Part 13

The Lydian empire may be described as the industrial power of the ancient world. The Lydians were credited with being the inventors, not only of games such as dice, huckle-bones and ball (Herod, i. 94), but also of coined money. The oldest known coins are the electrum coins of the earlier Mermnads (Madden, _Coins of the Jews_, pp. 19-21), stamped on one side with a lion's head or the figure of a king with bow and quiver; these were replaced by Croesus with a coinage of pure gold and silver. To the latter monarch were probably due the earliest gold coins of Ephesus (Head, _Coinage of Ephesus_, p. 16). The electrum coins of Lydia were of two kinds, one weighing 168.4 grains for the inland trade, and another of 224 grains for the trade with Ionia. The standard was the silver mina of Carchemish (as the Assyrians called it) which contained 8656 grains. Originally derived by the Hittites from Babylonia, but modified by themselves, this standard was passed on to the nations of Asia Minor during the period of Hittite conquest, but was eventually superseded by the Phoenician mina of 11,225 grains, and continued to survive only in Cyprus and Cilicia (see also NUMISMATICS). The inns, which the Lydians were said to have been the first to establish (Herod. i. 94), were connected with their attention to commercial pursuits. Their literature has wholly perished. They were celebrated for their music and gymnastic exercises, and their art formed a link between that of Asia Minor and that of Greece. R. Heberdey's excavations at Ephesus since 1896, like those of D. G. Hogarth in 1905, belong to the history of Greek and not native art. The ivory figures, however, found by Hogarth on the level of the earliest temple of Artemis show Asiatic influence, and resemble the so-called "Phoenician" ivories from the palace of Sargon at Calah (Nimrud). For a description of a pectoral of white gold, ornamented with the heads of animals, human faces and the figure of a goddess, discovered in a tomb on Tmolus, see _Academy_, January 15, 1881, p. 45. Lydian sculpture was probably similar to that of the Phrygians. Phallic emblems, for averting evil, were plentiful; the summit of the tomb of Alyattes is crowned with an enormous one of stone, about 9 ft. in diameter. The tumulus itself is 281 yds. in diameter and about half a mile in circumference. It has been partially excavated by G. Spiegelthal and G. Dennis, and a sepulchral chamber discovered in the middle, composed of large well-cut and highly polished blocks of marble, the chamber being 11 ft. long, nearly 8 ft. broad and 7 ft. high. Nothing was found in it except a few ashes and a broken vase of Egyptian alabaster. The stone basement which, according to Herodotus, formerly surrounded the mound has disappeared.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--A. von Ölfers, _Über die lydischen Königsgräber bei Sardes_ (1858); H. Gelzer in the _Rheinisches Museum_ (1874); R. Schubert, _Geschichte der Könige von Lydien_ (1884); G. Perrot and C. Chipiez, _Histoire de l'art dans l'antiquite_, v. (1890); O. Radet, _La Lydie et le monde grec au temps des Mermnades_ (1893); G. Maspero, _Dawn of Civilization_, pp. 232-301 (1892) and _Passing of the Empires_, pp. 339, 388, 603-621 (1900); J. Keil and A. von Premerstein, _Bericht über eine Reise in Lydien_ (1908). (A. H. S.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Pliny (v. 30) makes it the Maeonian name.

[2] See Sir W. M. Ramsay in the _Journal of Hellenic Studies_, ii. 2.

