[1] Two passages of the _Cassandra_, 1446-1450 and 1226-1282, in
which the career of the Roman people and their universal empire are
spoken of, could not possibly have been written by an Alexandrian
poet of 250 B.C. Hence it has been maintained by Niebuhr and others
that the poem was written, by a later poet mentioned by Tzetzes, but
the opinion of Welcker that these paragraphs are a later
interpolation is generally considered more probable.
LYCOPODIUM, the principal genus of the Lycopodiaceae, a natural order of
the Fern-allies (see PTERIDOPHYTA). They are flowerless herbs, with an
erect, prostrate or creeping widely-branched stem, with small simple
leaves which thickly cover the stem and branches. The "fertile" leaves
are arranged in cones, and bear spore-cases (sporangia) in their axils,
containing spores of one kind only. The prothallium developed from the
spore is a subterranean mass of tissue of considerable size, and bears
the male and female organs (_antheridia_ and _archegonia_). There are
about a hundred species widely distributed in temperate and tropical
climates; five occur in Britain on heaths and moors, chiefly in
mountainous districts, and are known as club-mosses The commonest
species, _L. clavatum_, is also known as stag-horn moss.
[Illustration: From Strasburger's _Lehrbuch der Botanik_, by permission
of Gustav Fischer.
FIG. 1.--Lycopodium clavatum.
A, Old prothallus.
B, Prothallus bearing a young sporophyte.
G, Polian of a mature plant, showing the creeping habit, the
adventitious roots and the specialized erect branches bearing the
strobile or cones.
H, Sporophyte bearing the single sporangium on its upper surface.
J, Spore.]
Gerard, in 1597, described two kinds of lycopodium (_Herball_, p.
1373) under the names _Muscus denticulatus_ and _Muscus clavatus_ (_L.
clavatum_) as "Club Mosse or Woolfes Clawe Mosse," the names being in
Low Dutch, "Wolfs Clauwen," from the resemblance of the club-like or
claw-shaped shoots to the toes of a wolf, "whereupon we first named it
_Lycopodion_." Gerard also speaks of its emetic and many other
supposed virtues. _L. Selago_ and _L. catharticum_ (a native of the
Andes) have been said to be, at least when fresh, cathartic; but, with
the exception of the spores of _L. clavatum_ ("lycopodium powder"),
lycopodium as a drug has fallen into disuse. The powder is used for
rolling pills in, as a dusting powder for infants' sores, &c. A
_tinctura lycopodii_, containing one part of the powder to ten of
alcohol (90%), has been given, in doses of 15 to 60 minims, in cases
of irritation and spasm of the bladder. The powder is highly
inflammable, and is used in pyrotechny and for artificial lightning on
the stage. If the hand be covered with the powder it cannot be wetted
on being plunged into water. Another use of lycopodium is for dyeing;
woollen cloth boiled with species of lycopodium, as _L. clavatum_,
becomes blue when dipped in a bath of Brazil wood.
LYCOSURA (mod. _Palaeokastro_ or _Siderokastro_), a city of Arcadia,
reputed to be the most ancient city in Greece, and to have been founded
by Lycaon the son of Pelasgus. Its fame in later times was chiefly
associated with the temple of Despoena, containing the colossal group
made by Damophon of Messene, of Despoena and Demeter seated, with
Artemis and the Titan Anytus standing beside them. The temple and
considerable remains of the group of sculpture were found in 1889. The
date of both has been a matter of dispute, Damophon being placed at
dates varying from the 4th century B.C. to the age of Hadrian. But it
has now been shown that he lived in the 2nd century B.C. Remains of a
portico, altars and other structures have also been found.
See [Greek: Praktika tes Arch. Hetairias] (1896); G. Dickens, _Annual
of British School_ at Athens, xii. and xiii.
LYCURGUS (Gr. [Greek: Lykourgos]), in Greek history, the reputed founder
of the Spartan constitution. Plutarch opens his biography of Lycurgus
with these words: "About Lycurgus the lawgiver it is not possible to
make a single statement that is not called in question. His genealogy,
his travels, his death, above all, his legislative and constitutional
activity have been variously recorded, and there is the greatest
difference of opinion as to his date." Nor has modern historical
criticism arrived at any certain results. Many scholars, indeed, suppose
him to be in reality a god or hero, appealing to the existence of a
temple and cult of Lycurgus at Sparta as early as the time of Herodotus,
(i. 66), and to the words of the Delphic oracle (Herod. i. 65)--
[Greek: dixo e se theon manteusomai e anthropon.
all' eti kai mallon theon elpomai, o Lykoorge.]
If this be so, he is probably to be connected with the cult of Apollo
Lycius or with that of Zeus Lycaeus. But the majority of modern
historians agree in accepting Lycurgus as an historical person, however
widely they may differ about his work.
According to the Spartan tradition preserved by Herodotus, Lycurgus was
a member of the Agiad house, son of Agis I. and brother of Echestratus.
On the death of the latter he became regent and guardian of his nephew
Labotas (Leobotes), who was still a minor. Simonides, on the other hand,
spoke of him as a Eurypontid, son of Prytanis and brother of Eunomus,
and later the tradition prevailed which made him the son of Eunomus and
Dionassa, and half-brother of the king Polydectes, on whose death he
became guardian of the young king Charillus. According to Herodotus he
introduced his reforms immediately on becoming regent, but the story
which afterwards became generally accepted and is elaborated by Plutarch
represented him as occupying for some time the position of regent, then
spending several years in travels, and on his return to Sparta carrying
through his legislation when Charillus was king. This latter version
helped to emphasize the disinterestedness of the lawgiver, and also
supplied a motive for his travels--the jealousy of those who accused him
of trying to supplant his nephew on the throne. He is said to have
visited Crete, Egypt and Ionia, and some versions even took him to
Spain, Libya and India.
