We develop Milne’s theory of Lefschetz motives for general adequate equivalence relations and over a not necessarily algebraically closed base field. The corresponding categories turn out to enjoy all properties predicted by standard and less standard conjectures, in a stronger way: algebraic and numerical equivalences agree in this context. We also compute the Tannakian group associated to a Weil cohomology in a different and more conceptual way than Milne’s case-by-case approach.