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IAMBIC POETRY Iambic poetry, like the elegiac poetry which was also nearly contemporaneous with it and was similarly cultivated by the Ionians of Asia Minor, forms a connecting link between epic and lyric poetry. While elegy however is directly connected, both in metrical form and expression, with epic poetry, iambic poetry is in direct contrast to it, both as regards subject-matter, diction and metre. The difference between the subject-matter of the two is as marked as the distinction was between tragedy and comedy in later times. While the aim of epic poetry is to awake admiration for its heroes, iambic poetry strains all the resources of art and irony, sarcasm and satire, to bold up the faults and weaknesses of human nature to mockery and contempt. This form of poetry, in keeping with its subject, confined itself to the simple, unadorned language of everyday life, and made use of the pliant iambic metre, which lent itself readily to such language, and had long been popularly employed to clothe in a poetic garb the raillery which formed part, of the rustic feasts of Demeter. This custom, as well as the application of the word iambus to verses of this kind, was traced to the Thracian maiden Iambe (also called the daughter of Pan and Echo). When the goddess Demeter was plunged in grief for the loss of her daughter Persephone, on entering the house of Celeus at Eleusis, it was the jests of Iambe that forced her to smile and restored her appetite. Iambic poetry was brought to artistic perfection by Archilochus of Paros (about 700 B.C.). He did not remain satisfied with the simple repetition of the same iambic verse, but invented the most varied forms, linking the longer iambic measures with the shorter, as well as with dactylic metres, and thus forming epodes. Instead of the iambus ( -), he also made use of its inverted form, the trochee (- ). Further representatives of this class were his younger contemporary Simonides of Amorgus, and Hipponax of Ephesus (about 540 B.C.), the inventor of the metre called the choliambus or scazon iambus, the "lame" or " limping iambus," in which the last iambic foot is replaced by a trochee, which as it were limps at the end of the verse and gives it a comic effect. Solon employed the iambic form in justifying his political aims in the face of his opponents. Of the later iambic writers may be mentioned Herlides or Herondas, whose extant poems (editio prinreps, 1891), may be assigned to the 3rd century B.C. He was the composer of mimes in iambic metre, a kind of imitative pourtrayal of manners in choliambic verses, similar to those of the Roman Gnaeus Matius in the let century B.C. From the middle of this century onwards lampoons in iambic verse became common among the Romans. Its earliest representatives included Furius Bibaculus, Catullus, and also Horace, who in his epodes imitated the metres of Archilochus. Under the Empire, a few poems by Martial and Ausonius belong to this class.
IAMBLICHUS A Greek writer of romances, born in Syria, who composed in the second half of the 2nd century A.D. a romance in sixteen books, called, from the scene of the greater part of the story, Babylonica. It relates the love-adventures of Rhodanes and Sinonis. We only possess an epitome of it by Photius.
IAMBLICHUS A Greek philosopher from Chalcis in Syria, a pupil of Porphyrius, and the founder of the Syrian school of Neo-Platonic philosophy. He died about 330 A.D. He employed the Neo-Platonic philosophy entirely in the service of polytheistic religion, and mingled it with Oriental superstition, which he endeavoured to justify on speculative grounds. He even taught that divination and magic were necessary to bring about a re-absorption into the Deity. He himself had the reputation of working miracles, and was highly venerated by his disciples. Of his work in ten books on the Pythagorean philosophy, we still possess four parts, including a life of Pythagoras, an uncritical and careless compilation from the works of earlier writers. A work, formerly attributed to him, on the theology of arithmetic, setting forth the mystic lore of numbers according to the later Pythagoreans and Platonists, is not written by him, any more than the work on the Mysteries of Egypt. Both however belong to his school.
IAPETUS Son of Uranus and Gaees, a Titan, who, either by Clymene or Asia, the daughter of Oceanns, became the father of Atlas, Menaetius, Promatheus, and Epimetheus. He was thrown into Tartarus, with his son Menaetius, on account of his rebellion against Zeus.
