After baptism, St. Lucius abdicated, and became a missionary in Switzerland, where he died a martyr’s death.
Lucius (Caius), general of the Roman forces in Britain, in the reign of king Cym´beline (3 syl.).—Shakespeare, Cymbeline (1605).
Lucius Tiberius, general of the Roman army, who wrote to King Arthur, commanding him to appear at Rome to make satisfaction for the conquests he had made, and to receive such punishment as the senate might think proper to pass on him. This letter induced Arthur to declare war with Rome. So, committing the care of government to his nephew Modred, he marched to Lyonaise (in Gaul), where he won a complete victory, and left Lucius dead on the field. He now started for Rome; but being told that Modred had usurped the crown, he hastened back to Britain, and fought the great battle of the West, where he received his death wound from the hand of Modred.—Geoffrey, British History, ix. 15-20; x (1142).
Great Arthur did advance
To meet, with his allies, that puissant force in France
By Lucius thither led.
Drayton, Polyolbion, iv. (1612).
Luck of Roaring Camp. A baby born in a mining-camp, loses his mother in the first hour of his life, and is adopted by “the boys.” A run of success having followed mining operations since his birth, he is named “Luck.” His cabin is kept clean, a rosewood cradle brought fifty miles for his use, “the boys” take turns in holding him, and must be clean before they can do it. He is taken daily up the “gulch,” to be in the shade while they work, but “Kentuck” is his chief guardian. One night a freshet carries off Kentuck’s hut, the owner and “The Luck.” Man and baby are picked up below; the child is dead, the man dying, “He’s a takin’ me with him. Tell the boys I’ve got ‘The Luck’ with me now!” and the strong man clinging to the frail babe as a drowning man is said to cling to a straw, drifted away with the shadowy river that flows forever to the unknown sea.—Bret Harte, The Luck of Roaring Camp (1870).
Lucre´tia, daughter of Spurius Lucretius, prefect of Rome, and wife of Tarquinius Collati´nus. She was dishonored by Sextus, the son of Tarquinius Superbus. Having avowed her dishonor in the presence of her father, her husband, Junius Brutus, and some others, she stabbed herself.
This subject has been dramatized in French by Ant. Vincent Arnault, in a tragedy called Lucrèce (1792); and by François Ponsard in 1843. In English, by Thomas Heywood, in a tragedy entitled The Rape of Lucrece (1630); by Nathaniel Lee, entitled Lucius Junius Brutus (seventeenth century); and by John H. Payne, entitled Brutus or the Fall of Tarquin (1820). Shakespeare selected the same subject for his poem entitled The Rape of Lucrece (1594).