See [Kasai]; and articles and maps in Le Mouvement géog., specially vol. xiv., No. 29 (1897) and vol. xxiv., No. 38 (1907).
LEOTYCHIDES, Spartan king, of the Eurypontid family, was descended from Theopompus through his younger son Anaxandridas (Herod. viii. 131), and in 491 B.C. succeeded Demaratus (q.v.), whose title to the throne he had with Cleomenes’ aid successfully challenged. He took part in Cleomenes’ second expedition to Aegina, on which ten hostages were seized and handed over to the Athenians for safe custody: for this he narrowly escaped being surrendered to the Aeginetans after Cleomenes’ death. In the spring of 479 we find him in command of the Greek fleet of 110 ships, first at Aegina and afterwards at Delos. In August he attacked the Persian position at Mycale on the coast of Asia Minor opposite Samos, inflicted a crushing defeat on the land-army, and annihilated the fleet which was drawn up on the shore. Soon afterwards he sailed home with the Peloponnesians, leaving the Athenians to prosecute the siege of Sestos. In 476 he led an army to Thessaly to punish the Aleuadae of Larisa for the aid they had rendered to the Persians and to strengthen Spartan influence in northern Greece. After a series of successful engagements he accepted a bribe from the enemy to withdraw. For this he was brought to trial at Sparta, and to save his life fled to the temple of Athena Alea at Tegea. Sentence of exile was passed, his house was razed and his grandson Archidamus II. ascended the throne (Herod. vi. 65-87, ix. 90-114; Thucydides i. 89; Pausanias iii. 4. 3. 7. 9-10; Plutarch, De malignitate Herodoti, 21, p. 859 D; Diodorus xi. 34-37).
According to Diodorus (xi. 48) Leotychides reigned twenty-two, his successor Archidamus forty-two years. The total duration of the two reigns, sixty-four years, we know to be correct, for Leotychides came to the throne in 491 and Archidamus (q.v.) died in 427. On this basis, then, Leotychides’s exile would fall in 469 and the Thessalian expedition in that or the preceding year (so E. Meyer, Geschichte des Altertums, iii. § 287). But Diodorus is not consistent with himself; he attributes (xi. 48) Leotychides’s death to the year 476-475 and he records (xii. 35) Archidamus’s death in 434-433, though he introduces him in the following years at the head of the Peloponnesian army (xii. 42, 47, 52). Further, he says expressly that Leotychides ἐτελεύτησεν ἄρξας ἔτη εἴκοσι καὶ δύο, i.e. he lived twenty-two years after his accession. The twenty-two years, then, may include the time which elapsed between his exile and his death. In that case Leotychides died in 469, and 476-475 may be the year in which his reign, though not his life, ended. This date seems, from what we know of the political situation in general, to be more probable than the later one for the Thessalian campaign.
G. Busolt, Griech. Geschichte, iii. 83, note; J. B. Bury, History of Greece, p. 326; G. Grote, History of Greece, new edition 1888, iv. 349, note; also abridged edition 1907, p. 273, note 3. Beloch’s view (Griech. Geschichte, i. 455, note 2) that the expedition took place in 476, the trial and flight in 469, is not generally accepted.
(M. N. T.)
LEOVIGILD, or Löwenheld (d. 586), king of the Visigoths, became king in 568 after the short period of anarchy which followed the death of King Athanagild, whose widow, Goisvintha, he married. At first he ruled that part of the Visigothic kingdom which lay to the south of the Pyrenees, his brother Liuva or Leova governing the small part to the north of these mountains; but in 572 Liuva died and Leovigild became sole king. At this time the Visigoths who settled in Spain early in the 5th century were menaced by two powerful enemies, the Suevi who had a small kingdom in the north-west of the peninsula, and the Byzantines who had answered Athanagild’s appeal for help by taking possession of a stretch of country in the south-east. Their kingdom, too, was divided and weakened by the fierce hostility between the orthodox Christians and those who professed Arianism. Internal and external dangers alike, however, failed to daunt Leovigild, who may fairly be called the restorer of the Visigothic kingdom. He turned first against the Byzantines, who were defeated several times; he took Cordova and chastised the Suevi; and then by stern measures he destroyed the power of those unruly and rebellious chieftains who had reduced former kings to the position of ciphers. The chronicler tells how, having given peace to his people, he, first of the Visigothic sovereigns, assumed the attire of a king and made Toledo his capital. He strengthened the position of his family and provided for the security of his kingdom by associating his two sons, Recared and Hermenegild, with himself in the kingly office and placing parts of the land under their rule. Leovigild himself was an Arian, being the last of the Visigothic kings to hold that creed; but he was not a bitter foe of the orthodox Christians, although he was obliged to punish them when they conspired against him with his external enemies. His son Hermenegild, however, was converted to the orthodox faith through the influence of his Frankish wife, Ingundis, daughter of King Sigebert I., and of Leander, metropolitan of Seville. Allying himself with the Byzantines and other enemies of the Visigoths, and supported by most of the orthodox Christians he headed a formidable insurrection. The struggle was fierce; but at length, employing persuasion as well as force, the old king triumphed. Hermenegild was captured; he refused to give up his faith and in March or April 585 he was executed. He was canonized at the request of Philip II., king of Spain, by Pope Sixtus V. About this time Leovigild put an end to the kingdom of the Suevi. During his last years he was engaged in a war with the Franks. He died at Toledo on the 21st of April 586 and was succeeded by his son Recared.