IASION A favourite of Demeter, who in Crete became by him the mother of Plutus. Zeus accordingly killed Iasion with a flash of lightning.
IBYCUS A Greek lyric poet of Rhegium in Lower Italy, about 530 B.C. Like Anacreon, he led a wandering life, and spent much of his time at the court of Polycrates of Samos. According to his epitaph, he died in his native town; according to the legend made familiar by Schiller's poem, he was slain on a journey to Corinth, and his murderers were discovered by a flock of cranes. His poems, which were collected into seven books, survive in scanty fragments only. They dealt partly with mythological themes in the metres of Stesichorus and partly with love-songs in the spirit of Eolic lyric poetry, full of glowing passion and sensibility. It was mainly to the latter that he owed his fame.
ICARIUS The hero of the Attic deme of Icaria. Under the reign of Pandion he received the vine from Dionysus in return for his hospitable reception of the god. As he went about the land with skins full of wine, in order to spread the cultivation of the vine, and some shepherds became intoxicated on the new drink, their companions, thinking they had been poisoned, slew him and either cast his body into a dry brook or buried him under a tree on Mount Hymettus. His daughter Erigone found it after a long search, being led to the spot by her faithful dog Maera ; and hung herself on the tree. Dionysus punished the land with a plague, and the maidens with madness, so that they hanged themselves after the manner of Erigone. To expiate the guilt of slaying Icarius and to avert the curse, the festival of the Aiora (the "swing") was founded in her honour. During this all sorts of small images were hung on the trees and swung, and fruits were brought as an offering to the father as well as to the daughter. Icarius was placed among the constellations as Bootes or Arcturus, Erigone as Virgo, and Maera as Procyon.
ICARUS Son of Daedalus. While he and his father were flying away from Crete by means of waxen wings, in spite of his father's warnings, he flew too near the sun, so that the wax melted and he sank into the sea and was drowned. After him the island where his body was washed ashore and buried by Heracles was called <Icaria, and the surrounding sea, the "Icarian Sea."
ICELUS
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A dream-god. (See DREAMS.)
ICTINUS
IDAEAN DACTYLI Fabulous beings in Greek mythology who had their original home in Phrygian Ida, but were afterwards transferred by legend to the mountain of the same name in Crete, and were confounded with similar beings called the Telchines, Curetes, Cabiri, and Corybantes, who were all fabulous beings in the service of Rhea Cybe1e (the "Idaean Mother"). They were accredited with having discoyered, and having been the first to work, iron and copper; with having introduced music and rhythm into Greeee; and with being possessed of magic power. Three of the Phrygian Dactyli had names: Celmis (the smelter), Damnameneus (the hammer), and Acmon (the anvil). Among the Cretan Dactyli, who were five, ten, and even more in number, was the "Idaean Heracles," a personification of the procreative powers of nature, who also afforded magical protection against perils.
IDAS AND LYNCEUS
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Sons of Aphareus of Messenia and of Arene; a pair of brothers as heroic and as inseparable as their cousins Castor and Pollux (Polydeuces). The Nymph Marpessa, daughter of the Acarnanian river-god Euenus, was wooed by Apollo, when Idas carried her off in a winged chariot given him by Poseidon. When Apollo overtook the fugitives in Messenia, Idas, who was then "the strongest of living men " [Homer, Il. ix 556], stretched his bow against Apollo. Zeus interposed and gave the damsel her choice of suitors; she decided in favour of the mortal, as she feared Apollo would desert her. After that the god hated her; she herself and her beautiful daughter Cleopatra or Alcyone, wife of Me1eager, and their daughter, all died young, and brought misfortune on those that loved them. Idas and the keen-sighted Lynceus, who could even see into the heart of the earth, joined in the Calydonian Hunt and the Argonautic expedition. They met their end fighting Castor and Pollux, with whom they had been brought up. As they were all returning from a raid into Arcadia, Idas was appointed to divide the cattle they had captured; he divided an ox into four portions and decided that whosoever devoured his portion first was to have the first half of the spoil, and he who finished his next, the second half. He finished his own and his brother's share first, and drove the cattle away. The Dioscuri were enraged and hid themselves from the brothers in a hollow oak-tree; but the keen sight of Lynceus detected their lurking. place and Idas stabbed Castor in the tree. Thereupon Pollux pierced Lynceus through, while Idas was slain by the lightning of Zeus. For another account of the origin of the quarrel, see DIOSCURI.
