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LABYRINTHUS.
twenty-second year of his age. These games were not celebrated" in the circus, "but in a private theatre erected in a pleasure-ground (nemus), and consisted of every kind of theatrical performance, Greek and Roman plays, mimetic pieces, and the like. The most distinguished persons in the state, old and young, male and female, were expected to take part in them. The emperor set the example by appearing in person on the stage ; and Dion Cassius mentions a distinguished Roman matron, upwards of eighty years of age, who danced in the games. It was one of the offences given by Paetus Thrasea that he had not acquitted himself with credit at this festival. (Dion Cass. Ixi, 19 ; Tac. Ann. xiv. 15, xv. 33, xvi. 21.) Suetonius (Ner. 12) confounds this festival with the Quinquennalia, which was instituted in the following year, a. d. 60. [quinquennalia.] The Juvenalia continued to be celebrated by subsequent emperors, but not on the same occasion. The name was given to those games which were exhibited by the emperors on the 1st of January in each year. They no longer consisted of -scenic representations, but of chariot races and combats of wild beasts. (Dion Cass. Ixvii. 14 ; Sidon. Apoll. Carm. xxiii. 307, 428; Capitol. G&rd. 4.j comp. Lipsius, ad Tac, Ann. xiv, 15.)
K. see €.
L.
LABARUM. [SiGNA militaria.]
LABRUM. [balneae, p. 191.]
LABYRINTHUS (a8ApivOos). This word appears to be of Greek origin, and not of Egyptian as has generally been supposed ; it is probably a derivative form of XdSipos, and etymologically connected with avpai. Accordingly, the proper definition of labyrinth is a large and complicated subterraneous cavern with numerous and intricate passages, similar to those of a mine. (Welcker, Aesehyl. Trilog. p. 212, &c.) Hence the caverns near Nauplia in Argolis were called labyrinths. (Strabo, viii. 6. p, 369.) And this is indeed the characteristic feature. of all the structures to which the ancients apply the name labyrinth, for they are always described as either entirely or partially under ground.
The earliest and most renowned labyrinth was that of Egypt,•’ which lay beyond lake Moeris, at a short distance from the eity of Crocodiles (Arsinoe), in the province now called Faioum. Herodotus (ii. 148) ascribes its construction to the dodecarehs (about 650 b. c.), and Mela (i. 9) to Psammetichiis alone. But other and more probable accounts refer its construction to a much earlier age. (Plin. //. AT. xxxvi. 13; Diod. Sic. i. 61, 89; Strabo, xvii. p. 811.) This edifice, which in grandeur even excelled the pyramids, is described by Herodotus and Pliny (II. co.) It had 3000 apartments, 1500 under ground, and the same number above it, and the whole was surrounded by a wall. It was divided into courts, each of which was surrounded by colonnades of white marble. At the time of Diodorus and of Pliny the Egyptian labyrinth was still extant. But the ruins which modern travellers describe as relics of the ancient labyrinth, as well as the place where they saw them, do not
LABYRINTHUS.
agree with what we know from the best ancient authorities respecting its architecture and its site, (British Mus. Egyptian Antlq. vol. i. p. 54, and more especially Bunsen, Aegypt&ns Stette in der Wdtgescli. vol. ii. p. 324, &c.) The purpose which this labyrinth was intended to serve, can only be matter of conjecture. It has been supposed by some writers that the whole arrangement of the edifice was a symbolical representation of the zodiac and the solar system. Herodotus, who saw the upper part of this labyrinth, and went through it, was not permitted by the keepers to enter the subterraneous part, and he was told by them that here were buried the kings by whom the labyrinth had been built, and the sacred crocodiles.
The second labyrinth mentioned by the ancients was that of Crete, in the neighbourhood of Cnos-sus: Daedalus was said to have built it after the model of the Egyptian, and at the command of king Minos. (Plin. Diod. II. cc.) This labyrinth is -said to have been only one hundredth part the size of the Egyptian, and to have been the habitation of the monster Minotaurus. Although the Cretan labyrinth is very frequently mentioned by ancient authors, yet none of them speaks of it as an eyewitness ; and Diodorus and Pliny expressly state that not a trace of it was to be seen in their days. These circumstances, together with the impossibility of accounting for the objects which a Cretan king could have had in view in raising such a building, have induced almost all modern writers to deny altogether the existence of the Cretan labyrinth. This opinion is not only supported by some testimonies of the ancients themselves, but by the peculiar nature of some parts of the island pf Crete. The author of the Etymologicum Magn. calls the Cretan labyrinth " a mountain with a ca-
vern," and
Eustathius (ad Uclyss. xi. p. lbii<j) calls it " a subterraneous cavern ;" and similar statements are made by several other writers quoted by Meursius (Oeto, pp. 67 and 69). Such large caverns actually exist in some parts of Crete, especially in the neighbourhood of the ancient town of Gortys; and it was probably some such cavern in the neighbourhood of Cnossus that gave rise to the story of a labyrinth built in the reign of Minos. (See Walpole’s Travels, p. 402, &c. ; Hockh, Kreta, i. p." 56, &c., and p. 447, &c.)
A third labyrinth, the construction of which belongs to a more historical age, was that in the island of Lemnos. It was commenced by Smilis, an Aeginetan architect, and completed by Rhoecus and Diodorus of Samos, about the time of the first Oympiad. (Plin. I. c.) It was in its construction similar to the Egyptian, and was only distinguished from it by a greater number of columns. Remains of it were still extant in the time of Pliny. It is uncertain whether this labyrinth was intended as a temple of the Cabeiri, or whether it had any connection with the art of mining. (Welcker, Aesdiyl. Tril I. c.)
Samos had likewise a labyrinth, which was built by rheodorus, the same who assisted in building that of Lemnos ; but no particulars are known. (Plin. H. N. xxxiv. 8.)
rinth.
hood of Clusium, and as the tomb of Lar Porsena. But no writer says that he ever saw it, or remains of it- and Pliny, who thought the description which
Lastly, we have to mention a fabulous edifice in Etruna, to which Pliny applies the name of laby-*""*1* It is described as being in the neighbour
