which was to prevent the failure of the crops and to avert pestilence (or to protect them and the flocks against the ravages of wolves). Others (e.g. V. Bérard) take Zeus Lycaeus for a Semitic Baal, whose worship was imported into Arcadia by the Phoenicians; Immerwahr identifies him with Zeus Phyxios, the god of the exile who flees on account of his having shed blood. Another explanation is that the place of the sacred wolf once worshipped in Arcadia was taken in cult by Zeus Lycaeus, and in popular tradition by Lycaon, the ancestor of the Arcadians, who was supposed to have been punished for his insulting treatment of Zeus. It is possible that the whole may be merely a reminiscence of a superstition similar to the familiar werwolf stories.
See articles by P. Weizsäcker in Roscher’s Lexikon and by G. Fougères (s.v. “Lykaia”) in Daremberg and Saglio’s Dictionnaire des antiquités; W. Immerwahr, Die Kulte und Mythen Arkadiens, 1. (1891), p. 14; L. R. Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, i. (1896), p. 40; A. Lang, Myth, Ritual and Religion (1899); C. Pascal, Studii di antichità e mitologia (1896), who sees in Lycaon a god of death honoured by human sacrifice; Ed. Meyer, Forschungen zur alten Geschichte, i. (1892), p. 60; W. Mannhardt, Wald- und Feldkulte, ii. (1905); G. Fougères, Mantinée et l’Arcadie orientale (1898), p. 202; V. Bérard, De l’origine des cultes arcadiens (1894); H. D. Müller, Mythologie der griechischen Stämme, ii. (1861), p. 78; H. Usener, Rheinisches Museum, liii. (1898), p. 375; G. Görres, Berliner Studien für classische Philologie, x. 1 (1889), who regards the Lycaea as a funeral festival connected with the changes of vegetation; Vollgraf, De Ovidii mythopoeia; a concise statement of the various forms of the legend in O. Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie, ii. p. 920, n. 4; see also Lycanthropy; D. Bassi, “Apollo Liceo,” in Rivista di storia antica, i. (1895); and Frazer’s Pausanias, iv. p. 189. (J. H. F.)
LYCAONIA, in ancient geography, a large region in the
interior of Asia Minor, north of Mount Taurus. It was bounded
on the E. by Cappadocia, on the N. by Galatia, on the W. by
Phrygia and Pisidia, while to the S. it extended to the chain of
Mount Taurus, where it bordered on the country popularly
called in earlier times Cilicia Tracheia and in the Byzantine
period Isauria; but its boundaries varied greatly at different
times. The name is not found in Herodotus, but Lycaonia is
mentioned by Xenophon as traversed by Cyrus the younger on
his march through Asia. That author describes Iconium as
the last city of Phrygia; and in Acts xiv. 5 St Paul, after leaving
Iconium, crossed the frontier and came to Lystra in Lycaonia.
Ptolemy, on the other hand, includes Lycaonia as a part of the
province of Cappadocia, with which it was associated by the
Romans for administrative purposes; but the two countries
are clearly distinguished both by Strabo and Xenophon and by
authorities generally.
Lycaonia is described by Strabo as a cold region of elevated plains, affording pasture to wild asses and to sheep; and at the present day sheep abound, but asses are practically unknown. Amyntas, king of Galatia, to whom the district was for a time subject, maintained there not less than three hundred flocks. It forms part of the interior tableland of Asia Minor, and has an elevation of more than 3000 ft. It suffers from want of water, aggravated in some parts by abundance of salt in the soil, so that the northern portion, extending from near Iconium to the salt lake of Tatta and the frontiers of Galatia, is almost wholly barren, only small patches being cultivated near Iconium and the large villages. The soil, where water is supplied, is productive. In ancient times great attention was paid to storing and distributing the water, so that much land now barren was formerly cultivated and supported a large number of cities.
The plain is interrupted by some minor groups of mountains, of volcanic character, of which the Kara Dagh in the south, a few miles north of Karaman, rises above 7000 ft., while the Karadja Dagh, north-east of it, though of inferior elevation, presents a striking range of volcanic cones. The mountains in the north-west, near Iconium and Laodicea, are the termination of the Sultan Dagh range, which traverses a large part of Phrygia.
