MILIX, Saint, martyr. — Buried and PONZIO (v.) on the Via Portuense. His history is completely unknown. In the 7th century his tomb is recorded on the Via Portuense by the Itineraries; the Notitia gives M., the De locis and the Malmesburiense give Milex (R. Valentini, G. Zucchetti, Codice topografico della città di Roma, II, Roma 1942, pp. 92, 107, 151).
A. Bosio, as early as 1618, PONZIO (v.), saw two frescoes depicting the martyr and read part of a graffito that recalled him.
The martyr is depicted for the first time in the cubicle where he was buried together with St. Pumenio; the fresco from the end of the 5th century represents the two saints in tunic and pallium separated by a gemmed cross (Wilpert, Pitture, pp. 453 and 520, tav. 255, 1). A second time, at the end of the 6th or in the 7th century, M. is depicted together with the martyrs Abdon, Sennen and Vincenzo; he is shown praying, nimbed, in tunic and paludamentum, the dress of the Byzantine court (id., loc. cit., pp. 452 and 520, tav. 258). On the plaster of the fresco, near the tomb, G. B. De Rossi read the following two graffiti: «Assurius umilis peccator p(res) b(ite)r IIII die m(ense) maio na(tale) s(an)e(t)i Mil(ix); die IIII na(tale) s(an)e(t)i Milix m(ense) maii Assurius peccator umilis pr(e)s(biter)». They attest that in the 8th century the feast of the martyr was celebrated in Rome on 4 May. However, no trace of his veneration is found in the martyrologies or sacramentaries. In the inscription affixed in the portico of S. Silvestro in Capite containing the notitia nataliciorum of the saints whose bodies Paul I had transferred there on 25 April, one reads: SCI MILITI MART. His name, however, is also found among the relics deposited by the same Paul I in the atrium of the Vatican basilica in the church of S. Maria in Turri dedicated by him (G. B. De Rossi, Inscr. Chr., II, Roma 1888, p. 276). Finally, he is remembered among the martyrs whose relics were deposited by Paschal I in S. Prassede.
In one of the two inscriptions discovered in 1665 under the high altar of the church of S. Salvatore della Corte in Trastevere, one reads: «hic requiescit s. Melix martyr Christi... in capsa marmorea».