The Lycos mail system just came back up. I was able to log in, but the status page I linked to has not been updated. Not sure yet if it will be a good link to check for mail system status in future; will keep that in mind next time there is a problem.
Here is the page where I found that status message, which might be useful when checking on mail system problems:
https://cshelp.lycos.com/categories/search?utf8=%26%23x2713%3B&query=Lycos+Mail+system&for_search=1&commit=Search