LYDUS ("THE LYDIAN"), JOANNES LAURENTIUS, Byzantine writer on antiquarian subjects, was born at Philadelphia in Lydia about A.D. 490. At an early age he set out to seek his fortune in Constantinople, and held high court and state offices under Anastasius and Justinian. In 552 he lost favour, and was dismissed. The date of his death is not known, but he was probably alive during the early years of Justin II. (reigned 565-578). During his retirement he occupied himself in the compilation of works on the antiquities of Rome, three of which have been preserved: (1) _De Ostentis_ ([Greek: Peri diosemeion]), on the origin and progress of the art of divination; (2) _De Magistratibus reipublicae Romanae_ ([Greek: Peri archon tes Rhomaion politeias]), especially valuable for the administrative details of the time of Justinian; (3) _De Mensibus_ ([Greek: Peri menon]), a history of the different festivals of the year. The chief value of these books consists in the fact that the author made use of the works (now lost) of old Roman writers on similar subjects. Lydus was also commissioned by Justinian to compose a panegyric on the emperor, and a history of his successful campaign against Persia; but these, as well as some poetical compositions, are lost.

Editions of (1) by C. Wachsmuth (1897), with full account of the authorities in the prolegomena; of (2) and (3) by R. Wünsch (1898-1903); see also the essay by C. B. Hase (the first editor of the _De Ostentis_) prefixed to I. Bekker's edition of Lydus (1837) in the Bonn _Corpus scriptorum hist. Byzantinae_.

LYE (O. Eng. _leag_, cf. Dutch _loog_, Ger. _Lauge_, from the root meaning to wash, see in Lat. _lavare_, and Eng. "lather," froth of soap and water, and "laundry"), the name given to the solution of alkaline salts obtained by leaching or lixiviating wood ashes with water, and sometimes to a solution of a caustic alkali. Lixiviation (Lat. _lixivium_, lye, _lix_, ashes) is the action of separating, by the percolation of water, a soluble from an insoluble substance. "Leaching," the native English term for this process, is from "leach," to water, the root probably being the same as in "lake."

LYELL, SIR CHARLES (1797-1875), British geologist, was the eldest son of Charles Lyell of Kinnordy, Forfarshire, and was born on the 14th of November 1797, on the family estate in Scotland. His father (1767-1849) was known both as a botanist and as the translator of the _Vita Nuova_ and the _Convito_ of Dante: the plant _Lyellia_ was named after him. From his boyhood Lyell had a strong inclination for natural history, especially entomology, a taste which he cultivated at Bartley Lodge in the New Forest, to which his family had removed soon after his birth. In 1816 he entered Exeter College, Oxford, where the lectures of Dr Buckland first drew his attention to geological study. After taking his degree of B.A. in 1819 (M.A. in 1821) he entered Lincoln's Inn, and in 1825, after a delay caused by chronic weakness of the eyes, he was called to the bar, and went on the western circuit for two years. During this time he was slowly gravitating towards the life of a student of science. In 1819 he had been elected a fellow of the Linnean and Geological Societies, communicating his first paper, "On a Recent Formation of Freshwater Limestone in Forfarshire," to the latter society in 1822, and acting as one of the honorary secretaries in 1823. In that year he went to France, with introductions to Cuvier, Humboldt and other men of science, and in 1824 made a geological tour in Scotland in company with Dr Buckland. In 1826 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, from which in later years he received both the Copley and Royal medals; and in 1827 he finally abandoned the legal profession, and devoted himself to geology.

At this time he had already begun to plan his chief work, _The Principles of Geology_. The subsidiary title, "An Attempt to Explain the Former Changes of the Earth's Surface by Reference to Causes now in Operation," gives the keynote of the task to which Lyell devoted his life. A journey with Murchison in 1828 gave rise to joint papers on the volcanic district of Auvergne and the Tertiary formations of Aix-en-Provence. After parting with Murchison he studied the marine remains of the Italian Tertiary Strata and then conceived the idea of dividing this geological system into three or four groups, characterized by the proportion of recent to extinct species of shells. To these groups, after consulting Dr Whewell as to the best nomenclature, he gave the names now universally adopted--Eocene (_dawn of recent_), Miocene (_less of recent_), and Pliocene (_more of recent_); and with the assistance of G. P. Deshayes he drew up a table of shells in illustration of this classification. The first volume of the _Principles of Geology_ appeared in 1830, and the second in January 1832. Received at first with some opposition, so far as its leading theory was concerned, the work had ultimately a great success, and the two volumes had already reached a second edition in 1833 when the third, dealing with the successive formations of the earth's crust, was added. Between 1830 and 1872 eleven editions of this work were published, each so much enriched with new material and the results of riper thought as to form a complete history of the progress of geology during that interval. Only a few days before his death Sir Charles finished revising the first volume of the 12th edition; the revision of the second volume was completed by his nephew Mr (afterwards Sir) Leonard Lyell; and the work appeared in 1876.