The Lycaonians appear to have been in early times to a great extent independent of the Persian empire, and were like their neighbours the Isaurians a wild and lawless race of freebooters; but their country was traversed by one of the great natural lines of high road through Asia Minor, from Sardis and Ephesus to the Cilician gates, and a few considerable towns grew up along or near this line. The most important was Iconium, in the most fertile spot in the country, of which it was always regarded by the Romans as the capital, although ethnologically it was Phrygian. It is still called Konia, and it was the capital of the Seljuk Turkish empire for several centuries. A little farther north, immediately on the frontier of Phrygia, stood Laodicea (Ladik), called Combusta, to distinguish it from the Phrygian city of that name; and in the south, near the foot of Mount Taurus, was Laranda, now called Karaman, which has given name to the province of Karamania. Derbe and Lystra, which appear from the Acts of the Apostles to have been considerable towns, were between Iconium and Laranda. There were many other towns, which became bishoprics in Byzantine times. Lycaonia was Christianized very early; and its ecclesiastical system was more completely organized in its final form during the 4th century than that of any other region of Asia Minor.
After the defeat of Antiochus the Great, Lycaonia was given by the Romans to Eumenes II., king of Pergamos. About 160 B.C. part of it, the “Tetrarchy of Lycaonia,” was added to Galatia; and in 129 B.C. the eastern half (usually called during the following 200 years Lycaonia proper) was given to Cappadocia as an eleventh strategia. In the readjustment of the Provinciae, 64 B.C., by Pompey after the Mithradatic wars, he gave the northern part of the tetrarchy to Galatia and the eastern part of the eleventh strategia to Cappadocia. The remainder was attached to Cilicia. Its administration and grouping changed often under the Romans. In A.D. 371 Lycaonia was first formed into a separate province. It now forms part of the Konia viláyet.
The Lycaonians appear to have retained a distinct nationality in the time of Strabo, but their ethnical affinities are unknown. The mention of the Lycaonian language in the Acts of the Apostles (xiv. 11) shows that the native language was spoken by the common people at Lystra about A.D. 50; and probably it was only later and under Christian influence that Greek took its place.
See Sir W. M. Ramsay, Historical Geography of Asia Minor (1890), Historical Commentary on Galatians (1899) and Cities of St Paul (1907); also an article on the topography in the Jahreshefte des Oesterr. Archaeolog. Instituts, 194 (Beiblatt) pp. 57-132. (W. M. Ra.)
LYCEUM, the latinized form of Gr. Λύκειον, the name of a
gymnasium and garden with covered walks, near the temple of
Apollo Lyceus (Ἀπόλλων Λύκειος) at Athens. Aristotle taught
here, and hence the name was applied to his school of philosophy.
The name had been used in many languages for places of instruction,
&c. In France the term lycée is given to the secondary
schools which are administered by the state, in contradistinction
to the communal collèges.
LYCIA, in ancient geography, a district in the S.W. of Asia Minor, occupying the coast between Caria and Pamphylia, and extending inland as far as the ridge of Mt Taurus. The region thus designated is a peninsula projecting southward from the great mountain masses of the interior. It is for the most part a rugged mountainous country, traversed by offshoots of the Taurus range, which terminate on the coast in lofty promontories. The coast, though less irregular than that of Caria, is indented by a succession of bays—the most marked of which is the Gulf of Macri (anc. Glaucus Sinus) in the extreme west. A number of smaller bays, and broken rocky headlands, with a few small islets, constitute the coast-line thence to the S.E. promontory of Lycia, formed by a long narrow tongue of rocky hill, known in ancient times as the “Sacred Promontory” (Hiera Acra), with three small adjacent islets, called the Chelidonian islands, which was regarded by some ancient geographers as the commencement of Mt. Taurus. Though the mountain ranges of Lycia are all offshoots of Mt, Taurus, in ancient times several of them were distinguished by separate names. Such were Daedala in the west, adjoining the Gulf of Macri, Cragus on the sea-coast, west of the valley of the Xanthus, Massicytus (10,000 ft.) nearly in
