LYDIA LYNX. 



591 



thenes, whom lie survived, and was famous for his 

 integrity. Only one of his orations, distinguished 

 for strength and dignity, has been preserved to us. 

 The latest editions aw those of Heinrich, Osann and 

 Becker, all 01 isju. 



LYDIA (in ancient times, Mceonia) ; a large and 

 fertile country of Asia Minor. The lonians inhabited 

 tlie part ou the coast of the Ionian sea. Towards the 

 south, it was separated from Caria by the Masander 

 (now Meiiider) ; towards the east, it was bounded by 

 Phrygia, and on the north by Mysia. It was, in early 

 times, a celebrated kingdom, divided from Persia by 

 the river Halys (HOW Kizil Ermak). Cyrus con- 

 quered Croesus, the last Lydian king. The people, 

 especially under this king, were the richest, and, 

 perhaps, also, the most effeminate and luxurious in 

 all Asia. The Lydians invented luxurious garments, 

 costly carpets, precious ointments, and exquisite 

 viands; and a kind of Grecian music, which was said 

 to bear the character of effeminacy, was called the 

 Lydian. They also laid out beautiful gardens. 

 They first discovered the secret of communicating 

 impotence to men, tliat they might use them to 

 guard their wives and concubines. In the time of 

 Herodotus, the corruption of manners among the 

 Lydians was already so great, that the women 

 publicly sold their charms. Their example corrupted 

 also the lonians. The wealth of the Lydians, how- 

 ever, was probably, in a great measure, confined to 

 the kings and chief men. These could fill their 

 coffers with the gold washed down by the Ilermus 

 (now Sarabat) and the Pactolus, and that obtained 

 from the mines; and they procured all the necessities 

 of life by the labour of their slaves, whose services 

 they requited, not with money, but with the produc- 

 tions of the soil. They could thus accumulate the 

 precious metals. Croesus was richer than all his 

 predecessors, for he subjected the whole coast of 

 Farther Asia, and plundered all the commercial cities. 

 Although it cannot be proved that the Lydians had, 

 in ancient times, any considerable commerce, it 

 cannot be denied that they had, long before the 

 Greeks, attained a certain degree of civilization, and 

 that the Grecian colonies in Lower Asia owed to the 

 Lydians their superiority over the mother country in 

 the arts and sciences. Among other things, they 

 owed to them the invention of gold and silver coins, 

 of inns, of certain musical instruments, the art of 

 dyeing wool (which was afterwards carried to such 

 perfection in Miletus), also the art of melting and 

 working ore, and, perhaps, the first rudiments of 

 painting and of sculpture. At Sardis, the capital of 

 the country, the Grecians, Phrygians, and even the 

 nomadic tribes, bartered their goods. There was 

 here a great market for the slave-trade, which fur- 

 nished the harems of Persia with eunuchs. Lydia 

 now belongs to the Turkish district of Natolia 

 (Anadoly). See Clarke's and Chandler's Travels. 



LYDIAT, THOMAS; a learned English divine, 

 mathematician, and chronologer of the seventeenth 

 century, who composed several learned works, some 

 of which he was prevented from publishing by his 

 uecuniary embarrassments, which were occasioned 

 by his having become security for another person's 

 debts, and subjected him to imprisonment. He after- 

 wards suffered greatly for his attachment to the 

 royal cause, in the civil wars, and died in obscurity 

 and indigence, in 1646. 



LYDUS. John Laurentius, commonly called 

 Lydus, from the province in which he was born 

 (A.D. 490), lived at Constantinople, where he held 

 several offices of trust under Justinian. He is prin- 

 cipally known by his work De Magistratibus Rei- 

 pubiicce Romance, which was printed, for the first 

 time, in 1812, from a manuscript, obtained in 1785. 



by Choiseul-Gouffier, French ambassador at Con- 

 stantinople. It was edited, with a learned commen- 

 tary on the life and writings of Lydus, by M. Hase. 

 Niebuhr calls it a new and rich source of Roman 

 history. His other works are on the Months (in 

 Greek), of which we have only fragments, and on 

 Omens (in Greek), of which some fragments only 

 were before known, but nearly the whole of which 

 is contained in the manuscript of Choiseul. 



LYING-TO; the situation of a ship when she is 

 retarded in her course by arranging the sails in such 

 a manner that they counteract each other with nearly 

 equal effect, and render the ship almost stationary 

 with respect to her head-way. A ship is usually 

 brought-to by laying either her main-top-sail or fore- 

 top-sail aback, the helm being put close down to 

 leeward. This is particularly practised in a general 

 engagement, when the hostile fleets are drawn up to 

 battle. 



LYMPH (lympha); an aqueous liquid, colourless, 

 insipid, and diaphanous, diffused through the whole 

 animal economy, iu vessels called lymphatics. If 

 allowed to stand, it separates into two parts, like tho 

 blood a serous fluid, and a solid, or clot. The 

 lymph serves to repair losses of the blood, by bring- 

 ing to it various materials from different parts of the 

 system, and chyle, which is mixed with the lymph in 

 the thoracic duct. It seems also to remove those 

 elements of nutrition, whose place is to be supplied 

 by others, and to transmit them to the surface. The 

 uses and history of lymph, however, are yet imper- 

 fectly known. The lymphatic vessels were not 

 known till towards the middle of the seventeenth 

 century. They are small, thin, transparent, fur- 

 nished with valves, like the veins, and spread through 

 different parts and organs. The cause of the circula- 

 tion of the lymph is unknown, as there does not 

 appear to be any impelling organ analogous to the 

 heart. It has been supposed that the absorbent 

 power exercised at their mouths impels the liquid 

 forward, that already absorbed being thus displaced 

 by the new absorptions. These vessels arise in 

 every part of the body, and terminate in the thoracic 

 duct. 



LYNCEUS. See Danaules. 



LYNX. This name has been applied to most of 

 the cats with short tails : several species were for- 

 merly confounded by Linnaeus under this head, and 

 there is still much confusion respecting' them. The 

 largest and most beautiful, the Felis cervaria, is found 

 in Asia and Russia. The lynx of Europe, the F. lynx, 

 has become rare, except in the Pyrenees, and part of 

 the Apennines. This animal is about three feet 

 long, and is very destructive to the smaller quadru- 

 peds. It was celebrated, among the ancients, as 

 having been harnessed to the car of Bacchus, in his 

 conquest of India. They also attributed great quick- 

 ness of sight to it, and feigned that its urine was 

 converted into a precious stone. The skin of the 

 male is spotted, and is more valuable in winter than 

 in summer. The caracal (F. caracal) is somewhat 

 larger than a fox, and derives its name from the 

 black colour of its ears, the word caracal signifying 

 black in the Turkish language. There are several 

 species of these animals in North America, the best 

 known of which is the Northern or Canada lynx 

 (F. Canadensis). Pennant considered it as identical 

 with the lynx of the old world; Geoffroy St Hilaire 

 named it as a distinct species, and Temminck has 

 again, under the name of F. borealis, described the 

 species as the same in both hemispheres. It is 

 known by the name of lonp cervier, and le chat, 

 among the French Canadians. It is found in great 

 abundance in the districts about Hudson's bay, from 

 whence seven to nine thousand skins are annually 