IDMON Son of Apollo and of Asterie, daughter of Coronus; a seer who took part in the Argonautic expedition, although he foresaw that it would lead to his own death. He was killed by a wild boar in the land of the Marlandyni, in Bithynia. He was worshipped as a hero by the inhabitants of the town of Heracleia in Pontus, which was built around his grave by command of Apollo.
IDOMENEUS The son of Deucalion of Crete, and grandson of Minos. Being one of Helen's suitors, he and Meriones, the son of his half brother, went with eighty ships to Troy, where he appears in Homer as among the bravest of heroes. He is described [in Od. iii 191] as one of those who safely returned to his native land. According to a later story, he was caught in a storm on his way home, and vowed to Poseidon that, if he returned in safety, he would sacrifice to the god whatever he should first meet on his landing. His son came out to meet him, and was accordingly sacrificed; a plague thereupon broke out, he was banished by the Cretans, and betook himself to Calabria. He afterwards withdrew to Co1ophon in Asia, where he is said to have been buried. His tomb, however, was shown by the Cretans at Cnosus, where he was worshipped as a hero.
IDUS
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The thirteenth or fifteenth day of the Roman month (See CALENDAR). It was Sacred to Jupiter.
IDYLL A poetic sketch of character, specially in connexion with pastoral life. (See further under BUCOLIC POETRY.)
ILE
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In the organization of the Macedonian army, a squadron of cavalry, generally 200 strong, under the command of an ilarchus. (See HIPPEIS.)
ILIA
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Daughter of Aeneas and Lavinia. According to the legend, Romulus and Remus were her sons by Mars. (See AeNEAS and RHEA SILVIA.)
ILIONE Daughter of Priam and Hecuba, and wife of the Thracian prince Polymestor. Her youngest brother Polydorus was entrusted to her care by her parents, and she brought him up as her own son, while she gave out that her own son Deiphilus or Deipylus was Polydorus. When Polymestor (who was bribed by the Greeks) murdered the supposed Polydorus, Ilione blinded and killed him.
ILUS The son of Tros, and great-grandson of Dardanus, brother of Assaracus and Ganymede, and father of Laomedon. He once went from his native town of Dardania upon Mount Ida to Phrygia, where he was victorious in an athletic contest held by the king of the country. Beside fifty youths and fifty maidens, the prize of the contest, the king gave him, at the command of an oracle, a spotted cow, and told him there to found a city on the spot where she lay. He accordingly founded on the hill of the Phrygian Ate, the town which after him was called Ilion, and also Troy (Gr. Troia) after his father. When he demanded a sign of Zeus, on the following morning he found the Palladium before his tent.
IMAGINES
IMPERATOR A Roman title, originally the designation of each separate possessor of an independent command (imperium). In the course of time it became customary to assume the title after a man had gained his first great victory, usually after having been greeted as imperator either by the soldiers on the battlefield, or by the decree of the senate. Under the Empire the title, which was seldom conferred by Augustus, was granted for the last time by Tiberius 22 A.D. It was usually followed by a triumph, and ceased when the triumph was over. As a permanent title, it was first assumed by Caesar, whose adopted son and heir Octavian bore it as an inherited cognomen, and from the year B.C. 40 onwards, according to a custom that arose at that time, substituted it for his previous proenomen Gains, thus becoming Imperator Caesar, instead of Caesar Imperator. His immediate successors, Tiberius, Ca1igula, and Claudius abstained from using this proenomen; Nero used it frequently, but it first became permanent with Vespasian. The emperors also took the title Imperator, in its earlier signification, after a victory won by themselves or on their behalf.
