Λαίλας

Notes (1)

1. The Lydian origin of this headword -- alleged by Hesychius lambda134, who adds (sc. a term used) 'by Lydians' -- is not attested elsewhere. The grammarian Theognostus instead adds 'but placed there' (Canones 27.6).
1. 1The Greek word tu/rannos (tau 1187, cf. tau 1183, tau 1188) does become in English 'tyrant', but misleadingly to the modern reader. The Greek term suggests only that the ruler did not attain the throne by heredity; it entailed no necessary moral condemnation prior to the rise of democracies. (Sophocles’ tragedy that we generally render into English as Oedipus the King is in Greek O. Tyrannos. He was not presumed to be the son of his predecessor Laius but to have become monarch because he successfully solved the riddle posed by the Sphinx. See omicroniota 34.). ↩