Lyæus, a surname of Bacchus. It is derived from λυειν, solvere, because wine, over which Bacchus presides, gives freedom to the mind, and delivers it from all cares and melancholy. Horace, epode 9.—Lucan, bk. 1, li. 675.
Lybas, one of the companions of Ulysses, &c.
Lybya, or Lybissa, a small village of Bithynia, where Annibal was buried.
Lycăbas, an Etrurian who had been banished from his country for murder. He was one of those who offered violence to Bacchus, and who were changed into dolphins. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 4, li. 624.——One of the Lapithæ who ran away from the battle which was fought at the nuptials of Pirithous. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 12, li. 302.
Lycabētus, a mountain of Attica, near Athens. Statius.
Lycæa, festivals in Arcadia, in honour of Pan the god of shepherds. They are the same as the Lupercalia of the Romans.——A festival at Argos in honour of Apollo Lycæus, who delivered the Argives from wolves, &c.
Lycæum, a celebrated place near the banks of the Ilissus in Attica. It was in this pleasant and salubrious spot that Aristotle taught philosophy, and as he generally instructed his pupils in walking, they were called Peripatetics, ἀ περιπατεω, ambulo. The philosopher continued his instructions for 12 years, till, terrified by the false accusations of Eurymedon, he was obliged to fly to Chalcis.
Lycæus, a mountain of Arcadia, sacred to Jupiter, where a temple was built in honour of the god by Lycaon the son of Pelasgus. It was also sacred to Pan, whose festivals, called Lycæa, were celebrated there. Virgil, Georgics, bk. 1, li. 16; Æneid, bk. 8, li. 343.—Strabo, bk. 8.—Horace, bk. 1, ode 17, li. 2.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 1, li. 698.
Ly̆cambes, the father of Neobule. He promised his daughter in marriage to the poet Archilochus, and afterwards refused to fulfil his engagement when she had been courted by a man whose opulence had more influence than the fortune of the poet. This irritated Archilochus; he wrote a bitter invective against Lycambes and his daughter, and rendered them both so desperate by the satire of his composition, that they hanged themselves. Horace, epode 6, li. 13.—Ovid, Ibis, li. 52.—Aristotle, Rhetoric, bk. 3.
Ly̆cāon, the first king of Arcadia, son of Pelasgus and Melibœa. He built a town called Lycosura on the top of mount Lycæus, in honour of Jupiter. He had many wives, by whom he had a daughter called Callisto, and 50 sons. He was succeeded on the throne by Nyctimus, the eldest of his sons. He lived about 1820 years before the christian era. Apollodorus, bk. 3.—Hyginus, fable 176.—Catullus, poem 76.—Pausanias, bk. 8, ch. 2, &c.——Another king of Arcadia, celebrated for his cruelties. He was changed into a wolf by Jupiter, because he offered human victims on the altars of the god Pan. Some attribute this metamorphosis to another cause. The sins of mankind, as they relate, were become so enormous, that Jupiter visited the earth to punish their wickedness and impiety. He came to Arcadia, where he was announced as a god, and the people began to pay proper adoration to his divinity. Lycaon, however, who used to sacrifice all strangers to his wanton cruelty, laughed at the pious prayers of his subjects, and, to try the divinity of the god, he served up human flesh on his table. This impiety so irritated Jupiter, that he immediately destroyed the house of Lycaon, and changed him into a wolf. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 1, li. 198, &c. These two monarchs are often confounded together, though it appears that they were two different characters, and that not less than an age elapsed between their reigns.——A son of Priam and Laothoe. He was taken by Achilles and carried to Lemnos, whence he escaped. He was afterwards killed by Achilles in the Trojan war. Homer, Iliad, bk. 21, &c.——The father of Pandarus, killed by Diomedes before Troy.——A Gnossian artist, who made the sword which Ascanius gave to Euryalus. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 9, li. 304.