IMPERIUM
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The full kingly power among the Romans, the royal authority over all members of the state. It was conferred on the newly elected king by the comilia curiata, a formal assembly of the patricians comprising the curioe, and it consisted of the rights of levying the citizens for military service, of leading the army, of celebrating a triumph, of exercising civil and criminal jurisdiction, and of inflicting punishment on the citizens, whether corporal or capital, or such as affected either their property or their liberty. A symbol of this authority was the axe and the bundle of rods borne by the lictors. (See FASCES.) At the establishment of the Republic the imperium was transferred to the two consuls, as the successors of the kings; but the full power of the imperium was then limited by the fact that both possessed the same power, and that, in the penalties they inflicted in times of peace, they were subject to the right of appeal (see PROVOCATIO), and to the intervention of the tribunes of the people, after the institution of that office. When the consulship was deprived of its civil jurisdiction and the praetorship instituted for this purpose, the praetors also received the imperium; nevertheless it was more limited (minus) than that of the consuls, who, in contrast with the praetors and all other magistrates except the tribunes, had the right of ordering and forbidding. The imperium in its undivided and unlimited form was conferred on those who in exceptional cases were appointed dictators. It was also possessed by the interrex, but for five days only. For consuls and praetors the imperium could be "prorogued," i.e. prolonged beyond their time of office; but the imperium thus prolonged was finitum, i.e. bounded within the limits of their province. In the Republic it could also be conferred by means of the comitia curiata, but this act fell into a mere formality. Under the Empire the term imperium included the highest military authority, which resided in the emperor and was the foundation of all his power. It was taken up either at the instance of the senate or the troops. Its full validity depended on its recognition by both.
IMPLUVIUM
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A depression in the floor of the Roman atrium made for the, purpose of receiving the rain which came in through the open roof. (See HOUSE.)
INACHUS The most ancient king of Argos, properly the god of the river of the same name, son of Oceanus and Tethys, and father of Phoroneus and Io. After the flood of Deucalion, he is said to have led the inhabitants down from the mountains to the plains, and when Poseidon and Hera contended for the possession of the land, he decided in favour of the latter. In punishment for this Poseidon made the rivers of Argos suffer from a scarcity of water.
INCUCBARE
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Specially used of sleeping in a sanctuary where oracular responses were sought through dreams or necromancy. (See ORACLES.) It was with a view to obtaining in a dream a revelation either from the god of the sanctuary, or by conjuring up the spirit of some dead person. Certain preliminaries had generally to be performed, in particular the sacrifice of some animal, on whose skin it was often customary to sleep. These incubations, which were in vogue among the Greeks from the earliest times, but were not extensively practised among the Romans until under the Empire, generally took place in the temple of Aesculapius, the god of healing.
INDIGETES Roman deities of uncertain import. They appear to have been local heroes, who ranked beneath the gods, such as Evander, Aeneas, and Romulus.