Various beliefs were held as to the source from which Lycurgus derived
his ideas of reform. Herodotus found the tradition current among the
Spartans that they were suggested to Lycurgus by the similar Cretan
institutions, but even in the 5th century there was a rival theory that
he derived them from the Delphic oracle. These two versions are united
by Ephorus, who argued that, though Lycurgus had really derived his
system from Crete, yet to give it a religious sanction he had persuaded
the Delphic priestess to express his views in oracular form.
_The Reforms._--Herodotus says that Lycurgus changed "all the customs,"
that he created the military organization of [Greek: enomotiai]
(_enomoties_), [Greek: triekades] (_triecades_) and [Greek: syssitia]
(_syssitia_), and that he instituted the ephorate and the council of
elders. To him, further, are attributed the foundation of the apella
(the citizen assembly), the prohibition of gold and silver currency, the
partition of the land ([Greek: ges anadasmos]) into equal lots, and, in
general, the characteristic Spartan training ([Greek: agoge]). Some of
these statements are certainly false. The council of elders and the
assembly are not in any sense peculiar to Sparta, but are present in the
heroic government of Greece as depicted in the Homeric poems. The
ephors, again, are almost universally held to be either an immemorial
heritage of the Dorian stock or--and this seems more probable--an
addition to the Spartan constitution made at a later date than can be
assigned to Lycurgus. Further, the tradition of the Lycurgan partition
of the land is open to grave objections. Grote pointed out (_History of
Greece_, pt. ii. ch. 6) that even from the earliest historical times we
find glaring inequalities of property at Sparta, and that the tradition
was apparently unknown to all the earlier Greek historians and
philosophers down to Plato and Aristotle: Isocrates (xii. 259) expressly
denied that a partition of land had ever taken place in the Spartan
state. Again, the tradition presupposes the conquest by the Spartans of
the whole, or at least the greater part, of Laconia, yet Lycurgus must
fall in the period when the Spartans had not yet subjugated even the
middle Eurotas plain, in which their city lay. Finally, we can point to
an adequate explanation of the genesis of the tradition in the ideals
of the reformers of the latter part of the 3rd century, led by the kings
Agis IV. and Cleomenes III. (q.v.). To them the cause of Sparta's
decline lay in the marked inequalities of wealth, and they looked upon a
redistribution of the land as the reform most urgently needed. But it
was characteristic of the Greeks to represent the ideals of the present
as the facts of the past, and so such a story as that of the Lycurgan
[Greek: ges anadasmos] may well have arisen at this time. It is at least
noteworthy that the plan of Agis to give 4500 lots to Spartans and
15,000 to perioeci suspiciously resembles that of Lycurgus, in whose
case the numbers are said to have been 9000 and 30,000 respectively.
Lastly, the prohibition of gold and silver money cannot be attributed to
Lycurgus, for at so early a period coinage was yet unknown in Greece.
Lycurgus, then, did not create any of the main elements of the Spartan
constitution, though he may have regulated their powers and defined
their position. But tradition represented him as finding Sparta the prey
of disunion, weakness and lawlessness, and leaving her united, strong
and subject to the most stable government which the Greek world had ever
seen. Probably Grote comes near to the truth when he says that Lycurgus
"is the founder of a warlike brotherhood rather than the lawgiver of a
political community." To him we may attribute the unification of the
several component parts of the state, the strict military organization
and training which soon made the Spartan hoplite the best soldier in
Greece, and above all the elaborate and rigid system of education which
rested upon, and in turn proved the strongest support of, that
subordination of the individual to the state which perhaps has had no
parallel in the history of the world.
Lycurgus's legislation is very variously dated, and it is not possible
either to harmonize the traditions or to decide with confidence between
them. B. Niese (_Hermes_, xlii. 440 sqq.) assigns him to the first half
of the 7th century B.C. Aristotle read Lycurgus's name, together with
that of Iphitus, on the discus at Olympia which bore the terms of the
sacred truce, but even if the genuineness of the document and the
identity of this Lycurgus with the Spartan reformer be granted, it is
uncertain whether the discus belongs to the so-called first Olympiad,
776 B.C., or to an earlier date. Most traditions place Lycurgus in the
9th century: Thucydides, whom Grote follows, dates his reforms shortly
before 804, Isocrates and Ephorus go back to 869, and the chronographers
are divided between 821, 828 and 834 B.C. Finally, according to a
tradition recorded by Xenophon (_Resp. Laced_. x. 8), he was
contemporary with the Heraclidae, in which case he would belong to the
10th century B.C.
AUTHORITIES.--Our chief ancient authorities, besides Plutarch's
biography, are:--Herodotus i. 65; Xenophon, _Respublica
Lacedaemoniorum_; Ephorus _ap_. Strabo x. 481, 482; Aristotle,
_Politics_, ii.; Pausanias iii. and v. 4; and scattered passages in
Plato, Isocrates, Polybius, Diodorus, Polyaenus, &c. Of modern works
the most important are: E. Meyer, "Lykurgos von Sparta," in
_Forschungen zur alten Geschichte_ (Halle, 1892), i. 211 sqq.; A.
