Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/473

L E O L E 453 large numbers invested the capital by land and sea in the following August ; the siege was not raised until 720. Relieved from this pressing danger, and also in 721 from a conspiracy originating with the deposed emperor Anastasius II., Leo speedily inaugurated the aggressive religious policy with which his name is associated, by promulgating, in 722, the edicts commanding the baptism of Jews and Montanists throughout the empire, and in 726 that against the " idolatry of image worship," which was destined ultimately to produce so important effects on the relations of Italy and the West with Byzantium. Instigated by Pope Gregory II., the Italians refused to obey the command to remove the pictures from their churches ; and when Paulus, the newly- appointed exarch of Ravenna, sought to employ force, he was defeated and slain. A revolt which had broken out in the Cychdes and the Peloponnesus was with difficulty quelled, and an insurrection in Constantinople was only repressed after much bloodshed (730). In November 730 a council was held by Gregory II. at Rome, in which anathemas were pronounced against the destroyers of images, and therefore, by implication at least, against Leo. He retaliated by severing the Trans-Adriatic provinces from the Roman patriarchate, and by confiscating large posses sions of the Roman see in Calabria and Sicily. Another council under Gregory III., in 73 2, joined in a solemn excommunication of all iconoclasts, and image worship was set up in Rome on a more splendid scale than had previously been known. The emperor made a last effort to relieve his exarch Eutychius, shut up in Ravenna, and to bring the pope and Italy to obedience ; but the great fleet which he sent was wrecked in the Adriatic, and with it the exarchate became practically lost to the empire. The closing years of Leo s reign were disturbed by troubles with the Arabs ; and 740 was made memorable by a great earthquake which devastated Constantinople, Thrace, and Bithynia. He died in 741. LEO V., FLAVIUS, surnamed THE ARMENIAN, served as general under Xicephorus L, but was banished for treachery in 811. Shortly afterwards he was recalled and appointed commander of the eastern army by Michael I. After gaining some distinction in war with the Arabs in 812, he accompanied his sovereign, in 813, on an expe dition against Crum, king of the Bulgarians. Taking advantage of the disaffection of the army during a battle with the enemy near Adrianople, he withdrew with the forces under his command, leaving Michael to total defeat. Shortly afterwards he was crowned at Constantinople without opposition (813). In 814, and agiin in the following year, he inflicted decisive defeats upon the Bulgariars. He then began to show great zeal against the image worshippers, but such was his severity that even his closest friend, Michael the Stammerer, who had done much to help him to the throne, ultimately turned against him. Michael was convicted of conspiracy and condemned tJ death, but by the intervention of his friends, who assassinated Leo in the palace chapel on Christmas Eve 820, was raised from prison to the throne. LEO VI., FLAVIUS, surnamed SAPIENS and PHILO- SOPHUS, succeeded his father, Basil L, in 886, and died in 911. One of his first acts was to depose the well-known Photius, patriarch of Constantinople, who had bsen hia tutor. The rest of his biography, so far as recorded, tells of unimportant wars with barbarians and struggles with churchmen. In explanation of liis somewhat absurd sur name, all that can be said, as Gibbon has remarked, is "that the son of Basil was less ignorant than the greater part of his contemporaries in church and state, that his education hid been directed by the learned Photiu?, and that several books of profane and ecclesiastical science vere composed by the pen, or in the name, of the imperial philosopher. His works include a treatise on military tactics (De Apparatu Bellico, translated by Sir John Cheke in 1554, and frequently since), seventeen Oracula, in iambic verse, on the destinies of future emperors and patriarchs of Constantinople, thirty-three Orations, chiefly on theo logical subjects, and some epigrams in the Greek Antho logy. LEO, JOHANNES, usually called LEO AFRICANUS, some times ELIBERITANUS (i.e., of Granada), is best known as tht< author of a valuable Africse, Descriptio, which long ranked as almost the only authority in regard more especially to the Sudan. Born probably at Granada, of a noble Moorish stock, Albasan ibn Mohammed Abwaz^an Alfasi (for this was his real designation) received an excellent education at Fez, where his family settled after the expulsion from Spain. He was still in his sixteenth year when he legan a course of travel which extended, not only through the northern and central parts of Africa (where he had advanced to the south-east of Lake Chad), but also into Arabia, Syria, Persia, Armenia, Tartary, and portions of Europe. As he was returning from Egypt about 1517, he was captured by pirates near the island of Gerba, and he was ultimately presented as a slave to Leo X. The pope no sooner discovered what manner of man he was than he assigned him a pension ; and having persuaded him to profess the Christian faith, he stood sponsor at his baptism, and bestowed on him his own names, Johannes and Leo. The new convert, having made himself acquainted with Latin and Italian, not only taught Arabic to ^Egidius Antoninus, bishop of Yiterbo, and others, but wrote books in both tongues. He appears to have returned to Africa, and to have put off his Christianity, before his death ; but the later part of his career is involved in obscurity. He was still alive in 1526. The Africa Descriptio was originally written in Arabic, but the ilS. (at one time in the library of Vinccnzo Pinelli, 1535-1601) is not known to be extant. The author s own translation into passable Italian was first published by Ramnsio, Xaviyationi e Viaggi. Ver sions of this or of the widely used Latin translation by F. Florianus have appeared in English, French, Dutch, &c. For notices of Leo s other works see Lorsbach s edition (Herborn, 1801). LEOBSCHUTZ (Bohemian, IIlubc:yce), a town in the Prussian province of Silesia, circle of Oppeln, is situated on the Zinna, about 20 miles to the north-west of Ratibor. It carries on a considerable trade in wool, flax, and grain, its markets for these commodities being very numerously attended. The principal industries are carriage-building, wool-spinning, and glass-making. The town contains three Roman Catholic churches, a Protestant church, a synagogue, a new town-hall, and a gymnasium. LeobschiAtz is known to have existed in the 10th century, and from 1524 to 1623 was capital of the principality of Jagerndorf, which was divided between Prussia and Austria in 1742. Population in 1880, 12,015. LEOCHARES, one of the sculptors of the j ounger Attic school in the fine period of Greek art. He is called a young man in a pseudo-Platonic epistle which must be later than 366 B.C. He worked on the Mausoleum along with Scopas, Bryaxis, Timotheos, and Pythis about 356 B.C.; the west side of the frieze, of which all the extant fragments are in the British Museum, was entrusted to him. He made the statue of Isocrates which was erected at Athens about 354 B.C. Many other portrait statues are known to have been his work. Along with Lysippus he represented Alexander the Great engaged in a lion hunt. This group was in bronze, whereas another in the Philip- peion at Olympia, representing the family of Philip and Alexander, was in ivory and gold. Finally, an inscription records that he made the statues of an Athenian family. Though nothing is recorded of the character of these works, it may be gathered from the list that they were idealize:!