INDIGITIMENTA
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The Latin term for an official collection of forms of prayer belonging to the libri pontificii (see PONTIFEX). In them were set forth the various powers of each god who was to be summoned to aid in particular cases; and none of these divinities could be passed over, if the prayer was to receive a favourable answer. Only those portions of the collection were made public which bore direct reference to private life; prayers at marriages, at births, for a blessing on the children at different times of life, and for the beginning of all kinds of work, especially agriculture. (The names of the gods of earliest childhood were as follows: Potina and Educa, who taught the child when weaned to eat and drink; Cuba, who protected the child when taken out of the cradle and put to bed; Ossipaga, who strengthened the bones; Carna, who strengthened the flesh; Levana, who helped it to rise from the ground; Statanus, Statilinus, or dea Statina, who taught it to stand; Abeona and Adeona, who supported its first walking; Fabulinus, Farinus, who assisted it to talk.) All collective occupations, all parts of the house, all different spots had their particular gods, who were invoked in these forms of prayer. Often the various names only indicate the different characteristics of a single divinity; e.g. Maia was invoked under the names of Bona, Fauna, Ops, and Fatua. In course of time the different attributes came to be regarded as separate divinities. [The names of the above divinities are quoted from Varro, Antiquitates Rerum Divinarum, by Tertullian, Ad Nat. ii 11, 15 (and De Anima 37, 39); and by Augustine, De Civitate Dei, iv 11, 21 (and iv 8, 10; vi 9, vii 23).]
INFAMIA The Latin term for the loss of certain political rights; resembling, but not identical with, deminutio capitis (q.v.). It was the direct consequence of dishonourable conduct, or of some shameless act (such as a widow not observing the usual year of mourning, bigamy, bankruptcy, going on the stage, or becoming a gladiator, pandering, or becoming a prostitute, etc.). It also resulted from a condemnation for felony, robbery, fraud, embezzlement of a deposit, whether belonging to a society or a ward, or in fact for any criminal offence. The infamis was expelled from his tribe, lost his vote and his capacity for filling public offices (ius suffrgII and ius honorum), and could not appear in a court of law either on his own account or on behalf of another. (Cp. ATIMIA.)
INHERITANCE
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Roman. If a man died intestate leaving a wife and children of his body or adopted, they were his heirs (sui heredes). But this did not apply to married daughters who had passed into the manus of their husbands, or the children who had been freed by emancipation from the potestas of their father. If the man left no wife or children, the agnati, or relations in the male line, inherited, according to the degree of their kinship. If there were no agnati, and the man was a patrician, the property went to his gens. The cognati, or relations in the female line, were originally not entitled to inherit by the civil law. But, as time went on, their claim was gradually recognised more and more to the exclusion of the agnati, until at last Justinian entirely abolished the privilege of the latter, and substituted the principle of blood-relationships for that of the civil law. Vestal Virgins were regarded as entirely cut off from the family union, and therefore could not inherit from an intestate, nor, in case of their dying intestate, did the property go to their family, but to the state. But, unlike other women, they had unlimited right of testamentary disposition. If a freedman died intestate and childless, the patronus and his wife had the first claim to inherit, then their children, then their agnati, and (if the patronus was a patrician) then his gens. In later times, even if a freedman, dying childless, left a will, the patronus and his sons had claim to half the property. Augustus made a number of provisions in the matter of freedmen's inheritance. The civil law made it compulsory on a man's sui heredes to accept an inheritance whether left by will or not. But as the debts were taken over with the property, the edictum of the praetor allowed the heirs to decline it. A fortiori, no other persons named in the will could be compelled to accept the legacy. (See WILL.)
INHERITANCE Greek (Athens). If a person died intestate, leaving sons, all of equal birthright, and none of them disinherited, the sons inherited the property in equal parts, the eldest probably receiving the same share as the rest. If there were daughters, they were provided for by dowries, which, in case they were divorced or childless after marriage, went back to the remaining heirs. If a man had no sons of his own, be usually adopted a son to continue the family and the religious worship connected with it. If he had daughters he would marry one of them to, the adopted son; in this case the chief share of the inheritance would fall to this married daughter and her husband, the rest receiving dowries. If there were only daughters surviving, the succession passed to them. In such a case the next of kin had a legal right to one of the heiresses, (epicleros) and could claim to marry her, even if she had married some one else before receiving the inheritance. And poor heiresses, on the other hand, had a legal claim on their nearest of kin either for marriage, or for a provision suitable to their circumstances. If a man had married an heiress, be was bound by custom and tradition, if he had sons, to name one as heir to the property which had come with is wife, and thus to restore the house of the maternal grandfather. Children born out of wedlock were illegitimate, and had no claim on the father's estate. If a man died intestate, leaving no heirs either, of his body or adopted, his nearest relations in the male line inherited, and in default of these, those in the female line as far as the children of first cousins. Any one thinking he had a legal claim to the inheritance made an application to the archon to hand it over to him. The application was posted up in public, and read out in the following, ecclesia. The question was then asked whether any one disputed the claim, or raised a counter-claim. If not, the archon assigned the inheritance to the claimant; otherwise the matter was decided by a law-suit. Even after the assignment of an inheritance, it might be disputed in the lifetime of the holder, and for five years, after his death. The claim of the nearest relation to an heiress was in the same way lodged with the archon and ratified before the assembly.
