Founding Myths
Lepreus, son of Pyrgeus (who was killed by Heracles) is considered by some to be the city's mythical founder, similar to the founding of Rome by Romulus and Remus. Other historians however assert that the city's name comes from the fact that the original settlers were afflicted with leprosy, while some claim that it was due to the presence of a temple of Zeus Leukaios (Of the White Poplar).
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Famous quotes containing the words founding and/or myths:
“... there is no way of measuring the damage to a society when a whole texture of humanity is kept from realizing its own power, when the woman architect who might have reinvented our cities sits barely literate in a semilegal sweatshop on the Texas- Mexican border, when women who should be founding colleges must work their entire lives as domestics ...”
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—Strabo (c. 58 B.C.c. 24 A.D., Greek geographer. Geographia, bk. 1, sct. 2, subsct. 8.