MELCHIZEDEK. 290 MELEMA. Babylon gives himseli ihf title "King of Right- eousness,' as the lawyer of his people. MELCHTHAL, nielK'tUl, Arnold vox. A U'giiulary hero of the Swiss struggle for inde- pendence against Austria in the early part of the fourteenth century. He was called Jlelchthal from the village of his birth in the Canton of Unterwalden, but his name was Arnold an der Halden. Arnold killed the servant of an Aus- trian baililV, who had come to ilelchtlial to seize the oxen of Alelchthal's father, a well-to-do pro- prietor in Unterwalden. In revenge, the Aus- trian put out his father's eyes. When Jlelch- thal heard of his father's blindness, he met his friends Fiirst, of the Canton of Uri, and Stauf- facher. of the Canton of Schwyz. on the banks of Lake Lucerne, and all three took an oath to do all in their power to liberate the three cantons from Austrian rule. This was in 1307, and the next year the mountaineers of the three cantons successfully waged war against the Austrians. The story is presumably a myth. It is fotind in the Chi-cDiicon Helvelkiim of -Egidius Tschudi (1505-72). MELCOMBE, niel'kum. George Bubb Dod- INOTOX, Huron. See Domxgton. MELCOMBE REGIS AND 'WTEYMOUTH, nu^rkuni re'jis and wa'muth. A seaport of Eng- land. See Wevmoi'TH. MELDE'NITJS, RrPERTr.s. The real or more probablj- pseudonymous author of the Par(encsis Vo/i'ra, ;jro Pace Ecclesicr, ad Thcologos Aii- gustanm Coufcssionis, which appeared in Ger- many about IG30. without place of pxiblication or date. It is a plea to the Lutheran theologians to lay a^ide their acrimonious controversy. MELEA'GEE( Lat..fromGk. Mf?ia)|)of, Mcle- agros) . In (ireek legen<l, the hero of the C'aly- donian boar-hunt. In the earliest known form of the legend, which is found in the Iliml. he is the son of (l^neus. King of .Ktolia. and .lth:ea, daughter of Thestius. When the Calydonian boar (q.v.) laid waste the land, he gathered a band of heroes, and. after a hard struggle and much loss of life, slew the monster. A strife arose between the .Etolians and Curetes over the spoils of the hunt, in which .Meleager led his people to victory, imtil he killed liis mother's brothers. Altluea then cursed her son and prayed the Furies and gods of the lower world to pun- ish him. The hero in anger withdrew from the fight, and. knowing his fate, refusid to retiirn. until the Curetes had actually stormed the town, when he yielded to the jirayers of his wife and went fortii to save his people, and met his death, seemingly at the hand of Apollo. A later and more popular version introduced many altera- tions. When Meleager was seven days old the Fates fold his mother that the child would live till a brand then on the hearth should be con- sumed. Althiea thereupon <|uenelied the brand, and put it in a chest. I.ater. on the news of the death of her brothers, she, in her grief and rage, put the brand again up(m the lire, and the hero at once wasted away. This story appears in an Ode of I?acrbylides'. Later still, new features were introduced. The hunt brought together many heroes, and among them the wild .Arcadian maiden Atalanta (q.v.). with whom Meleager fell In love. She first wounded the boar, and received from her lover the bead and hide. These the sons of Thestius, in their jeaUnisy. took from her, and were killed by their nephew, whereupon Altha?a consumed the brand. Altluea was said to have killed herself in remorse, while the lam- entations of his sisters and the women of Pleu- ron so moved the gods that they changed them into guinea-hens (jie?.eaypici:() , with the e.xception of the two sisters, Deianira, later the wife of Hercu- les, and Gorge. This story seems due to Sophocles. The Calydonian Hunt was a favorite subject with the vase-painters from early times, and was also taken by the great artist Scopas as the sub- ject for one of the pediments of the temple of Athena Alea at Tegea. Fragments of these sculp- tures are now in Athens. A statue of ileleager, copied from a work of Scopas, is now in the 'ati- can at Rome, and a finer copy of the head and torso in the Fogg Art Museum of Harvard l^ii- versity. MELEAGER (flourished c.fiO B.C.). A Gri>ck philosopher and epigranniiatist, born at Gadara in Syria. He compiled the first known Greek anthology, a colleetion called the Garland ( £rf. <pavn(), which contained epigrams by 40 authors, as well as 130 epigrams of his own, mostly of an erotic character. These are preserved in the later collection of Constantinus Cephalas. known as the Palatine Antholoyy (q.v.). Consult: Sy- monds, Htudics of the Greek Poets (London, 1893), c. -il: Ouvre, Mclegre de (ladara ( I'aris, 1804): Radinger, Meleagros (Innsbruck. 1895); Pomcroy, Mtbaycr, etc. (London. 1805). MELEAGER, House of. A larije house in Ronipiii. s(i 1 iillccl from a picture of Meleager and Atalanta which it ccjutains. Its walls bear nu- merous frescoes and a number are now preserved in the Naples Museim. The oecus was in the Corinthian style, with a colonnade about the sides and a vaulted central portion. MELEAGER, St.tle of. A celebrated marble in the Vatican, representing the hero with his dog and a boar's bead. The statue be- longs to the Imperial period and was found near the Porta Portese at Rome about 1500. MEL'EA'GRIS ( I.at.. from Gk. /jf/to)pif, sort of guinea-fowl, named after Mt/fo^pnc Mrlcngros, Meleager). The genus of the pheasant family that contains the American turkey (q.v.) : but the term belonged originally to one of the guinea- fowls ( q.v. ) . MELEGNANO, nul'lft-nyii'nft (formerly .l/«ri- ijnaiio). . town of Northern Italy. 10 miles southeast of Milan, with a population (1901) of CUCO inhabitants. It is famous as the scene of a great victory won by Francis I. of France over the Swiss and Milanese, September 1314. 1815. The defeat at Melegnano did much to destroy the prestige of the Swiss pikemen. who for a long time had enjoyed the reputation of being the best soldiers in Kurope. Francis ac- cepted the honor of knighthood on the field from the Chevalier Hayard. After the battle Francis I. made a treaty with the Swiss, which lasted until the French Revolution. A second battle was fou;;lit here .Tune 8. 1859. between a I'rench force of Ifi.OOn men. under Marshal Haraguay d'lTilliers. and a somewhat larger body of Aus- trian troop*, the bitter being routed. MELEGUETTA (mPl'*get'ti) PEPPER. See CiiMNs (II Pauahise: GfiXEA PElTiit. MELEMA, mrla'ma. Tito. In George Eliot's liomola, a pleasure-loving and unprincipled young Greek, the husband of Romola,
