MILIX, Saint, Martyr. - Buried and venerated in the cemetery of Ponziano (v.) on the Via Portuense. His history is completely unknown. In the 7th century his tomb is indicated 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, Rome 1942, pp. 92, 107, 151).
As early as 1618, while exploring the cemetery of Ponziano (v.), A. Bosio saw two frescoes depicting the martyr and read part of a graffito that commemorated him.
The martyr is portrayed a first time in the cubiculum where he was buried together with St. Pumenius; 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, pl. 255, 1). A second time, at the end of the 6th or in the 7th century, M. is portrayed together with the martyrs Abdon, Sennen and Vincent; he is shown as an orant, nimbed, in a long-sleeved tunic and paludamentum, the dress of the Byzantine court (id., loc. cit., pp. 452 and 520, pl. 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)c(ti) Mil(ix); die IIII nat(ale) s(an)c(ti) Milix m(ense) mai Assurius peccator umilis pr(e)s(biter) ». They attest that in the 7th-8th century the natale of the martyr was celebrated in Rome on 4 May. No trace of his veneration is found, however, in the martyrologies or the sacramentaries. In the epigraph affixed in the portico of S. Silvestro in Capite containing the notitia natalizorum 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 which he dedicated (G. B. De Rossi, Inscr. Chr., II, Rome 1888, p. 276). Finally he is commemorated among the martyrs whose relics were deposited by Paschal I in S. Prassede.
In one of the two epigraphs found in 1665 beneath the high altar of the church of S. Salvatore della Corte in Trastevere, one reads: « hic requiescit s. Melix martyr Christi... in capsa marmorea ».
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Enrico Josi