ICARIUS. An Athenian who received Dionysus in Attica and learned from him the cultivation of the vine. Some peasants to whom he gave wine slew him in drunkenness. His daughter Erigone was led to his grave by his dog Maera, and hanged herself on the tree under which he lay. Dionysus placed the three in heaven as Arcturus, The Virgin, and Procyon (the lesser dog-star). ICARUS. _See_ DAEDALUS. IDA. Mountain close to Troy. ILISSUS. A small river at Athens. ILITHYIA. Goddess of child-birth, generally identified with Artemis. INO. _See_ ATHAMAS. IO. Daughter of Inachus, king of Argos. Zeus in love with her and changed her to a heifer for concealment; Hera discovering it placed her under the care of Argus, who however was slain by Hermes at Zeus's command. Io swam to Egypt, conducted by Hermes, and there bore a son to Zeus. IOLAUS. Nephew of Heracles, and helped him against the hydra. Restored to youthful vigour by Hebe. IPHIGENIA. Daughter of Agamemnon, was to be sacrificed to Artemis to secure the passage of the Greek fleet to Troy; but Artemis substituted a hart, and transported her to Tauri in Scythia, where as priestess she had to sacrifice all strangers. She saved her brother Orestes, on the point of being thus immolated, and fled with him to Greece. IRIS. Goddess of the rainbow, sometimes charged with messages from heaven to earth. IRUS. The beggar in the _Odyssey_ who boxes with Odysseus. ISIS. Egyptian Goddess, sometimes identified with Io. ISMENUS. The river of Thebes. ISOCRATES. 436-338 B.C. The greatest of Greek oratorical writers and teachers, but debarred from speaking by timidity and a weak voice. IXION. King of the Lapithae, admitted by Zeus to the table of the Gods; his story will be found in _Dialogues of the Gods_, vi. LABDACIDS. Laïus, Oedipus, Eteocles and Polynices, Antigone and Ismene, the subjects of many Greek tragedies, were descended from Labdacus the Theban. LAERTES. Father of Odysseus and king of Ithaca. LAÏS. A famous courtesan of Corinth. LAÏUS. King of Thebes and father of Oedipus, who slew him in ignorance of his identity, and so fulfilled an oracle. LAOMEDON. _See_ APOLLO. LAPITHAE. A Thessalian people. When they invited the centaurs to the marriage feast of Pirithoüs, who was one of them, a quarrel and bloodshed arose. LEDA. Wife of Tyndareus, king of Sparta, loved by Zeus, who took the form of a swan. She produced two eggs, from one of which came Pollux and Helen, children of Zeus, and from the other Castor and Clytemnestra, of Tyndareus. LEMNIAN WOMEN. Having offended Aphrodite, were abandoned by their husbands, and in revenge murdered all their male relations. LEONIDAS. The king of Sparta who held Thermopylae with a small force against all the host of Xerxes till nearly all his men were slain, 480 B.C. LEOSTHENES. Commander of the Greeks in the Lamian war, for emancipation after Alexander's death.