LAMIA

(Gr. Axiaioc.) An imagmary being, concerning which many superstitious notions were prevalent among the Greeks and Romans; sometimes represented as a species of monstrous animal, sometimes as a spectre or vampire. The Lamise of Pliny are animals, with the face and head of a woman and tail of a serpent, inhabiting the deserts of Africa. According to mythologists, the first Lamia was a daughter of Neptune, a malevolent godde , who seizes and devours new-born infants in their cradles: whence Horace's caution to tragic writers against indulging in the description of unnatural horrors: — Nee pransae Lamis vivum paerum extra hat alvo. In the well-known story of Machates and Philemon from which Goethe has borrowed his magnificent ballad of the Bride of Corinth), a young man is represented as marrying a l^amia, or Empusa, who sucks his blood at night. A similar tale occurs in the Life of A poll on i us of Tyana by Phi lost ratus. The Christian superstition of incubi, and the oriental belief in vampires, seem to bear marks of the same origin. LAMIDiE. (Lat. lamia, the name of an imaginary animal in Plinjr.) The subdivision or family of XcTwm^, in which the sides of the thorax are either smooth and rounded, or tuberculate, rugous, or spiny, but not furnished with moveable tubercles or spines. LAMl'N^. (Lat. lamia.) A tribe of Longicorn beetles, distinguished, according to Latreille, by their vertical head; filiform palpi, whose terminal joint is more or le ovoid and tapers to a point; maxillae with the outer lobe slightly narrowed at the end; antenna frequently setaceous and simple; and thorax, exclusive of the lateral spines or tubercles, nearly equal throughout. Some species are apterous, a modification which occurs in no other fri be of Longicorn beetles. [s. 647]