MAELIUS

maelius, spurius (d. 439 b.c.), a wealthy roman plebeian, who during a severe famine bought up a large amount of corn and sold it at a low price to the people. lucius (or gaius) minucius, the patrician _praefectus annonae_ (president of the market), thereupon accused him of courting popularity with a view to making himself king. the cry was taken up. maelius, summoned before the aged cincinnatus (specially appointed dictator), refused to appear, and was slain by gaius servilius ahala; his house was razed to the ground, his corn distributed amongst the people, and his property confiscated. the open space called aequimaelium, on which his house had stood, preserved the memory of his death. cicero calls ahala's deed a glorious one, but, whether maelius entertained any ambitious projects or not, his summary execution was an act of murder, since by the valerio-horatian laws the dictator was bound to allow the right of appeal. see niebuhr's _history of rome_, ii. 418 (eng. trans., 1851); g. cornewall lewis, _credibility of early roman history_, ii.; livy, iv. 13; cicero, _de senectute_ 16, _de amicitia_ 8, _de republica_, ii. 27; floras, i. 26; dion. halic. xii. i. maelstrom (whirlpool), a term originally applied to a strong current running past the south end of the island of moskenaes, a member of the group of lofoten islands on the west coast of norway. it is known also as the moskenstrom. though dangerous in certain states of wind and tide, the tales of ships being swallowed in this whirlpool are fables. the word is probably of dutch origin, from _malen_, to grind or whirl, and _strom_ or _stroom_, a stream or current. it appears on mercator's _atlas_ of 1595. maenads (gr. [greek: mainades], frenzied women), the female attendants of dionysus. they are known by other names--bacchae, thyiades, clodones and mimallones (the last two probably of thracian origin)--all more or less synonymous. see the exhaustive articles by a. legrand in daremberg and saglio's _dictionnaire des antiquites_ and a. rapp in roscher's _lexikon der mythologie_; also editions of euripides, _bacchae_ (e.g. j. e. sandys).