INNS did not come into existence in Greece until the times when, in consequence of the increase of traffic, the custom of hospitality, which was formerly practised on an extensive scale, became more and more confined to cases where it was either inherited or was the subject of special agreement on both sides. Besides private inns (pandokeia), which offered food as well as shelter to strangers, public inns, which at least gave shelter and night-quarters, were to be found in some places, especially where great crowds of men were accustomed to assemble for the celebration of festivals, and also near temples which were much visited. The profession of an inn-keeper was little esteemed, still less that of a tavern-keeper, whose bar (kapeleion) it was not considered proper for respectable people to frequent [Isocr., Areop. 49]; in Athens a visit to a tavern was even sufficient to lead to expulsion from the Areopagus. In Rome, as in most parts of Italy, there were inns for travellers (deversoria) at least as early as the 2nd century B.C. On the great high-roads taverns were built on speculation by landowners resident in the neighbourhood, and were either let out, or kept for them by slaves. With the increase of traffic, stations for changing horses (mutatio) and for night-quarters (mansio) began to be placed on the high-roads of all the provinces. Cook-shops (popinoe) and taverns (cauponoe) were seldom frequented by any but the commonest people. Those who kept them were just as much despised as in Greece, and were actually considered by the law as under a ban. Even in antiquity it was the custom to make inns known by a sign-board (insigne). Thus in Pompeii an inn has been discovered with the sign of an elephant.
INO Daughter of Cadmus, and wife of Athamus (q.v.). Being followed by the latter when he had been seized with madness, she fled to the cliff Moluris, between Megara and Corinth, and there threw herself into the sea with her infant son Me1icertes. At the isthmus, however, mother and child were carried ashore by a dolphin, and, from that time forward, honoured as marine divinities along the shores of the Mediterranean, especially on the coast of Megara and at the Isthmus of Corinth. Ino was worshipped as Leucothea, and Melicertes as Paloemon. They were regarded as divinities who aided men in peril on the sea. As early as Homer, we have Ino mentioned as rescuing Odysseus from danger by throwing him her veil [Od. v 333-353). Among the Romans Ino was identified with Matuta (q.v.).
INTERCESSIO The Latin term for the interference of a higher officer with some public act on the part of one lower in rank, e.g. calling a meeting of the commons. The tribune of the people could thus interfere with the praetor, quaestor, and sedile. Thus it was even open to the tribunes of the people to refuse a triumph to a consul or a praetor.
INTERCESSIO The quashing of an official act. As in (1), this might be issued by a higher official against a lower one; and also by one colleague against another, e.g. by tribune against tribune. It was necessary that the intercessio should be made in person, and in general immediately after the act in question. It was employed against judicial decisions, administrative ordinances (solely on the appeal of the person concerned); also against decrees of the senate and motions in the popular assembly. The later species of intercessio early became a special right of the tribunes (q.v.).
INTERCIDONA
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The name given by the Italian tribes to one of the three divinities who, during child-bed, protected mother and child from being tormented by the wood-god Silvanus. (See PICUMNUS.)
