Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/474

454 L E L E portraits; chryselephantine statues were always ideal. Leochares was also the sculptor of many purely ideal works. These comprise three statues of Zeus, of which one was on the Acropolis, one at the Piraeus, and the third was carried away to Rome, where Pliny saw it on the Capitol ; he is also recorded to have carved three statues of Apollo, one of which was bought by Dionysius of Syracuse. Absolutely nothing is known of the character of these works ; but we are more fortunate in regard to his master piece, the Rape of Ganymede, of which many imitations have been preserved to us sufficient to give some idea of its real character. Ganymede, characterized as a shepherd by crook and syrinx, has been resting under a tree, when the eagle swoops down and bears him off direct heavenwards ; the looks of both are directed upwards. Ganymede, a youth of perfect beauty, does not struggle, but yields himself completely to his captor, so that his body hangs down in easy, graceful lines. The eagle, with magnificent outstretched wings, conscious, as Pliny says, "what his burden is and to whom he bears it," grasps the boy gently with his talons, and seems to swoop straight upwards, unencumbered by the weight. The problem of supporting the figures in the air, clumsily solved in the imitation preserved at Sfc Mark s in Venice by hanging the group up with a rope, was skilfully overcome by means of the tree from beneath which the boy has been seized ; while the dog beneath, looking up after his master, both gives an appearance of naturalness to the whole scene, and suggests more vividly the idea that the boy is far above the ground. The great skill of the group lay in the manner in which the idea of swift easy motion upwards was expressed; while the widespread wings of the eagle and the drooping form of the boy gave a beautiful outline to the whole. Overbeck (Gesch. der Griech. Plast., ii. 51) has well ex pressed the distinction between the fine character of this work and the sensualism of a later class of similar groups, where the eagle is obviously Zeus himself and not a mere messenger. The colossal acrolithic statue of Ares at Halicarnassus is sometimes attributed to Leochares, some times to Timotheus. On the share of Leochares in the Mausoleum and on the style of the sculptures, see Newton, Halicarnassus, Cnidus, and SrancMdn . On the inscriptions mentioning works of Leochares, see Overbeck, Scliriftqudlcn. See also Jahn, Arch&ol. Beitr., p. 20. LEOMINSTER, a municipal and parliamentary borough and market-town of England in the county of Hereford, is situated in a rich agricultural country on the Lug, 150 miles west-north-west of London aud 12 north of Hereford. The town has regular and spacious streets, and some fine old timber houses lend picturesqueness to its appearance. The parish church, which is of mixed architecture, includ ing the fine Norman nave of the old priory church, and contains some of the most beautiful examples of window tracery in England, was restored in 1866, and enlarged by the addition of a south nave in 1879. The other public buildings are the corn exchange, erected in 1859 at a cost of ,4000, and the town-hall, to make room for which, in 1855, the Batter Cross, a beautiful example of old timber work of the date 1663, was removed to form a private dwelling house. The principal industries of the town are leather and woollen manufactures, iron and brass founding, glove and hat making, and the manufacture of agricultural implements. Leominster originated in a monastery founded by Merwald king of Mercia, who had a castle near the town, where a fortress stood till 1055, when it was demolished by the Welsh. The town re ceived a charter of incorporation from Queen Mary, and has sent members to Parliament since the 23d of Edward I. ; in 1868 its representation was reduced from two members to one. The limits of the municipal and the parliamentary boroughs are identical, the population in 1871 being 5863, which in 1881 had increased to 6042. See the Histories by Price (1795) and Townsend (1863), and a paper by E. A. Freeman in Archseolorjia, Cambrensis, 1853. LEON", one of the forty-nine provinces of Spain, is bounded on the N. by Oviedo, on the E. by Palencia, on the S. by Valladolid and Zamora, and on the W. by Orense and Lugo, and has an area of 6166 square miles, with a population (in 1877) of 350,210. Its* boundaries on the north and west, formed respectively by the central ridge and southerly offshoots of the great Cantabrian chain, are strongly marked; towards the south-east it merges imperceptibly into the Castilian plateau, the line of demarcation being for the most part merely conventional. It belongs partly to the Mifio and partly to the Duero river system, these being separated by the montaiias de Leon, which extend in a continuous wall (with passes at Manzanal and Poncebadon) from north to south-west. To the Mifio flow the Sil, Boeza, Burbia, Cua, Valcarce ; the principal tributaries of the Duero are the Esla (with its affluents the Tuerto, Orbigo, Bernesga, Torio, Cuereno, and Ceo) and the Valderaduey. To the north-west of the montanas de Leon is the district known as the Vierzo, a richly wooded pastoral and highland district, which in its lower valleys produces grain, fruit, and wine in abundance. The Tierra del Campo in the west of the province is fairly productive, but in need of irrigation. The hills of Leon were wrought for gold in the time of the Romans ; iron is still obtained to some extent ; and coal and antimony also occur. The commerce and industries of the province are unimportant. Besides Leon, the capital, the only towns of any note are Astorga and Ponferrada, respectively the Asturica Augusta and the Interamnium Flavium of the Romans. There is railway communication with Madrid ; but the line from Leon to Gijon at present terminates, on the south side of the pass, at Busdongo, while that to Corufia does not extend further than Brafiuelas. The province was anciently inhabited by the Vettones and Callaici ; after the Roman conquest it formed part of Hispania Tarraconensis. Among the Christian kingdoms which arose in Spain as the Saracenic irruption of the 8th century receded, Leon was one of the oldest, after that of Asturias, the title of king of Leon having been first assumed by Ordoiio in 913. Ferdinand I. (the Great) of Castile united the crowns of Castile and Leon in the llth century; the two were again separated in the 12th, until a final union took place (1230) in the person of St Ferdinand. The limits of the kingdom varied with the alternations of success and defeat in war, but roughly speaking it may be said to have embraced what are now the provinces of Leon, Palencia, Yalladolid, Zamora, and Salamanca. The province of Leon prior to 1833 included Leon, Zamora, and Salamanca. LEON, the capital of the above province, is pleasantly situated upon a rising ground in the angle formed by the Torio and Bernesga, which here unite to form the Leon, a tributary of the Esla ; its distance north-west from Madrid is 258 miles. The town, which is surrounded by old and dilapidated walls, everywhere presents an aspect of ruin and decay. Many of the buildings are fine. Of these the most important is the cathedral, founded about 1195 ; it is built in the pointed Gothic style, of a warm cream- coloured stone, and is remarkable for its simplicity, lightness, and strength. The collegiate church of San Isiclro was founded in 1063, and consecrated in 1149; it is Byzantine in character. The church belonging to the convent of San Marcos, ordered by Ferdinand V. in 1514, was begun by Charles V. in 1537, and consecrated in 1541. Other buildings of less architectural importance arc the town-house, the episcopal palace, and that of the Guzman family. As might be expected from the ecclesiastical character of Leon, there are a variety of religious and charitable institutions ; the industries of the place are linen weaving, glove making, and the knitting of caps and