MILO, one of the most famous athletes of Greece, whose name became proverbial for personal strength. He lived about the end of the 6th century b.c., was six times crowned at the Olympic games and six times at the Pythian for wrestling, and was famous throughout the civilized world for his feats of strength, such as carrying an ox on his shoulders through the stadium at Olympia. In his native city of Crotona he was much honoured, and he commanded the army which defeated the people of Sybaris in 511 b.c. When Democedes, the physician of Darius, deserted the Persian service, he sent a boastful message to the king of Persia informing him of his marriage to the daughter of Milo. The traditional account of his death is often used to point a moral: he found a tree which some woodcutters had partially split with a wedge, and attempted to rend it asunder; but the wedge fell out, and the tree closed on his hand, imprisoning him till wolves came and devoured him....
MILO was the surname of T. Annius Papianus, one of the best-known of the partisan leaders and ruffians in the stormy times that preceded the dissolution of the Roman republic. His father was C. Papius Celsus, but he was adopted by his mother’s father T. Annius Luscus. He joined the Pompeian party, and led the band of mercenaries and gladiators which was required to defend the cause and its chief supporters in the public streets. P. Clodius, the leader of the ruffians who professed the democratic cause, was his personal enemy, and their brawls in the streets and their mutual accusations in the law courts lasted for several years, beginning when Milo was tribune of the commons in 57 b.c. In 53 their quarrels came to a height when Milo was candidate for the consulship and Clodius for the praetorship; and when the two leaders met by accident on the Appian Way at Bovillae, Clodius was murdered (January 20, 52 b.c. ). This act of violence strengthened the hands of Pompey, who was nominated sole consul, and proposed several stringent laws to restore order in the city. Milo was impeached; his guilt was clear, and his enemies took every means of intimidating his supporters and his judges. Cicero was afraid to deliver the speech he had prepared Pro Milone, and the extant oration is an expanded form of the unspoken defence. Milo went into exile at Massilia, and his property was sold by auction. He joined the insurrection of Μ. Caelius in 48 b.c., and was soon slain near Thurii in Lucania. His wife Fausta was daughter of the dictator Sulla.
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