INTERDICTO AQUAE ET IGNIS
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The Roman term for exclusion from the common use of fire and water, which were the symbols of the community. (See EXILIUM.)
INTEREST
INTERNUNDINUM
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The Roman week. (See NUNDINAe, and CALENDAR.)
INTERREGES The name given by the Romans to the senators who, between the death of one king and the election of another, held regal authority, during the interregnum, for successive periods of five days each. One of these interreges had to conduct the election itself. Even under the Republic an interrex was nominated by the senate to hold the comitia for the election of consuls, whenever the consuls had died, or resigned, or if the election had not been completed by the end of the year. If five days did not suffice, the retiring interrex named another to succeed him.
IO The beautiful daughter of Inachus, and the first priestess of Hera at Argos. As Zeus loved her, she was changed by the jealousy of Hera into a white heifer, and Argus of the hundred eyes was appointed to watch her. When Hermes, at the command of Zeus, had killed Argus, Hera maddened the heifer by sending a gad-fly which perpetually pursued her. Io thus wandered through the continents of Europe and Asia, by land and by sea. Each of the different straits she swam across was named after her Bosporus, or Ox-ford. At last in Egypt she recovered her Original shape, and bore Epaphus to Zeus. Libya, the daughter of Epaphus, became by Poseidon the mother of Belus, who in turn was father of Aegyptus, Danans, Cepheus, and Phineus. The Greek legend of Io's going to Egypt is probably to be explained by her having been identified with the Egyptian goddess Isis, who is always represented with cow's horns. Io ("the wanderer") is generally explained as a moon-goddess wandering in the starry heavens, symbolized by Argus of the hundred eyes; her transformation into a horned heifer represents the crescent moon.
IOCASTE The mother and also the wife of (Edipus (q.v.).
IOLAUS Son of Iphicles, the half-brother of Heracles, and the faithful companion and charioteer of that hero. For his help in destroying the Lernaean hydra and in the fight with Cycnus, Heracles transferred to him his first wife Megara. The friendship he bad devoted to the father he continued to the children of Heracles in defending them against Eurystheus. As the comrade of Heracles he was worshipped beside him in Thebes, where the gymnasium was named after him, and where the inhabitants used to swear by his name.
IOLE
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Daughter of Eurytus of (Echalia. She came into the power of Heracles as a captive of war, and was on his death (of which she was the innocent cause) married to his son Hyllus. (See HERACLES.)
ION Of Chios. A Greek author of rare versatility for his time. He composed historical writings, among them a kind of memoirs of men of mark he had met, such as Sophocles; also lyric poems of the most varied types, and thirty or forty tragedies which were more remarkable for elegance and erudition than for elevation of style. When in B.C. 452 he won a dramatic victory at Athens, he is said to have presented every Athenian with a flask of Chian wine. He died at Athens in 422 B.C. We Only possess scanty fragments of his works.
ION According to the Attic story, the son of Apollo and Creusa, daughter of the Athenian king Erechtheus. He was exposed at his birth by his mother in a grotto on the cliff of the Acropolis, whence he was taken by Hermes to Delphi and brought up by the Pythian priestess to be an attendant in his father's temple. Creusa afterwards married Xuthus, who had migrated from Thessaly, and was son of Hellen and brother of Aeo1us and Dorus. As this marriage was childless, the pair went to Delphi to consult the god as to the cause. Xuthus received the command to consider as his son the first person he should meet in front of the temple. This happened to be Ion, who bad meanwhile grown up, and was at once accepted by Xuthus as his son. But Creusa, fancying he was her husband's son by a former union, resolved to poison him. Ion detects her design in time and would have killed Creusa, who however takes refuge at the altar of the god. Then the Pythian priestess produces the cradle in which he had been exposed as an infant, and thus brings about recognition and reconciliation between mother and son. Ion married Helice, the daughter of Selinus, king of the Aegialeans on the north coast of the Peloponnesus. At the death of this king he became monarch of the land, and the inhabitants assumed the name of Ionians after him. Afterwards being called upon by the Athenians to help them against Eumolpus and the Eleusinians, he conquered the enemy and was made king of Athens. From the four sons who are attributed to him, Hoples, Ge1eon, Aegicores, and Argades were descended the four Ionic tribes.
