Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/179

Rh Inner Libya. But the remains of the New City seein to belong ahnost entirely to the period of the Konian Empire, and especially to the reifjn of Septi- inius Severus, who restored and beautified this his native city. (Spart. Sev. 1 ; Aurel. Vict. Sp. 20.) It had already before acquired considerable import- ance under the Romans, whose cause it espoused in the war with Jugurtha (Sail. Juff. 77 — 79: as to its later condition see Tac. Hist. iv. 50) ; and if, as Eckhel inclines to believe, the coins with the epi- graph COL. VIC. lUL. LEP. belong mostly, if not entirely, to Leptis Magna, it must have been made a colony in the earliest period of the empire. It was still a flourishing and populous fortified city in the 4th century, when it was greatly injured by an as- sault of a Libyan tribe, called the Auuusiani (Am- mian. sxviii. 6); and it never recovered from the blow. 3. Justinian is said to have enclosed a portion of it with a new wall; but the city itself was already too f;ir buried in the sand to be restored; and, as far as we can make out, the little that Justinian attempted seems to have amounted only to the en- closure of a suburb, or old Libyan camp, some dis- tance to the E. of the river, on the W. bank of winch the city itself had stood. (Frocop. de Aed. vi. 4 ; comp. Barth.) Its ruin was completed during the Arab conquest (Leo, AJ")'. p. 435) ; and, though we find it, in the middle ages, the seat of populous Arab camps, no attempt has been made to make use of the splendid site, which is now occupied by the insignificant village of Legdtah, and the hamlet of El-Hush, which consists of only four houses. (For particulars of the ruins, see Lucas, Proceedings of the Assocuition, LERINA and LERON. Strabo (p. 185) says : " After the Stoechades are Planasia and Leron (77 TlXavaaia Kol Ariputv'), which are inhabited ; and in Leron there is also a Leroum of Leron, and Leron is in front of Antipolis." (Aniibes.) Pliny (iii. 5) has " Lero. et Lerina adversus Antipolim." Ptolemy (ii. 10. § 21) places Lerone (ATjpwvTj) before the mouth of the Var. Lerina once had a town named Vergoanum (Pliny). The Maritime Itin. places "Lero et Lerinas insulae" 11 M. P. from Antipolis.

These two islands are the Lerins, off the coast of the French department of Var. Strabo's Planasia is supposed to be Lerina, because it is flat; Leron must then be the larger island, called Sainte Mar- guerite ; and D'Anville conjectures that the mo- nastery dedicated to Sainte Marguerite took the })lace of the Leroum of Lero, which is mentioned by Strabo. The position of these two small islands is

fixed more accurately by the Itin. than by the geographers. Lerina, from which the modern name Ltrins comes, is very small ; it is called St.Hnnorat, from a bishop of Aries in the fifth century, who was also a saint. [G.L.]

 LERNA or LERNE (Aepra, Aepvri), the name of a marshy disiVict at the south-western extremity of the Argive plain, near the se:i, and celebrated as the spot where Hercules slew the many-headed Hydra, or water-snake. [See Diet, of Biogr. Vol. II. p. 394.] In this part of the plain, there is a number of copious springs, which overflow the district and turn it into a marsh ; and there can be little doubt that the victory of Hercules over the Hydra, is to be understood of a successful attempt of the ancient lords of the Argive plain to bring its marshy extremity into cultiv.<ition, by draining its sources and embanking its streams. The name of Lerna is usually given to the whole district (Pans. ii. 15. § 5, ii. 24. § 3, ii. 36. § 6, ii. 38. § 1 ; Plut. Chom. 15), but other writers apply it more particularly to the river and the lake. (Strab. viii. p. 368.) The district was thoroughly drained in antiquity, and covered with sacred buildings, of which Pausanias has left us an account (ii. 36, 37). A road led from Argos to Lerna, and the distance from the gate of the city to the sea-coast of Lerna was 40 stadia. Above Lerna is the Mountain Pontinus (JIovt'lvos), which according to Pausanias absorbs the rain water, and thus prevents it from running ofi'. On its summit, on which there are now the ruins of a mediaeval castle, Pausanias saw the remains of a temple of Athena Saitis, and the foundations of the house of Hippomedon, one of the seven Argive chiefs who marched against Thebes. (^Atpvaia. 5' oiVe? vdfj.a9' 'iTTTTOjueScui' &i'a^, Eurip. Phoen. 126.) The grove of Lerr.a, which consisted for the most part of plane trees, extended from Mount Pontinus to the sea, and vras bounded on one side by a river called Pontinus, and on the other by a river named Amymone. The grove of Lerna contained two temples, in one of which Demeter Prosymna and Dionysus were worshipped, and in the other Dionysus Saotes. In this grove a festival, called the Lernaea, was celebrated in honour of Demeter and Dionysus.!/ Pausanias also mentions thetountain of Amphiaraus, and the Alcyonian pool (-^ 'AKKvovla Aifxvri), through which the Argives say that Dionysus descended into Hades in order to recover Semele. The Alcyonian pool was said to be unfathomable, and the emperor Nero in vain attenjpted to reach its bottom with a sounding line of several fathoms in length. The circumference of the pool is estimated by Pausanias as only one-third of a stadium: its margin was covered with grass and rushes. Pausanias was told that, though the lake appeared so still and quiet, yet, if any one attempted to swim over it, he was dragged down to the bottom. Here Prosymnus is said to have pointed out to Dionysus the entrance in the lower world. A nocturnal ceremony was con- nected with this legend; expiatory rites were per- formed by the side of the pool, and, in consequence of the impurities which were then thrown into the pool, the proverb arose of a Lerna of ills. {Afpvi) KaKwv ; see Preller, Demeter, p. 212.)

The river Pontinus issues from three sources at the foot of the hill, and joins the sea north of some mills, after a course of only a few hundred yards. The Amymone is formed by seven or eight copious sources, which issue tVom under the rocks, and which are evidently the subterraneous outlet of one of 