysostom, Or. 67; Hyginus, Fab. 171; Ovid, Metam. viii. 260–545. In the article Greek Art (fig. 41) the hunting of the Calydonian boar is represented on a fragment of a frieze from a heroum.
MELEDA (Serbo-Croatian, Mljet; Lat. Melita), the most
southerly and easterly of the larger Adriatic islands of the
Austrian province of Dalmatia. Pop. (1900), 1617. Meleda
lies south of the Sabioncello promontory, from which it is divided
by the Meleda Channel. Its length is 23 m.; its average breadth
2 m. It is of volcanic origin, with numerous chasms and gorges,
of which the longest, the Babinopolje, connects the north and
south of the island. Port Palazzo, the principal harbour, on
the north, is a port of call for tourist steamers. Meleda has
been regarded as the Melita on which St Paul was shipwrecked,
this view being first expounded, in the 10th century, by Constantine
Porphyrogenitus. As at Malta, a “St Paul’s Bay” is
still shown.
MELEGNANO (formerly Marignano), a town of Lombardy,
Italy, in the province of Milan, 11 m. S.E. of that city by the
railway to Piacenza, 289 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901), 6782.
There are remains of a castle of the Visconti. Its military
importance is due to its position at the crossing of the river
Lambro. It was a stronghold of Milan in her great struggle
against Lodi, and is famous for the victory of Francis I. of
France over the Swiss in 1515, known as the battle of Marignan,
and for the action between the French and Austrians in 1859.
MELENDEZ VALDÉS, JUAN (1754–1817), Spanish poet, was born at Ribera del Fresno, Badajoz, on the 11th of March 1754.
Destined by his parents for the priesthood, he graduated in
law at Salamanca, where he became indoctrinated with the
ideas of the French philosophical school. In 1780 with Batilo,
a pastoral in the manner of Garcilaso de la Vega, he won a
prize offered by the Spanish academy; next year he was introduced
to Jovellanos, through whose influence he was appointed
to a professorship at Salamanca in 1783. The pastoral scenes
in Las Bodas de Camacho (1784) do not compensate for its
undramatic nature, but it gained a prize from the municipality
of Madrid. A volume of verses, lyrical and pastoral, published
in 1785, caused Melendez Valdés to be hailed as the first Spanish
poet of his time. This success induced him to resign his chair
at Salamanca, and try his fortune in politics. Once more the
friendship of Jovellanos obtained for him in 1789 a judgeship
at Saragossa, whence he was transferred two years later to a
post in the chancery court at Valladolid. In 1797 he dedicated
to Godoy an enlarged edition of his poems, the new matter
consisting principally of unsuccessful imitations of Milton and
Thomson; but the poet was rewarded by promotion to a high
post in the treasury at Madrid. On the fall of Jovellanos in
1798 Melendez Valdés was dismissed and exiled from the capital;
he returned in 1808 and accepted office under Joseph Bonaparte.
He had previously denounced the French usurper in his verses.
He now outraged the feelings of his countrymen by the grossest
flattery of his foreign master, and in 1813 he fled to Alais. Four
years later he died in poverty at Montpellier. His remains
were removed to Spain in 1900. In natural talent and in
acquired accomplishment Melendez Valdés was not surpassed by
any contemporary Spaniard; he failed from want of character,
and his profound insincerity affects his poems. Yet he has fine
moments in various veins, and his imitation of Jean Second’s
Basia is notable.
MELETIUS OF ANTIOCH (d. 381), Catholic bishop and saint,
was born at Melitene in Lesser Armenia of wealthy and noble
parents. He first appears (c. 357) as a supporter of Acacius,
bishop of Caesarea, the leader of that party in the episcopate
which supported the Homoean formula by which the emperor
Constantius sought to effect a compromise between the Homoeusians
and the Homousians. Meletius thus makes his début as
an ecclesiastic of the court party, and as such became bishop
of Sebaste in succession to Eustathius, deposed as an Homousian heretic by the synod of Melitene. The appointment was
resented by the Homoeusian clergy, and Meletius retired to Beroea. According to Socrates he attended the synod of
Seleucia in the autumn of 359, and then subscribed the
Acacian formula. Early in 360 he became bishop of Antioch,
in succession to Eudoxius, who had been raised to the see of
Constantinople. Early in the following year he was in exile.
According to an old tradition, supported by evidence drawn
from Epiphanius and Chrysostom, this was due to a sermon
preached before the emperor Constantius, in which he revealed
Homousian views. This explanation, however, is rejected by
Loofs; the sermon contains nothing inconsistent with the
Acacian position favoured by the court party; on the other
hand, there is evidence of conflicts with the clergy, quite apart
from any questions of orthodoxy, which may have led to the
bishop’s deposition.
The successor of Meletius was Euzoeus, who had fallen with Arius under the ban of Athanasius; and Loofs explains the subita fidei mutatio which St Jerome (ann. Abr. 2376) ascribes to Meletius to the dogmatic opposition of the deposed bishop to his successor. In Antioch itself Meletius continued to have adherents, who held separate services in the “Apostolic” church in the old town. The Meletian schism was complicated, moreover, by the presence in the city of another anti-Arian sect, stricter adherents of the Homousian formula, maintaining the tradition of the deposed bishop Eustathius and governed at this time by the presbyter Paulinus. The synod of Alexandria sent deputies to attempt an arrangement between the two anti-Arian Churches; but before they arrived Paulinus had been consecrated bishop by Lucifer of Calaris, and when Meletius—free to return in consequence of the emperor Julian’s contemptuous policy-reached the city, he found himself one of three rival bishops. Meletius was now between two stools. The orthodox Nicene party, notably Athanasius himself, held communion with Paulinus only; twice, in 365 and 371 or 372, Meletius was exiled by decree of the Arian emperor Valens. A further complication was added when, in 375, Vitalius, one of Meletius’s presbyters, was consecrated bishop by the heretical bishop Apollinaris of Laodicea.
Meanwhile, under the influence of his situation, Meletius had been more and more approximating to the views of the newer school of Nicene orthodoxy. Basil of Caesarea, throwing over the cause of Eustathius, championed that of Meletius who, when after the death of Valens he returned in triumph to Antioch, was hailed as the leader of Eastern orthodoxy. As such he presided, in October 379, over the great synod of Antioch, in which the dogmatic agreement of East and West was established; it was he who helped Gregory of Nazianzus to the see of Constantinople and consecrated him; it was he who presided over the second oecumenical council at Constantinople in 381. He died soon after the opening of the council, and the emperor Theodosius, who had received him with especial distinction, caused his body to be carried to Antioch and buried with the honours of a saint. The Meletian schism, however, did not end with his death. In spite of the advice of Gregory of Nazianzus and of the Western Church, the recognition of Paulinus’s sole episcopate was refused, Flavian being consecrated as Meletius’s successor. The Eustathians, on the other hand, elected Evagrius as bishop on Paulinus’s death, and it was not till 415 that Flavian succeeded in re-uniting them to the Church.
Meletius was a holy man, whose ascetic life was all the more remarkable in view of his great private wealth. He was also a man of learning and culture, and widely esteemed for his honourable, kindly and straightforward character. He is venerated as a saint and confessor in both the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Eastern Churches.
