LO'CRIS (Lat., from Gk. Abspis, Lokris). A district of ancient Greece. Legend told of a King Loeros, a descendant of Deucalion, who ruled over the Leleges on the coast of the mainland opposite Eubtea, and whose wife, a daughter of the King of Ens. bore to Zeus a son Opus. Later, moved by the strife of his sons, Loeros is said to have crossed the mountains to the southwest and formed a new settlement on the shores of the Corinthian Gulf. The Locrian tribes seem to have been forced asunder by the invasions from the north, and in historic times two distinct tribes were known. The eastern Locrians, di vided into the Opuntian and Epicnemidian, dwelt opposite the island of Eubcca on the northeast coast of Greece. The western Locrians. called Ozolian, lived on the Corinthian Gulf, west of Phoeis. Neither division played any prominent part in Greek history. Early in the seventh cen tury B.C. a colony, probably of the Opuntian Locrians, settled at Cape Zephyrium in :Magna and a few years later moved to a site about five miles south of the modern Geraee, where they founded Locri Epizephyrii. The city never attained the prosperity of the great trading colonies, but seems to have been a pros perous farming community. It was celebrated for its severe but just code of laws, attribut ed to Zaleucus, who is said to have lived about the middle of the seventh century B.C., and to
have been the first, Greek to prepare a written code. So highly was his work esteemed that it is said to have remained unaltered fur centuries. The Locrians won great fame by defeating the much more powerful city of Crotona in a battle at the River Sagras about B.C. 525, a vic tory which they ascribed to the personal inter vention of the Dioseuri. The town was seized by the younger Dionysius, after his expulsion from Syracuse in B.C. 356, and ruled with the greatest tyranny until his return to Syracuse in n.c. 346, when the inhabitants rose and took a frightful vengeance on his family, who had been left be hind. During the wars of Rome with Pyrrhus and Carthage, the city was alternately occupied by the opposing parties, and its temple of Per sephone was finally plundered by the Romans, who, however, made restitution later. tioon after it seems to have declined in importance, but is mentioned by Procopius in the sixth century A.D., and was probably destroyed by the Sara cens. In 1889 and 1890 excavations near G•race brought to light the foundations of a temple. pos sibly that of Persephone. Consult Romische Mittheilungcn, vol. v. (1890), and A ntikc Denk mater, i. 5 (1890).