Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/862

Rh 84B LYCOPHRON. mercenary force, and maintained their ascendancy by cruelty and violence. (Xen. FTell. vi. 4. $ 37 ; Con. Narr. 50 ; Diod. xvi. 14 ; Pint. Pel. 35 ; Clint. F. H. vol. ii. App. Ch. 15.) In b. c. 352, by which time it seems that Tisiphomis was dead, Philip of Macedon, on the application of the Aleuadae and their party, advanced into Thessaly against Lycophron, who was now chief ruler. The hitter was aided by the Phocians, at first under Phayllus, without success, and then with better fortune under Onomarchus, who defeated Philip in two battles and drove him back into Macedonia ; but soon after Philip entered Thessaly again, and Onomarchus, having also returned from Boeotia to the assistance of Lycophron, was defeated and slain. Lycophron, and his brother Peitholaus, being now left without resource, surrendered Pherae to Philip and withdrew from Thessaly with ?000 mercenaries to join their Phocian allies under Pliayllus. An antithetic sarcasm, quoted by Aris- totle, seems to imply that they did not give their services for nothing. In the hostilities between Sparta and Megalopolis, in this same year (b, c. 352), we find among the forces of the former 150 of the Thessalian cavalry, who had been driven out from Pherae with Lycophron and Peitholaus. (Diod. xvi. 35—37, 39 ; Pans. x. 2 ; Just. viii. 2 ; Dem. Ohjntli. ii. p. 22 ; Isocr. Phil. p. 8G, b ; Arist. Rliet iii. 9. § 8.) From the downfall of Lycophron to the battle of Cynoscephalae, in b. c. 197, Thessaly continued dependent on the kings of Macedonia. 6. A Rhodian, was sent by his countrymen as ambassador to Rome, in b. c. 177, to obtain from the senate, if possible, a more favourable decree than that which had just pronounced the Lycians to have been assigned by Rome to the Rhodians, eleven years before, as allies rather than as sub- iects. (Pol. xxvi. 7, 8 ; corap. Liv. xxxviii. 39, xli, 6.) [E. E.] LY'COPHRON {A.vk6<>p(>3v the celebrated Alexandrian grammarian and poet, was a native of Chalcis in Euboea, the son of Socles, and the adopted son of the historian Lycus of Rhegium (Suid. s. v.). Other accounts made him the son of Lycus (Tzetz, Chil. viii. 481). He lived at Alex- andria, under Ptolemy Philadelphus, who entrusted to him the arrangement of the works of the comic poets contained in the Alexandrian library. In the execution of this commission Lycophron drew up a very extensive work on comedy (Trepl Ku>ix(f- ^ias)., which appears to have embraced the whole subject of the history and nature of the Greek comedy, together with accounts of the comic poets, and, besides this, many matters bearing indirectly on the interpretation of the comedians (Meineke, Hid. Crit. Com. Graec. pp. 9 — 11). Nothing more is known of his life. Ovid (/6is, 533) states that he was killed by an arrow. As a poet, Lycophron obtained a place in the Tragic Pleiad ; but there is scarcely a fragment of his tragedies extant. Suidas gives the titles of twenty of Lycophron's tragedies ; while Tzetzes (Schol. in Lye. 2b'2, 270) makes their number forty-six or sixty-four. Four lines of his liiKoirlZai are quoted by Stobaeus (cxix. 13.) He also wrote a satyric drama, entitled Mcj/fSTj/nos, in which he ridiculed his fellow-countryman, the philosopher Menedemus of Eretria (Ath. x. p. 420, b. ; Diog. Laert. ii. 140 ; comp. Menag. ad loc.), who, nevertheless, highly prized the tragedies ot Lycophron (Diog. ii LYCORTAS. 133). He is said to have been a very skilful com- poser of anagrams, of which he wrote several in honour of Ptolemy and Arsinoe. The only one of his poems which has come down to us is the Cassandra or Alexandra. This is neither a tragedy nor an epic poem, but a long iambic monologue of 1474 verses, in^which Cas- sandra is made to prophesy the fall of Troy, the adventures of the Grecian and Trojan heroes, with numerous other mythological and historical events, going back as early as the Argonauts, the Amazons, and the fables of lo and Europa> and ending with Alexander the Great. The work has no pre- tensions to poetical merit. It is simply a cumbrous store of traditional learning. Its obscurity is pro- verbial. Suidas calls it aKomvov iroitjixa, and its author himself obtained the epithet (tkothvos. Its stores of learning and its obscurity alike excited the efforts of the ancient grammarians, several of whom wrote commentaries on the poem : among them were Theon, Dection, and Orus. The only one of these works which survives, is the Scholia of Isaac and John Tzetzes, which are far more valuable than the poem itself. A question has been raised respecting the iden- tity of Lycophron the tragedian and Lycophron the author of the Cassandra. From some lines of the poem (1226, &c., 1446, &c,) which refer to Roman history, Niebuhr was led to suppose that the author could not have lived before the time of Flamininus (about B. c. 190) ; but Welcker, in an elaborate discussion of the question, regards the lines as interpolated. The first printed edition of Lycophron was the Aldine, with Pindar and Callimaclius, Venet. 1513, 8vo. ; the next was that of Liitisius, with the Scholia, Basil. 1546, fol. : of the later editions the most important are those of Potter, Oxon. 1697, fol., reprinted 1702 ; Reichard, Lips. 1788, 2 vols. 8vo. ; and Bachmann, Lips. 1828, 2 vols. 8vo, ; to which must be added the admirable edition of the Scholia by C. G. Miiller, Lips. 1811, 3 vols. 8vo. (Fabric. BUd. Graec. vol. iii, p. 750 ; Welcker, die Griech. Tragod. pp. 1256 — 1263 ; Bernhardy, Grundriss d. Griech. Lilt. vol. ii. pp. 613, 1026—1029.) [P. S.] LYCOPHRO'NIDES {AvKQ<ppovlHs a lyric j poet, quoted by Clearchus,the disciple of Aristotle. ■ ( Athen. xiii. p. 564, b., xv. p. 670, e.) ■ LYCO'REUS (AuKwpevs). 1. A surname of Apollo, perhaps in the same sense as Lyceius ; but he is usually so called with reference to Lycoreia, on Mount Parnassus. (Apollon. Rhod. iv, 1490 ; Callim. Hymn, in Apoll. 19 ; Orph. Hymn. 33. 1.) 2. A son of Apollo and the nyniph Corycia, from whom Lycoreia, in the neighbourhood of Delphi, was believed to have derived its name. -J (Paus. X. 6. § 2.) % There are two other mythical personages of this name. (Apollon. Rhod. ii. 51; Serv. ad A en. ii. 761.) [L. S.] LYCO'RIS was the name under which C. Corne- lius Gallns celebrated in his poems his mistress Cy- theris. The syllabic quantity of the fictitious name is the same as that of the true one, according to the rule inferred from Apuleius. {De Magia Or. vol. ii. p. 12, ed. Bipont ; see Aero, ad Hot. Sat. i. 2, 64 ; and Bentley's note, Carm. ii. 12.) [Cythk- Ris. Gallus.] [W.B.D.] LYCORTAS (Au/ctJpTos), of Megalopolis, was the father of Polybius, the hiatoiian, juid the close