Kopstadt, _De rerum Laconicarum constitutionis Lycurgeae origine et
indole_ (Greifswald, 1849); H. K. Stein, _Kritik der Überlieferung
über den spartanischen Gesetzgeber Lykurg_ (Glatz, 1882); S. Wide,
"Bemerkungen zur spartanischen Lykurglegende," in _Skand_. _Archiv_.
i. (1891), 90 sqq.; E. Nusselt, _Das Lykurgproblem_ (Erlangen, 1898);
H. Bazin, _De Lycurgo_ (Paris, 1885); C. Reuss, _De Lycurgea quae
fertur agrorum divisione_ (Pforzheim, 1878); A. Busson, _Lykurgos und
die grosse Rhetra_ (Innsbruck, 1887); H. Gelzer, "Lykurg und die
delphische Priesterschaft" in _Rhein_. _Mus_. xxviii. 1 sqq.; F.
Winicker, _Stand der Lykurgischen Frage_ (Graudenz, 1884); G.
Attinger, _Essai sur Lycurgue et ses institutions_ (Neuchâtel, 1892);
the general Greek histories, and the works on the Spartan constitution
cited under SPARTA. (M. N. T.)
LYCURGUS (c. 396-325 B.C.), one of the "ten" Attic orators. Through
his father, Lycophron, he belonged to the old Attic priestly family of
the Eteobutadae. He is said to have been a pupil both of Plato and of
Isocrates. His early career is unknown, but after the real character of
the struggle with Philip of Macedon became manifest he was recognized,
with Demosthenes and Hypereides, as one of the chiefs of the national
party. He left the care of external relations to his colleagues, and
devoted himself to internal organization and finance. He managed the
finances of Athens for twelve successive years (338-326), at first
directly as treasurer of the revenues ([Greek: ho hepi te dioikesei])
for four years, and in two succeeding terms, when the actual office was
forbidden him by law, through his son and a nominal official chosen from
his party. Part of one of the deeds in which he rendered account of his
term of office is still preserved in an inscription. During this time he
raised the public income from 600 to 1200 talents yearly. He increased
the navy, repaired the dockyards, and completed an arsenal, the [Greek:
skeuotheke] designed by the architect Philo. He was also appointed to
various other offices connected with the preservation and improvement of
the city. He was very strict in his superintendence of the public
morals, and passed a sumptuary law to restrain extravagance. He did much
to beautify the city; he reconstructed the great Dionysiac theatre and
the gymnasium in the Lyceum, and erected the Panathenaic stadium on the
Ilissus. He is mentioned as the proposer of five laws, of which the most
famous was that statues of the three great tragedians should be erected
in the theatre, and that their works should be carefully edited and
preserved among the state archives. For his services he was honoured
with crowns, statues and a seat in the town hall; and after his death
his friend Stratocles drew up a decree (still extant in pseudo-Plutarch,
_Vit. dec. orat._ p. 851; see also E. L. Hicks, _Greek Historical
Inscriptions_, 1st ed., No. 145), ordering the erection of a statue of
bronze to Lycurgus, and granting the honours of the Prytaneum to his
eldest son. He was one of the orators whose surrender was demanded by
Alexander the Great, but the people refused to give him up. He died
while president of the theatre of Dionysus, and was buried on the road
leading to the Academy at the expense of the state.
Lycurgus was a man of action; his orations, of which fifteen were
published, are criticized by the ancients for their awkward arrangement,
harshness of style, and the tendency to digressions about mythology and
history, although their noble spirit and lofty morality are highly
praised. The one extant example, _Against Leocrates_, fully bears out
this criticism. After the battle of Chaeroneia (338), in spite of the
decree which forbade emigration under pain of death, Leocrates had fled
from Athens. On his return (probably about 332) he was impeached by
Lycurgus, but acquitted, the votes of the judges being equally divided.
The speech has been frequently edited. Editio princeps (Aldine, 1513);
F. G. Kiessling (1847) with M. H. E. Meier's commentary on
pseudo-Plutarch's _Life of Lycurgus_ and the fragments of his
speeches; C. Rehdantz (1876); T. Thalheim (1880); C. Scheibe (1885);
F. Blass (ed. major, 1889), with bibliography of editions and articles
(ed. minor, 1902); E. Sofer (Leipzig, 1905), with notes and introd.
There is an index to Andocides, Lycurgus and Dinarchus by L. L. Forman
(Oxford, 1897). The exhaustive treatise of F. Dürrbach, _L'Orateur
Lycurgue_ (1890), contains a list of the most important review
articles on the financial and naval administration of Lycurgus and on
his public works; see also C. Droege, _De Lycurgo publicarum
pecuniarum administratore_ (Minden, 1880). Several fragments of his
various laws have been preserved in inscriptions (_Corpus
inscriptionum atticarum_, ii. 162, 163, 173, 176, 180). On the history
of the period see authorities under DEMOSTHENES.
LYCURGUS, "THE LOGOTHETE" (1772-1851), Greek leader in the War of
Independence, was born in the island of Samos. He was educated at
Constantinople, received the usual training, and followed the customary
career of a Phanariot Greek. He accompanied Constantine Ypsilanti when
he was appointed hospodar of Walachia, as secretary, and served
Ypsilanti's successor, Alexander Soutzos, as treasurer and chancellor
(Logothete). In 1802 he returned to Samos, and having become suspected
by the Turkish government was imprisoned. He fled to Smyrna, when he was
pardoned and released by the Turks. When the War of Independence began
he induced his countrymen to declare Samos independent, and was chosen
ruler. His share in the War of Independence is chiefly memorable because
he provoked the massacre of Chios in 1822. Lycurgus conducted an
expedition of 2500 to that island, which was held by a Turkish garrison
under Velna Pasha. His force was insufficient, the time was ill-chosen,
for a strong Turkish fleet was at sea, and Lycurgus displayed utter
incapacity as a military leader. After these events, he was deposed by
the Samians, but recovered some influence and had a share in the defence
of Samos against the Turks in 1824. When the island was left under the
authority of Turkey by the protocol of the 3rd of February 1830, he
helped to obtain autonomy for the Samians. He retired to Greece and died
on the 22nd of May 1851.