In August 1838 Lyell published the _Elements of Geology_, which, from being originally an expansion of one section of the _Principles_, became a standard work on stratigraphical and palaeontological geology. This book went through six editions in Lyell's lifetime (some intermediate editions being styled _Manual of Elementary Geology_), and in 1871 a smaller work, the _Student's Elements of Geology_, was based upon it. His third great work, _The Antiquity of Man_, appeared in 1863, and ran through three editions in one year. In this he gave a general survey of the arguments for man's early appearance on the earth, derived from the discoveries of flint implements in post-Pliocene strata in the Somme valley and elsewhere; he discussed also the deposits of the Glacial epoch, and in the same volume he first gave in his adhesion to Darwin's theory of the origin of species. A fourth edition appeared in 1873.

In 1831-1833 Lyell was professor of geology at King's College, London, and delivered while there a course of lectures, which became the foundation of the _Elements of Geology_. In 1832 he married Mary (1809-1873) eldest daughter of Leonard Horner (q.v.), and she became thenceforward associated with him in all his work, and by her social qualities making his home a centre of attraction. In 1834 he made an excursion to Denmark and Sweden, the result of which was his Bakerian lecture to the Royal Society "On the Proofs of the gradual Rising of Land in certain Parts of Sweden." He also brought before the Geological Society a paper "On the Cretaceous and Tertiary Strata of Seeland and Möen." In 1835 he became president of the Geological Society. In 1837 he was again in Norway and Denmark, and in 1841 he spent a year in travelling through the United States, Canada and Nova Scotia. This last journey, together with a second one to America in 1845, resulted not only in papers, but also in two works not exclusively geological, _Travels in North America_ (1845) and _A Second Visit to the United States_ (1849). During these journeys he estimated the rate of recession of the falls of Niagara, the annual average accumulation of alluvial matter in the delta of the Mississippi, and studied those vegetable accumulations in the "Great Dismal Swamp" of Virginia, which he afterwards used in illustrating the formation of beds of coal. He also studied the coal-formations in Nova Scotia, and discovered in company with Dr (afterwards Sir J. W.) Dawson (q.v.) of Montreal, the earliest known landshell, _Pupa vetusta_, in the hollow stem of a Sigillaria. In bringing a knowledge of European geology to bear upon the extended formations of North America Lyell rendered immense service. Having visited Madeira and Teneriffe in company with G. Hartung, he accumulated much valuable evidence on the age and deposition of lava-beds and the formation of volcanic cones. He also revisited Sicily in 1858, when he made such observations upon the structure of Etna as refuted the theory of "craters of elevation" upheld by Von Buch and Élie de Beaumont (see _Phil. Trans._, 1859).

Lyell was knighted in 1848, and was created a baronet in 1864, in which year he was president of the British Association at Bath. He was elected corresponding member of the French Institute and of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin, and was created a knight of the Prussian Order of Merit.

During the later years of his life his sight, always weak, failed him altogether. He died on the 22nd of February 1875, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Among his characteristics were his great thirst for knowledge, his perfect fairness and sound judgment; while the extreme freshness of his mind enabled him to accept and appreciate the work of younger men.

The LYELL MEDAL, established in 1875 under the will of Sir Charles Lyell, is cast in bronze and is to be awarded annually (or from time to time) by the Council of the Geological Society. The medallist may be of any country or either sex. Not less than one-third of the annual interest of a sum of £2000 is to be awarded with the medal; the remaining interest, known as the LYELL GEOLOGICAL FUND, is to be given in one or more portions at the discretion of the Council for the encouragement of geological science.

