indiscretion. Ambassadors from the Allobroges being at the time in Rome, the bearers of a complaint against the oppressions of provincial governors, Lentulus made overtures to them, with the object of obtaining armed assistance. Pretending to fall in with his views, the ambassadors obtained a written agreement signed by the chief conspirators, and informed Q. Fabius Sanga, their “patron” in Rome, who in his turn acquainted Cicero. The conspirators were arrested and forced to admit their guilt. Lentulus was compelled to abdicate his praetorship, and, as it was feared that there might be an attempt to rescue him, he was put to death in the Tullianum on the 5th of December 63.
See Dio Cassius xxxvii. 30, xlvi. 20; Plutarch, Cicero, 17; Sallust, Catilina; Cicero, In Catilinam, iii., iv.; Pro Sulla, 25; also Catiline.
Publius Cornelius Lentulus, called Spinther from his likeness to an actor of that name, one of the chief adherents of the Pompeian party. In 63 B.C. he was curule aedile, assisted Cicero in the suppression of the Catilinarian conspiracy, and distinguished himself by the splendour of the games he provided. Praetor in 60, he obtained the governorship of Hispania Citerior (59) through the support of Caesar, to whom he was also indebted for his election to the consulship (57). Lentulus played a prominent part in the recall of Cicero from exile, and although a temporary coolness seems to have arisen between them, Cicero speaks of him in most grateful terms. From 56–53 Lentulus was governor of the province of Cilicia (with Cyprus) and during that time was commissioned by the senate to restore Ptolemy XI. Auletes to his kingdom (see Ptolemies). The Sibylline books, however, declared that the king must not be restored by force of arms, at the risk of peril to Rome. As a provincial governor, Lentulus appears to have looked after the interests of his subjects, and did not enrich himself at their expense. In spite of his indebtedness to Caesar, Lentulus joined the Pompeians on the outbreak of civil war (49). The generosity with which he was treated by Caesar after the capitulation of Corfinium made him hesitate, but he finally decided in favour of Pompey. After the battle of Pharsalus, Lentulus escaped to Rhodes, where he was at first refused admission, although he subsequently found an asylum there (Cicero, Ad Att. xi. 13. 1). According to Aurelius Victor (De vir. ill. lxxviii., 9, if the reading be correct), he subsequently fell into Caesar’s hands and was put to death.
See Caesar, Bell. Civ. i. 15-23, iii. 102; Plutarch, Pomp. 49; Valerius Maximus ix. 14, 4; many letters of Cicero, especially Ad Fam. i. 1-9.
Lucius Cornelius Lentulus, surnamed Crus or Cruscello (for what reason is unknown), member of the anti-Caesarian party. In 61 B.C. he was the chief accuser of P. Clodius (q.v.) in the affair of the festival of Bona Dea. When consul (49) he advised the rejection of all peace terms offered by Caesar, and declared that, if the senate did not at once decide upon opposing him by force of arms, he would act upon his own responsibility. There seems no reason to doubt that Lentulus was mainly inspired by selfish motives, and hoped to find in civil war an opportunity for his own aggrandizement. But in spite of his brave words he fled in haste from Rome as soon as he heard of Caesar’s advance, and crossed over to Greece. After Pharsalus, he made his way to Rhodes (but was refused admission), thence, by way of Cyprus, to Egypt. He landed at Pelusium the day after the murder of Pompey, was immediately seized by Ptolemy, imprisoned, and put to death.
See Caesar, Bell. Civ. i. 4, iii. 104; Plutarch, Pompey, 80.
A full account of the different Cornelii Lentuli, with genealogical table, will be found in Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyclopädie, iv. pt. 1, p. 1355 (1900) (s.v. “Cornelius”); see also V. de Vit, Onomasticon, ii. 433.