See G. Finlay, _History of the Greek Revolution_ (London, 1861).
LYDD, a market town and municipal borough in the southern parliamentary
division of Kent, England, 71½ m. S.E. by E. of London by a branch of
the South-Eastern & Chatham railway. Pop. (1901) 2675. It lies in the
open lowland of Dunge Marsh. To the south-east are the bare shingle
banks of the promontory of Dungeness. Its church of All Saints has a
beautiful Perpendicular tower with rich vaulting within. The
neighbourhood affords pasture for large flocks of sheep. On the land
known as the Rypes, in the neighbourhood, there is a military camp, with
artillery and rifle ranges; hence the name given to the explosive
"lyddite." The town is governed by a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12
councillors. Area, 12,043 acres.
The first settlement at Lydd (Hlide, Lide, Lyde) was probably due to its
convenience as a fishing-station. After the Conquest it became a seaport
of some consequence and although now, owing to the alteration of the
coast, it stands nearly 3 m. inland a number of its inhabitants are
still fishermen. In 774 land in Lydd was granted by Offa to the monks of
Christ Church, Canterbury, and the archbishop of Canterbury evidently
held the lordship of the town from an early date. At some time before
the reign of Edward I. Lydd was made a member of the Cinque Port of
Romney, and in 1290 was granted the same liberties and free customs as
the Cinque Ports on condition of aiding the service of its head-port to
the crown with one ship. This charter was confirmed by Edward III. in
1365. The corporation also possesses documents of 1154, 1399 and 1413,
granting to the archbishop's men of Lydd the privileges enjoyed by the
Cinque Ports and confirming all former privileges. Lydd is called a
borough in the Hundred Rolls. Its incorporation under a bailiff, of
which there is evidence in the 15th century, may have been due to the
archbishop or to the court of Shepway, but it was not incorporated by
the crown until 1885, when, by a charter under the Municipal Acts, the
last bailiff was elected the first mayor. In 1494 a grant was made to
the bailiff, jurats and commonalty of a yearly fair on the 12th of July
and two days following. A fair was held under this grant until 1874.
LYDENBURG, a town and district of the Transvaal, South Africa. The town
is 60 m. by rail N.N.E. of Belfast on the Pretoria-Delagoa Bay railway.
Pop. (1904) 1523. It is picturesquely situated on the Spekboom tributary
of the Olifants river at an altitude of 4900 ft. Some 15 m. E. is the
Mauchberg (8725 ft.), the highest point in the Transvaal. The town is
the chief centre for the Lydenburg goldfields. Next to Lydenburg the
most important settlement in these goldfields is Pilgrim's Rest, pop.
(1904) 1188, 23 m. N.E. of Lydenburg. Lydenburg (the town of suffering)
was founded in 1846 by Boers who two years previously had established
themselves farther north at Ohrigstad, which they abandoned on account
of the fever endemic there. Lydenburg at once became the capital of a
district (of the same name) which then embraced all the eastern part of
the Transvaal. In 1856 the Boers of Lydenburg separated from their
brethren and proclaimed an independent republic, which was, however,
incorporated with the South African Republic in 1860. The discovery of
gold near the town was made in 1869, and in 1873 the first successful
goldfield in the Transvaal was opened here. It was not until 1910,
however, that Lydenburg was placed in railway communication with the
rest of the country. The present district of Lydenburg consists of the
north-east and central parts of the original district. In the Lulu
Mountains, a spur of the Drakensberg, and some 40 m. N.W. of Lydenburg,
was the stronghold of the Kaffir chief Sikukuni, whose conflict with the
Boers in 1876 was one of the causes which led to the annexation of the
Transvaal by Great Britain in 1877. (See TRANSVAAL: _History_.)
LYDFORD, or LIDFORD, a village, once an important town, in the western
parliamentary division of Devonshire, England, near the western confines
of Dartmoor, 27 m. N. of Plymouth by the London & South-Western railway.
From its Perpendicular church of St Petrock fine views of the Dartmoor
tors are seen. The village stands on the small river Lyd, which
traverses a deep narrow chasm, crossed by a bridge of single span; and
at a little distance a tributary stream forms a cascade in an exquisite
glen. Close to the church are slight remains of the castle of Lydford.
Lydford (_Lideford_) was one of the four Saxon boroughs of Devon, and
possessed a mint in the days of Aethelred the Unready. It first appears
in recorded history in 997, when the Danes made a plundering expedition
up the Tamar and Tavy as far as "Hlidaforda." In the reign of Edward the
Confessor it was the most populous centre in Devonshire after Exeter,
but the Domesday Survey relates that forty houses had been laid waste
since the Conquest, and the town never recovered its former prosperity;
the history from the 13th century centres round the castle, which is
first mentioned in 1216, when it was granted to William Briwere, and was
shortly afterwards fixed as the prison of the stannaries and the
meeting-place of the Forest Courts of Dartmoor. A gild at Lideford is
mentioned in 1180, and the pipe roll of 1195 records a grant for the
reestablishment of the market. In 1238 the borough, which had hitherto
been crown demesne, was bestowed by Henry III. on Richard, earl of
Cornwall, who in 1268 obtained a grant of a Wednesday market and a three
days' fair at the feast of St Petrock. The borough had a separate
coroner and bailiff in 1275, but it was never incorporated by charter,
and only once, in 1300, returned members to parliament. Lydford prison
is described in 1512 as "one of the most hainous, contagious and
detestable places in the realm," and "Lydford Law" was a by-word for
injustice. At the time of the Commonwealth the castle was entirely in
ruins, but in the 18th century it was restored and again used as a
prison and as the meeting-place of the manor and borough courts.