See _Life, Letters and Journals of Sir Charles Lyell, Bart._, edited by his sister-in-law, Mrs Lyell (2 vols., 1881); _Charles Lyell and Modern Geology_, by T. G. Bonney (1895). (H. B. Wo.)

LYLY (LILLY, or LYLIE), JOHN (1553-1606), English writer, the famous author of _Euphues_, was born in Kent in 1553 or 1554. At the age of sixteen, according to Wood, he became a student of Magdalen College, Oxford, where in due time he proceeded to his bachelor's and master's degrees (1573 and 1575), and from whence we find him in 1574 applying to Lord Burghley "for the queen's letters to Magdalen College to admit him fellow." The fellowship, however, was not granted, and Lyly shortly after left the university. He complains of what seems to have been a sentence of rustication passed upon him at some period in his academical career, in his address to the gentlemen scholars of Oxford affixed to the second edition of the first part of _Euphues_, but in the absence of any further evidence it is impossible to fix either its date or its cause. If we are to believe Wood, he never took kindly to the proper studies of the university. "For so it was that his genius being naturally bent to the pleasant paths of poetry (as if Apollo had given to him a wreath of his own bays without snatching or struggling) did in a manner neglect academical studies, yet not so much but that he took the degrees in arts, that of master being compleated 1575." After he left Oxford, where he had already the reputation of "a noted wit," Lyly seems to have attached himself to Lord Burghley. "This noble man," he writes in the "Glasse for Europe," in the second part of _Euphues_ (1580), "I found so ready being but a straunger to do me good, that neyther I ought to forget him, neyther cease to pray for him, that as he hath the wisdom of Nestor, so he may have the age, that having the policies of Ulysses he may have his honor, worthy to lyve long, by whom so many lyve in quiet, and not unworthy to be advaunced by whose care so many have been preferred." Two years later we possess a letter of Lyly to the treasurer, dated July 1582, in which the writer protests against some accusation of dishonesty which had brought him into trouble with his patron, and demands a personal interview for the purpose of clearing his character. What the further relations between them were we have no means of knowing, but it is clear that neither from Burghley nor from the queen did Lyly ever receive any substantial patronage. In 1578 he began his literary career by the composition of _Euphues, or the Anatomy of Wit_, which was licensed to Gabriel Cawood on the 2nd of December, 1578, and published in the spring of 1579. In the same year the author was incorporated M.A. at Cambridge, and possibly saw his hopes of court advancement dashed by the appointment in July of Edmund Tylney to the office of master of the revels, a post at which, as he reminds the queen some years later, he had all along been encouraged to "aim his courses." _Euphues and his England_ appeared in 1580, and, like the first part of the book, won immediate popularity. For a time Lyly was the most successful and fashionable of English writers. He was hailed as the author of "a new English," as a "raffineur de l'Anglois"; and, as Edmund Blount, the editor of his plays, tells us in 1632, "that beautie in court which could not parley Euphuism was as little regarded as she which nowe there speakes not French." After the publication of _Euphues_, however, Lyly seems to have entirely deserted the novel form himself, which passed into the hands of his imitators, and to have thrown himself almost exclusively into play-writing, probably with a view to the mastership of revels whenever a vacancy should occur. Eight plays by him were probably acted before the queen by the children of the Chapel Royal and the children of St Paul's between the years 1584 and 1589, one or two of them being repeated before a popular audience at the Blackfriars Theatre. Their brisk lively dialogue, classical colour and frequent allusions to persons and events of the day maintained that popularity with the court which _Euphues_ had won. Lyly sat in parliament as member for Hindon in 1589, for Aylesbury in 1593, for Appleby in 1597 and for Aylesbury a second time in 1601. In 1589 Lyly published a tract in the Martin Marprelate controversy, called _Pappe with an hatchet, alias a figge for my Godsonne; Or Crack me this nut; Or a Countrie Cuffe, &c._[1] About the same time we may probably date his first petition to Queen Elizabeth. The two petitions, transcripts of which are extant among the Harleian MSS., are undated, but in the first of them he speaks of having been ten years hanging about the court in hope of preferment, and in the second he extends the period to thirteen years. It may be conjectured with great probability that the ten years date from 1579, when Edmund Tylney was appointed master of the revels with a tacit understanding that Lyly was to have the next reversion of the post. "I was entertained your Majestie's servaunt by your own gratious favor," he says, "strengthened with condicions that I should ayme all my courses at the Revells (I dare not say with a promise, but with a hopeful Item to the Revercion) for which these ten yeres I have attended with an unwearyed patience." But in 1589 or 1590 the mastership of the revels was as far off as ever--Tylney in fact held the post for thirty-one years--and that Lyly's petition brought him no compensation in other directions may be inferred from the second petition of 1593. "Thirteen yeres your highnes servant but yet nothing. Twenty freinds that though they saye they will be sure, I finde them sure to be slowe. A thousand hopes, but all nothing; a hundred promises but yet nothing. Thus casting up the inventory of my friends, hopes, promises and tymes, the _summa totalis_ amounteth to just nothing." What may have been Lyly's subsequent fortunes at court we do not know. Edmund Blount says vaguely that Elizabeth "graced and rewarded" him, but of this there is no other evidence. After 1590 his works steadily declined in influence and reputation; other stars were in possession of the horizon; and so far as we know he died poor and neglected in the early part of James I.'s reign. He was buried in London at St Bartholomew the Less on the 20th of November, 1606. He was married, and we hear of two sons and a daughter.