LENZ, JAKOB MICHAEL REINHOLD (1751–1792), German poet, was born at Sesswegen in Livonia, the son of the village pastor, on the 12th of January 1751. He removed with his parents to Dorpat in 1759, and soon began to compose sacred odes, in the manner of Klopstock. In 1768 he entered the university of Königsberg as a student of theology, and in 1771 accompanied, as tutor, two young German nobles, named von Kleist, to Strassburg, where they were to enter the French army. In Strassburg Lenz was received into the literary circle that gathered round Friedrich Rudolf Salzmann (1749–1821) and became acquainted with Goethe, at that time a student at the university. In order to be close to his young pupils, Lenz had to remove to Fort Louis in the neighbourhood, and while here became deeply enamoured of Goethe’s friend, Friederike Elisabeth Brion (1752–1813), daughter of the pastor of Sesenheim. Lenz endeavoured, after Goethe’s departure from Strassburg, to replace the great poet in her affections, and to her he poured out songs and poems (Die Liebe auf dem Lande) which were long attributed to Goethe himself, as was also Lenz’s first drama, the comedy, Der Hofmeister, oder Vorteile der Privaterziehung (1774). In 1776 he visited Weimar and was most kindly received by the duke; but his rude, overbearing manner and vicious habits led to his expulsion. In 1777 he became insane, and in 1779 was removed from Emmendingen, where J. G. Schlosser (1739–1799), Goethe’s brother-in-law, had given him a home, to his native village. Here he lived in great poverty for several years, and then was given, more out of charity than on account of his merits, the appointment of tutor in a pension school near Moscow, where he died on the 24th of May 1792. Lenz, though one of the most talented poets of the Sturm und Drang period, presented a strange medley of genius and childishness. His great, though neglected and distorted, abilities found vent in ill-conceived imitations of Shakespeare. His comedies, Der Hofmeister; Der neue Menoza (1774); Die Soldaten (1776); Die Freunde machen den Philosophen (1776), though accounted the best of his works, are characterized by unnatural situations and an incongruous mixture of tragedy and comedy.
Lenz’s Gesammelte Schriften were published by L. Tieck in three volumes (1828); supplementary to these volumes are E. Dorer-Egloff, J. M. R. Lenz und seine Schriften (1857) and K. Weinhold, Dramatischer Nachlass von J. M. R. Lenz (1884); a selection of Lenz’s writings will be found in A. Sauer, Stürmer und Dränger, ii.; Kürschner’s Deutsche Nationalliteratur, vol. lxxx., (1883). See further E. Schmidt, Lenz und Klinger (1878); J. Froitzheim, Lenz und Goethe (1891); H. Rauch, Lenz und Shakespeare (1892); F. Waldmann, Lenz in Briefen (1894).
LEO, the name of thirteen popes.
Leo I., who alone of Roman pontiffs shares with Gregory I. the surname of the Great, pope from 440 to 461, was a native of Rome, or, according to a less probable account, of Volterra in Tuscany. Of his family or early life nothing is known; that he was highly cultivated according to the standards of his time is obvious, but it does not appear that he could write Greek, or even that he understood that language. In one of the letters (Ep. 104) of Augustine, an acolyte named Leo is mentioned as having been in 418 the bearer of a communication from Sixtus of Rome (afterwards pope) to Aurelius of Carthage against the Pelagians. In 429, when the first unmistakable reference to Pope Leo occurs, he was still only a deacon, but already a man of commanding influence; it was at his suggestion that the De incarnatione of the aged Cassianus, having reference to the Nestorian heresy, was composed in that year, and about 431 we find Cyril of Alexandria writing to him that he might prevent the Roman Church from lending its support in any way to the ambitious schemes of Juvenal of Jerusalem. In 440, while Leo was in Gaul, whither he had been sent to compose some differences between Aetius and another general named Albinus, Pope Sixtus III. died. The absent deacon, or rather archdeacon, was unanimously chosen to succeed him, and received consecration on his return six weeks afterwards (September 29). In 443 he began to take measures against the Manichaeans (who since the capture of Carthage by Genseric in 439 had become very numerous at Rome), and in the following year he was able to report to the Italian bishops that some of the heretics had returned to Catholicism, while a large number had been sentenced to perpetual banishment “in accordance with the constitutions of the Christian emperors,” and others had fled; in seeking these out the help of the provincial clergy was sought. It was during the earlier years of Leo’s pontificate that the events in Gaul occurred which resulted in this triumph over Hilarius of Arles, signalized by the edict of Valentinian III.