LYDGATE, JOHN (c. 1370-c. 1451), English poet, was born at the village
of Lydgate, some 6 or 7 m. from Newmarket. It is, however, with the
Benedictine abbey of Bury St Edmunds that he is chiefly associated.
Probably he was educated at the school attached to the monastery, and in
his _Testament_ he has drawn a lively picture of himself as a typical
orchard-robbing boy, who had scant relish for matins, fought, and threw
creed and paternoster at the cock. He was ordained sub-deacon in 1389,
deacon in 1393, and priest in 1397. These dates are valuable as enabling
us to fix approximately the date of his birth, which must have occurred
somewhere about 1370. Lydgate passed as a portent of learning, and,
according to Bale, he pursued his studies not only at both the English
universities but in France and Italy. Koeppel (see _Laurents de
Premierfait und John Lydgates Bearbeitungen von Boccaccios De Casibus_,
Munich, 1885) has thrown much doubt on this statement as regards Italy,
but Lydgate knew France and visited Paris in an official capacity in
1426. Bale is also the authority for another assertion that figures in
what has been aptly termed the poet's "traditional biography," viz. that
Lydgate, on completing his own education, kept school for the sons of
noblemen and gentlemen. This "traditional biography" prolongs his life
to the year 1461, but it is quite improbable that he lived many years
after 1446, when Abbot Curteys died and John Baret, treasurer of Bury,
signed an extant receipt for a pension which he shared with Lydgate, and
which continued to be paid till 1449. If it be true, as Bishop Alcock of
Ely affirms, that Lydgate wrote a poem on the loss of France and
Gascony, it seems necessary to suppose that he lived two years longer,
and thus indications point to the year 1451, or thereabouts, as the date
of his death.
Lydgate had a consuming passion for literature, and it was probably that
he might indulge this taste more fully that in 1434 he retired from the
priorate of Hatfield Broadoak (or Hatfield Regis), to which he had been
appointed in June 1423. After 1390--but whilst he was still a young
man--he made the acquaintance of Geoffrey Chaucer, with whose son
Thomas he was on terms of considerable intimacy. This friendship appears
to have decided Lydgate's career, and in his _Troy-book_ and elsewhere
are reverent and touching tributes to his "master." The passages in
question do not exaggerate his obligations to the "well of English." The
themes of all his more ambitious poems can be traced to Chaucerian
sources. _The Story of Thebes_, for instance, was doubtless suggested by
the "romance" which Cressida and her companions are represented as
reading when interrupted by Pandarus (_Troilus and Cressida_, II.
xii.-xvi.). The _Falls of Princes_, again, is merely the _Monk's Tale_
"writ large."
Lydgate is a most voluminous writer. The _Falls of Princes_ alone
comprises 7000 stanzas; and his authentic compositions reach the
enormous total of 150,000 lines. Cursed with such immoderate fluency
Lydgate could not sustain himself at the highest level of artistic
excellence; and, though imbued with a sense of the essentials of poetry,
and eager to prove himself in its various manifestations, he stinted
himself of the self-discipline necessary to perfection of form. As the
result the bulk of his composition is wholly or comparatively
rough-hewn. That he was capable of better work than is suggested by his
average accomplishment is shown by two allegorical poems--the _Complaint
of the Black Knight_ and the _Temple of Glass_ (once attributed to
Hawes). In these he reveals himself as a not unworthy successor of
Chaucer, and the pity of it is that he should have squandered his powers
in a futile attempt to create an entire literature. For a couple of
centuries Lydgate's reputation equalled, if it did not surpass, that of
his master. This was in a sense only natural, since he was the real
founder of the school of which Stephen Hawes was a distinguished
ornament, and which "held the field" in English letters during the long
and dreary interval between Chaucer and Spenser. One of the most obvious
defects of this school is excessive attachment to polysyllabic terms.
Lydgate is not quite so great a sinner in this respect as are some of
his successors, but his tendency cannot be mistaken, and John Metham is
amply justified in his censure--
Eke John Lydgate, sometime monk of Bury,
His books indited with terms of rhetoric
And half-changed Latin, with conceits of poetry.
Pedantry was an inevitable effect of the early Renaissance. French
literature passed through the same phase, from which indeed it was later
in emerging; and the ultimate consequence was the enrichment of both
languages. It must be conceded as no small merit in Lydgate that, in an
age of experiment he should have succeeded so often in hitting the right
word. Thomas Warton remarks on his lucidity. Since his writings are read
more easily than Chaucer's, the inference is plain--that he was more
effectual as a maker of our present English. In spite of that, Lydgate
is characteristically medieval--medieval in his prolixity, his
platitude, his want of judgment and his want of taste; medieval also in
his pessimism, his Mariolatry and his horror of death. These attributes
jarred on the sensitive Ritson, who racked his brains for contumelious
epithets such as "stupid and disgusting," "cart-loads of rubbish," &c.;
and during the greater part of the 18th and 19th centuries Lydgate's
reputation was at its lowest ebb. Recent criticism has been far more
impartial, and almost too much respect has been paid to his attainments,
especially in the matter of metre, though Lydgate himself, with
offensive lightheartedness, admits his poor craftsmanship.