_Comedies._--In 1632 Edmund Blount published "Six Court Comedies," including _Endymion_ (1591), _Sappho and Phao_ (1584), _Alexander and Campaspe_ (1584), _Midas_ (1592), _Mother Bombie_ (1594) and _Gallathea_ (1592). To these should be added the _Woman in the Moone_ (Lyly's earliest play, to judge from a passage in the prologue and therefore earlier than 1584, the date of _Alexander and Campaspe_), and _Love's Metamorphosis_, first printed in 1601. Of these, all but the last are in prose. A _Warning for Faire Women_ (1599) and _The Maid's Metamorphosis_ (1600) have been attributed to Lyly, but on altogether insufficient grounds. The first editions of all these plays were issued between 1584 and 1601, and the majority of them between 1584 and 1592, in what were Lyly's most successful and popular years. His importance as a dramatist has been very differently estimated. Lyly's dialogue is still a long way removed from the dialogue of Shakespeare. But at the same time it is a great advance in rapidity and resource upon anything which had gone before it; it represents an important step in English dramatic art. His nimbleness, and the wit which struggles with his pedantry, found their full development in the dialogue of _Twelfth Night_ and _Much Ado about Nothing_, just as "Marlowe's mighty line" led up to and was eclipsed by the majesty and music of Shakespearian passion. One or two of the songs introduced into his plays are justly famous and show a real lyrical gift. Nor in estimating his dramatic position and his effect upon his time must it be forgotten that his classical and mythological plots, flavourless and dull as they would be to a modern audience, were charged with interest to those courtly hearers who saw in Midas Philip II., Elizabeth in Cynthia and perhaps Leicester's unwelcome marriage with Lady Sheffield in the love affair between Endymion and Tellus which brings the former under Cynthia's displeasure. As a matter of fact his reputation and popularity as a play-writer were considerable. Gabriel Harvey dreaded lest Lyly should make a play upon their quarrel; Meres, as is well known, places him among "the best for comedy"; and Ben Jonson names him among those foremost rivals who were "outshone" and outsung by Shakespeare.