A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

772 LESBONAX. LETO.
against which the celebrated oration of Demosthenes later period than the rhetorician Lesbonax. He is
is directed, usually known as the oration against the author of a little work on grammatical figures
Leptines. This speech was delivered in B. c. 355: (Trept oX;drTv'o), which was first published by
and the law must have been passed above a year Valckenaer in his edition of Ammonius (p. 177,
before, as we are told that the lapse of more than or in the Leipz. edit. p. 165, &c.; comp. p. xviii.
that period had already exempted Leptines from &c.) This little treatise is not without some im.
all personal responsibility. Hence the efforts of portance, since it contains things which are not
Demosthenes were directed solely to the repeal of mentioned anywhere else. [L. S.]
the law, not to the punishment of its proposer. It LESBO'THEMIS (AEgo'Oejuts), was a statuary
appears that his arguments were successful, and the of an ancient date; and probably a native of Lesbos.
law was in fact repealed. (See Wolf. Prolegom. He is the only artist who is mentioned in connection
ad Demosth. Orat. adv. Leptinem; Liban. Argum. with that island. His statue of one of the Muses
p. 452; Dion. Hal. Ep. ad Amrn. i. 4.). holding a lyre of the ancient form (oca/GlcJn) at
6. A Syrian Greek, who assassinated with his Mytilene, was mentioned by Euphorion in his
own hand at Laodiceia, Cn. Octavius, the chief of wspl'IOjZwvov (Athen. iv. p. 182, e., xiv. p. 635, a,
the Roman deputies, who had been sent to examine b.; Meineke, Euphor. Fr. 31, Anal. Alex. p. 67,
into the state of affairs in Syria. This murder Fr. 32). [P. S.]
took place'during the short reign of Antiochus LESCHES or LESCHEUS (Affx7rs, Ae'ovus),
Eupator (B. c. 162), and not without the con- one of the so-called cyclic poets, the son of Aeschynivance, as was supposed, of. Lysias,' the minister linus, a native of Pyrrha, in the neighbourhood of
and: governor of'the. young king. -As soon' as Mytilene (Paus. x. 25, ~. 5), and thence also called
Demetrius had'established himself on the throne, a Mytilenean or a Lesbian. He flourished about
wishing to conciliate the favour of the Romans, he the 18th Olympiad; and therefore the tale, which
caused Leptines, who, far from denying the deed, is related about a contest between him and Arctihad the audacity-to boast of it publicly, to be seized, nus, who lived about the beginning of the Olymand sent as a prisoner to Rome: but the senate piads,is an anachronism. This tradition is explained
refused to receive him, being desirous, as we are by the fact that Lesches treated, at least to some
told; to reserve this cause of complaint as a public extent, the same events in his Little Iliad ('IhAcs
grievance, instead of visiting it on the head of an 7 Ae'Ao-acov or'IadAI tKpag), which were the subindividual.' (Polyb. xxxi. 19, xxxii. 4, 6, 7;.Ap- ject of Arctinus's Aethiopis. The little Ilias, like
pian, Syr. 46, 47; Died. Exc. Legat. xxxi. p. 526; all the other cyclic poems, was ascribed to various
Cic. Philipp. ix. 2.). [E. H. B.] poets- to Homer himself, to Thestorides of PhoLE'SBOCLES, a Greek rhetorician, who lived caea (Herod. Vit. Hom. 16), to the Lacedaemonian
at Rome in the time of the emperor Tiberius. Cinaethon, and Diodorus of Erythrae. The poem
(Senec. Suasor. ii. p. 18.) He was a rival of La- consisted of four books, according to Proclus, who
tron; and a short -fragment of one of his speeches has preserved an extract from it. It was evidently
is preserved in Seneca. (Controv. i. 8, p. 130, intended as a supplement to the Homeric Iliad;
&c.).. [L. S.] consequently it related the events after the death
LE'SBOCLES, a celebrated statuary, none of of Hector, the fate of Ajax, the exploits of Philocwhose works, however, were known to Pliny (H. tetes, Neoptolemus, and Ulysses, and the final cap.
N. xxxiv. 8. s. 19. ~ 25, where the name is differ- ture and destruction of Troy (Arist. Poet. 23,
ently spelt in the MSS. It is important also to Bekk.), which part of the poem was called The
observe,'that instead of " Lesbocles, Prodorus, Py- Destruction of Troy ('IAov rtpaOs). There was no
thodicus, Polygnotus: iidem pictores nobilissimi,"' unity in the poem, except that of historical and
the Bamberg MS. has " idemi pictor e nobilissimis," chronological succession. Hence Aristotle remarks
which is evidently right. [P. S.] that the little Iliad furnished materials for eight
LESBO'NAX~ (Aeao-&rYa). 1. A son of Pota- tragedies, whilst only. one could be based upon the
mon of Mytilene, a philosopher and sophist, who Iliad or Odyssey of Homer. The extracts which
lived in the time of Augustus. He was a pupil of Proclus gives of the poem of Lesches are interTimocrates, and the father of Polemon, who is woven with those from the Aethiopis of Arctinus,
known as the teacher and friend of the emperor It is not to be presumed, as Muller shows (Hist,
Tiberius. (Suidas, s. v.; Eudoc. p. 283.) Suidas of Greek Lit. vi. ~ 3), that either poet should have
says that Lesbonax wrote several'philosophical broken off in the middle of an event, in order that
works, but does'not mention that-he was an orator the other might fill up the gap. The different
or rhetorician, although there can be no doubt that times at which they lived is sufficient proof to the
he is the'same person as the Lesbonax who wrote contrary, and there are fragments extant which
sEA erel P1Sopalt and po'rLad l erLaerToai'(Schol. show that Lesches had treated of those events also
ad Luc. de Saltat. 69), and the one of whom, in which in Proclus's extract are not taken from him,
the' time of Photius (Bibl. Cod. 74, p. 52), there but from Arctinus. (Comp. Welcker, der Epische
were extant sixteen political orations. Of these Cyclus, pp. 272, 358, 368.) [W. I.]
orations only two have come down to us, one en- LETHE (At70i), the personification of oblivion, is
titled 7repl'rog 7roA4E1ov KopLvOho'v, and the other called by Hesiod (Tiheog. 227) a daughter of Eris,
7rporpsm7rrKor A4yos, both of which are not unsuc- A'river in the lower world likewise bore the name
cessful imitations of the Attic orators of'the best of Lethe. [HADES.] [L. S.]
times. TThey are printed in the collections of the LETO (Aar7ec), in Latin LATONA, according to
Greek orators published by Aldus, H. Stephens, Hesiod (Theog. 406, 921), a daughter of the Titan
Reiske, Bekker, and Dobson: a separate edition. Coeus and Phoebe, a sister of Asteria, and the
was published by J. C. Orelli, Lipsiae, 1820,' mother of Apollo and Artemis by Zeus, to whom
8vo. she was married before Hera. Homer, who like2. A Greek grammarian, whose age is unknown, wise calls her the mother of Apollo and Artemis by
but who must at any rate be assigned to a much Zeus (II. i. 9, xiv; 327, xxi. 499, Od. xi. 318, 580),