Lydgate's most doughty and learned apologist is Dr Schick, whose
preface to the _Temple of Glass_ embodies practically all that is known
or conjectured concerning this author, including the chronological
order of his works. With the exception of the _Damage and Destruction
in Realms_--an account of Julius Caesar, his wars and his death--they
are all in verse and extremely multifarious--narrative, devotional
hagiological, philosophical and scientific, allegorical and moral,
historical, satirical and occasional. The _Troy-book_, undertaken at
the command of Henry V., then prince of Wales, dates from 1412-1420;
the _Story of Thebes_ from 1420-1422; and the _Falls of Princes_
towards 1430. His latest work was _Secreta Secretorum_ or _Secrets of
Old Philosophers_, rhymed extracts from a pseudo-Aristotelian treatise.
Lydgate certainly possessed extraordinary versatility, which enabled
him to turn from elaborate epics to quite popular poems like the
_Mumming at Hertford_, _A Ditty of Women's Horns_ and _London
Lickpenny_. The humour of this last is especially bright and effective,
but, unluckily for the author, the piece is believed to have been
retouched by some other hand. The longer efforts partake of the nature
of translations from sundry medieval compilations like those of Guido
di Colonna and Boccaccio, which are in Latin.
See publications of the Early English Text Society, especially the
_Temple of Glass_, edited by Dr Schick; Koeppel's _Lydgate's Story of
Thebes, eine Quellenuntersuchung_ (Munich, 1884), and the same
scholar's _Laurents de Premierfait und John Lydgates Bearbeitungen von
Boccaccios De Casibus Illustrium Virorum_ (Munich, 1885); Warton's
_History of English Poetry_; Ritson's _Bibliotheca Anglo-Poética_;
Furnivall's _Political Poems_ (E. E. T. S.); and Sidney Lee's article
in the _Dict. Nat. Biog._ (F. J. S.)
LYDIA, in ancient geography, a district of Asia Minor, the boundaries of
which it is difficult to fix, partly because they varied at different
epochs. The name is first found under the form of _Luddi_ in the
inscriptions of the Assyrian king Assur-bani-pal, who received tribute
from Gyges about 660 B.C. In Homer we read only of Maeonians (_Il_. ii.
865, v. 43, x. 431), and the place of the Lydian capital Sardis is taken
by Hyde (_Il_. xx. 385), unless this was the name of the district in
which Sardis stood (see Strabo xiii. p. 626).[1] The earliest Greek
writer who mentions the name is Mimnermus of Colophon, in the 37th
Olympiad. According to Herodotus (i. 7), the Meiones (called Maeones by
other writers) were named Lydians after Lydus, the son of Attis, in the
mythical epoch which preceded the rise of the Heraclid dynasty. In
historical times the Maeones were a tribe inhabiting the district of the
upper Hermus, where a town called Maeonia existed (Pliny, _N.H._ v. 30;
Hierocles, p. 670). The Lydians must originally have been an allied
tribe which bordered upon them to the north-west, and occupied the plain
of Sardis or Magnesia at the foot of Tmolus and Sipylus. They were cut
off from the sea by the Greeks, who were in possession, not only of the
Bay of Smyrna, but also of the country north of Sipylus as far as Temnus
in the pass (_boghaz_), through which the Hermus forces its way from the
plain of Magnesia into its lower valley.[2] In a Homeric epigram the
ridge north of the Hermus, on which the ruins of Temnus lie, is called
Sardene. Northward the Lydians extended at least as far as the Gygaean
Lake (Lake Coloe, mod. Mermereh), and the Sardene range (mod. Dumanli
Dagh). The plateau of the Bin Bir Tepe, on the southern shore of the
Gygaean Lake, was the chief burial-place of the inhabitants of Sardis,
and is still thickly studded with tumuli, among which is the "tomb of
Alyattes" (260 ft. high). Next to Sardis the chief city was Magnesia ad
Sipylum (q.v.), in the neighbourhood of which is the famous seated
figure of "Niobe" (_Il_. xxiv. 614-617), cut out of the rock, and
probably intended to represent the goddess Cybele, to which the Greeks
attached their legend of Niobe. According to Pliny (v. 31), Tantalis,
afterwards swallowed up by earthquake in the pool Sale or Saloe, was the
ancient name of Sipylus and "the capital of Maeonia" (Paus. vii. 24;
Strabo xii. 579). Under the Heraclid dynasty the limits of Lydia must
have been already extended, since according to Strabo (xiii. 590), the
authority of Gyges reached as far as the Troad. Under the Mermnads Lydia
became a maritime as well as an inland power. The Greek cities were
conquered, and the coast of Ionia included within the Lydian kingdom.
The successes of Alyattes and of Croesus finally changed the Lydian
kingdom into a Lydian empire, and all Asia Minor westward of the Halys,
except Lycia, owned the supremacy of Sardis. Lydia never again shrank
back into its original dimensions. After the Persian conquest the
Maeander was regarded as its southern boundary, and in the Roman period
it comprised the country between Mysia and Caria on the one side and
Phrygia and the Aegean on the other.
Lydia proper was exceedingly fertile. The hill-sides were clothed with
vine and fir, and the rich broad plain of Hermus produced large
quantities of corn and saffron. The climate of the plain was soft but
healthy, though the country was subject to frequent earthquakes. The
Pactolus, which flowed from the fountain of Tarne in the Tmolus
mountains, through the centre of Sardis, into the Hermus, was believed
to be full of golden sand; and gold mines were worked in Tmolus itself,
though by the time of Strabo the proceeds had become so small as hardly
to pay for the expense of working them (Strabo xiii. 591). Maeonia on
the east contained the curious barren plateau known to the Greeks as the
Katakekaumene ("Burnt country"), once a centre of volcanic disturbance.
