Smith, William: A smaller dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities (London, 1871)

LYCAEA.

245

LYRA.

days, while the five solar years contained
1825 days. The lustrum, or the great year
of the ancient Komans, was thus a cycle, at
the end of which the beginning of the an-
cient year nearly coincided with that of the
solar year. As the coincidence, however,
was not perfect, a month of 24 days was in-
tercalated in every eleventh lustrum. Now
it is highly probable that the recurrence of
such a cycle or great year was, from the
earliest times, solemnised with sacrifices and
purifications, and that Servius Tullius did not
introduce them, but merely connected them
with his census, and thus set the example
for subsequent ages. Many writers of the
latter period of the republic and during the
empire, use the word lustrum for any space
of five years, and without any regard to the
census, while others even apply it in the
sense of the Greek pentaeteris or an Olym-
piad, which contained only four years.

LYCAEA (Aikata), a festival with contests,
celebrated by the Arcadians in honour of
Zeus surnamed Avicatos. It was said to have
been instituted by the ancient hero Lycaon,
the son of Pelasgus, who is also said, instead
of the cakes which had formerly been offered
to the god, to have sacrificed a child to Zeus,
and to have sprinkled the altar with its
blood.

LYRA (Avpa, Lat. fides), a lyre, one of the
most ancient musical instruments of the
stringed kind. The Greeks attributed the
invention of the lyre to Hermes, who is said
to have formed the instrument of a tortoise-
shell, over which he placed gut-strings. The
name Kvpa, however, does not occur in the
Homeric poems, and the ancient lyre, called
in Homer phorminx (</)6pjxryf) and citharis
(KiQapis), seems rather to have resembled the
cithara of later times, which was in some
respects like a modern guitar. In the cithara
the strings were drawn across the bottom,
whereas in the lyra of ancient times they

vie with fuur string, from a Lvcian coin. (Cabinet of
Sir Charles Fellows.)

were free on l oth ides. The lyre is al-o
called xP>vs or x<l^uvt], and in Latin testitdo,
because it was made of a tortoise-shell. The
lyre had originally three or four strings, but
after the time of Terpander of Antissa (about
b.c. 650), who is said to have added three
more, it was generally made with seven.
The ancients, however, made use of a variety
of lyres; and about the time of Sappho and
Anacreon several stringed instruments, such
as magadis, barbiton, and others, were used
in Greece, and especially in Lesbos. They
had been introduced from Asia Minor, and
their number of strings far exceeded that of
the lyre, for we know that some had even
twenty strings, so that they must have more
resembled a modern harp than a lyre. But

Lyre with seven strings, from a coin of Chalcis. (British
Museum.)

the lyra and cithara had in most cases no
more than seven strings. The lyre had a
great and full-sounding bottom, which con-
tinued as before to be made generally of tor-
toise-shell, from which the horns rose as from
the head of a stag. A transverse piece of
wood connecting the two horns at or near
their top-ends served to fasten the strings,
and was called £vyov, and in Latin trans-
tillum. The horns were called thjx61? or
cornua. These instruments were often
adorned in the most costly manner with gold
and ivory. The lyre was considered as a
more manly instrument than the cithara,
which, on account of its smaller-sounding
bottom, excluded full-sounding and deep
tones, and was more calculated for the
middle tones. The lyre when played stood
in an upright position between the knees,
while the cithara stood upon the knees of
the player. Both instruments were held
with the left hand, and played with the
right. It has generally been supposed that
the strings of these instruments were always