The Gygaean lake (where remains of pile dwellings have been found) still
abounds with carp.
Herodotus (i. 171) tells us that Lydus was a brother of Mysus and Car.
The statement is on the whole borne out by the few Lydian, Mysian and
Carian words that have been preserved, as well as by the general
character of the civilization prevailing among the three nations. The
race was probably a mixed one, consisting of aborigines and Aryan
immigrants. It was characterized by industry and a commercial spirit,
and, before the Persian conquest, by bravery. The religion of the
Lydians resembled that of the other civilized nations of Asia Minor. It
was a nature worship, which at times became wild and sensuous. By the
side of the supreme god Medeus stood the sun-god Attis, as in Phrygia
the chief object of the popular cult. He was at once the son and
bridegroom of Cybele (q.v.) or Cybebe, the mother of the gods, whose
image carved by Broteas, son of Tantalus, was adored on the cliffs of
Sipylus (Paus. iii. 22). The cult may have been brought westward by the
Hittites who have left memorials of themselves in the pseudo-Sesostris
figures of Kara-bel (between Sardis and Ephesus) as well as in the
figure of the Mother-goddess, the so-called Niobe. At Ephesus, where she
was adored under the form of a meteoric stone, she was identified with
the Greek Artemis (see also GREAT MOTHER OF THE GODS). Her mural crown
is first seen in the Hittite sculptures of Boghaz Keui (see PTERIA and
HITTITES) on the Halys. The priestesses by whom she was served are
depicted in early art as armed with the double-headed axe, and the
dances they performed in her honour with shield and bow gave rise to the
myths which saw in them the Amazons, a nation of woman-warriors. The
pre-Hellenic cities of the coast--Smyrna, Samorna (Ephesus), Myrina,
Cyme, Priene and Pitane--were all of Amazonian origin, and the first
three of them have the same name as the Amazon Myrina, whose tomb was
pointed out in the Troad. The prostitution whereby the Lydian girls
gained their dowries (Herod, i. 93) was a religious exercise, as among
the Semites, which marked their devotion to the goddess Cybele. In the
legend of Heracles, Omphale takes the place of Cybele, and was perhaps
her Lydian title. Heracles is here the sun-god Attis in a new form; his
Lydian name is unknown, since E. Meyer has shown (_Zeitschr. d. Morg.
Gesell._ xxxi. 4) that Sandon belongs not to Lydia but to Cilicia. By
the side of Attis stood Manes or Men, identified later with the
Moon-god.
According to the native historian Xanthus (460 B.C.) three dynasties
ruled in succession over Lydia. The first, that of the Attiads, is
mythical. It was headed by a god, and included geographical personages
like Lydus, Asies and Meies, or such heroes of folk-lore as Cambletes,
who devoured his wife. To this mythical age belongs the colony which,
according to Herodotus (i. 94), Tyrsenus, the son of Attis, led to
Etruria. Xanthus, however, puts Torrhebus in the place of Tyrsenus, and
makes him the eponym of a district in Lydia. It is doubtful whether
Xanthus recognized the Greek legends which brought Pelops from Lydia, or
rather Maeonia, and made him the son of Tantalus. The second dynasty was
also of divine origin, but the names which head it prove its connexion
with the distant East. Its founder, a descendant of Heracles and
Omphale, was, Herodotus tells us (i. 7), a son of Ninus and grandson of
Belus. The Assyrian inscriptions have shown that the Assyrians had never
crossed the Halys, much less known the name of Lydia, before the age of
Assur-bani-pal, and consequently the theory which brought the Heraclids
from Nineveh must be given up. But the Hittites, another Oriental
people, deeply imbued with the elements of Babylonian culture, had
overrun Asia Minor and established themselves on the shores of the
Aegean before the reign of the Egyptian king Rameses II.
The subject allies who then fight under their banners include the Masu
or Mysians and the Dardani of the Troad, while the Hittites have left
memorials in Lydia. G. Dennis discovered an inscription in Hittite
hieroglyphics attached to the figure of "Niobe" on Sipylus, and a
similar inscription accompanies the figure (in which Herodotus, ii. 106,
wished to see Sesostris or Rameses II.) in the pass of Karabel. We learn
from Eusebius that Sardis was first captured by the Cimmerii 1078 B.C.;
and since it was four centuries later before the real Cimmerii (q.v.)
appeared on the horizon of history, we may perhaps find in the statement
a tradition of the Hittite conquest. As the authority of the Hittite
satraps at Sardis began to decay the Heraclid dynasty arose. According
to Xanthus, Sadyattes and Lixus were the successors of Tylon the son of
Omphale. After lasting five hundred and five years, the dynasty came to
an end in the person of Sadyattes, as he is called by Nicolas of
Damascus, whose account is doubtless derived from Xanthus. The name
Candaules, given him by Herodotus, meant "dog strangler" and was a title
of the Lydian Hermes. Gyges (q.v.) put him to death and established the
dynasty of the Mermnads, 687 B.C. Gyges initiated a new policy, that of
making Lydia a maritime power; but towards the middle of his reign the
kingdom was overrun by the Cimmerii. The lower town of Sardis was taken,
and Gyges sent tribute to Assur-bani-pal, as well as two Cimmerian
chieftains he had himself captured in battle. A few years later Gyges
joined in the revolt against Assyria, and the Ionic and Carian
mercenaries he despatched to Egypt enabled Psammetichus to make himself
independent. Assyria, however, was soon avenged. The Cimmerian hordes
returned, Gyges was slain in battle (652 B.C.), and Ardys his son and
successor returned to his allegiance to Nineveh. The second capture of
Sardis on this occasion was alluded to by Callisthenes (Strabo xiii.
627). Alyattes, the grandson of Ardys, finally succeeded in extirpating
the Cimmerii, as well as in taking Smyrna, and thus providing his
kingdom with a port. The trade and wealth of Lydia rapidly increased,
and the Greek towns fell one after the other before the attacks of the
Lydian kings. Alyattes's long reign of fifty-seven years saw the
foundation of the Lydian empire. All Asia Minor west of the Halys
acknowledged his sway, and the six years' contest he carried on with the
Medes was closed by the marriage of his daughter Aryenis to Astyages.
The Greek cities were allowed to retain their own institutions and
government on condition of paying taxes and dues to the Lydian monarch,
and the proceeds of their commerce thus flowed into the imperial
exchequer. The result was that the king of Lydia became the richest
prince of his age. Alyattes was succeeded by Croesus (q.v.), who had
probably already for some years shared the royal power with his father,
or perhaps grandfather, as V. Floigl thinks (_Geschichte des semitischen
Alterthums_, p. 20). He reigned alone only fifteen years, Cyrus the
Persian, after an indecisive battle on the Halys, marching upon Sardis,
and capturing both acropolis and monarch (546 B.C.). The place where the
acropolis was entered was believed to have been overlooked by the
mythical Meles when he carried the lion round his fortress to make it
invulnerable; it was really a path opened by one of the landslips, which
have reduced the sandstone cliff of the acropolis to a mere shell, and
threaten to carry it altogether into the plain below. The revolt of the
Lydians under Pactyas, whom Cyrus had appointed to collect the taxes,
caused the Persian king to disarm them, though we can hardly credit the
statement that by this measure their warlike spirit was crushed. Sardis
now became the western capital of the Persian empire, and its burning by
the Athenians was the indirect cause of the Persian War. After Alexander
the Great's death, Lydia passed to Antigonus; then Achaeus made himself
king at Sardis, but was defeated and put to death by Antiochus. The
country was presented by the Romans to Eumenes, and subsequently formed
part of the proconsular province of Asia. By the time of Strabo (xiii.
631) its old language was entirely supplanted by Greek.
The Lydian empire may be described as the industrial power of the
ancient world. The Lydians were credited with being the inventors, not
only of games such as dice, huckle-bones and ball (Herod, i. 94), but
also of coined money. The oldest known coins are the electrum coins of
the earlier Mermnads (Madden, _Coins of the Jews_, pp. 19-21), stamped
on one side with a lion's head or the figure of a king with bow and
quiver; these were replaced by Croesus with a coinage of pure gold and
silver. To the latter monarch were probably due the earliest gold
coins of Ephesus (Head, _Coinage of Ephesus_, p. 16). The electrum
coins of Lydia were of two kinds, one weighing 168.4 grains for the
inland trade, and another of 224 grains for the trade with Ionia. The
standard was the silver mina of Carchemish (as the Assyrians called
it) which contained 8656 grains. Originally derived by the Hittites
from Babylonia, but modified by themselves, this standard was passed
on to the nations of Asia Minor during the period of Hittite conquest,
but was eventually superseded by the Phoenician mina of 11,225 grains,
and continued to survive only in Cyprus and Cilicia (see also
NUMISMATICS). The inns, which the Lydians were said to have been the
first to establish (Herod. i. 94), were connected with their attention
to commercial pursuits. Their literature has wholly perished. They
were celebrated for their music and gymnastic exercises, and their art
formed a link between that of Asia Minor and that of Greece. R.
Heberdey's excavations at Ephesus since 1896, like those of D. G.
Hogarth in 1905, belong to the history of Greek and not native art.
The ivory figures, however, found by Hogarth on the level of the
earliest temple of Artemis show Asiatic influence, and resemble the
so-called "Phoenician" ivories from the palace of Sargon at Calah
(Nimrud). For a description of a pectoral of white gold, ornamented
with the heads of animals, human faces and the figure of a goddess,
discovered in a tomb on Tmolus, see _Academy_, January 15, 1881, p.
45. Lydian sculpture was probably similar to that of the Phrygians.
Phallic emblems, for averting evil, were plentiful; the summit of the
tomb of Alyattes is crowned with an enormous one of stone, about 9 ft.
in diameter. The tumulus itself is 281 yds. in diameter and about half
a mile in circumference. It has been partially excavated by G.
Spiegelthal and G. Dennis, and a sepulchral chamber discovered in the
middle, composed of large well-cut and highly polished blocks of
marble, the chamber being 11 ft. long, nearly 8 ft. broad and 7 ft.
high. Nothing was found in it except a few ashes and a broken vase of
Egyptian alabaster. The stone basement which, according to Herodotus,
formerly surrounded the mound has disappeared.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--A. von Ölfers, _Über die lydischen Königsgräber bei
Sardes_ (1858); H. Gelzer in the _Rheinisches Museum_ (1874); R.
Schubert, _Geschichte der Könige von Lydien_ (1884); G. Perrot and C.
Chipiez, _Histoire de l'art dans l'antiquite_, v. (1890); O. Radet,
_La Lydie et le monde grec au temps des Mermnades_ (1893); G. Maspero,
_Dawn of Civilization_, pp. 232-301 (1892) and _Passing of the
Empires_, pp. 339, 388, 603-621 (1900); J. Keil and A. von
Premerstein, _Bericht über eine Reise in Lydien_ (1908). (A. H. S.)