IOPHON
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The son of Sophocles, and, like his father, a tragic poet. (See SOPROCLES.)
IPHICLES Son of Amphitryon and Alcmene, half-brother of Heracles and father of Iolaus. He took part in the Calydonian Hunt and also in many of his brother's expeditions, especially against Erginus, Augeas, Laomedon, and Hippocoon. He either fell in the fight against the sons of Hippocoon or was wounded in battle against the Molionidae at Pheneus in Arcadia, where he was afterwards worshipped as a hero.
IPHICLUS
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Son of Phylacus of Phylace in Thessaly, father of Podarces and Protesilaus. He took part in the Argonautic expedition and in the funeral games in honour of Pelias. Here he outstripped all his competitors, being so swift of foot that he could pass over a cornfield without bending the ears, and could run over the sea without wetting his feet. On his herds of cattle and his powers of healing, see MELAMPUS.
IPHIGENIA Daughter of Agramemnon and of Clytaemnestra, or (according to another account) of Theseus and Helen (q.v.), and brought up Clytaemnestra as her child. When the Greek ships were detained at Aulis by the calm caused by the wrath of Artemis against Agamemnon for killing a hind sacred to that goddess, and boasting that he was superior to her in the chase, the seer Calchas announced that the goddess could only be appeased by the sacrifice of Iphigenia. According to another story, Agamemnon had vowed, before the birth of Iphigenia, that he would sacrifice to the goddess whatever the year brought forth that was loveliest, but had neglected to keep his vow. After a long struggle Agamemnon finally gave way to the pressure put upon him by Menelaus, and sent for his daughter to come to Aulis under the pretext of betrothing her to Achilles. During the sacrifice Artemis substituted a hind for her, and carried her off in a cloud to the land of the Tauri [the modern Crimea], where, as priestess of the goddess, it fell to her lot to offer up as victims all strangers who were shipwrecked on the coast. Orestes, who, commanded by the oracle, had gone there to bring to Attica the image of the goddess, was on the point of being sacrificed by her, when she recognised him as her brother and allowed herself to be carried off by him together with the image. At Delphi her sister Electra wanted to put her eyes out, on hearing that the Tauric priestess had slain Orestes; but was prevented from doing so by her brother's arrival. She is said to have brought the image of the Tauric Artemis to the Attic deme of Brauron, and to have died and been buried there as its priestess. She was even introduced into Attic legend as daughter of Theseus and Helen. In other places also, such as Sparta, the image was shown, and she was regarded as a priestess who had brought it to Greece from among the Scythians. In all probability Iphigenia was originally a designation of Artemis herself, and out of this epithet of the goddess the personality of the priestess was in time evolved. Her grave was also shown at Megara. According to another legend, she is said to have been made immortal by Artemis, and to have lived on in the island of Leuce as the wife of Achilles under the name of Orsilochia.
IPHITUS
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Son of Eurytus of (Echalia, and a friend of Heracles, who, in a fit of madness, hurled him down headlong from the battlement of his castle at Tiryns. (See HERACLES.)
IRIS The daughter of Thaumas and of Electra, and a sister of the Harpies. She is the personification of the rainbow which unites heaven and earth. As a virgin goddess, swift as the breeze and with wings of gold, she is the messenger of the gods, especially of Zeus and Hera, and, according to later writers, exclusively of the latter. She bears their behests from the ends of the earth even to the river Styx, and into the depths of the sea. As a messenger of the gods she resembles Hermes, and therefore carries the herald's staff of that divinity.
ISAEUS The fifth of the Ten Attic Orators, a pupil of Isocrates; born before B.C. 400 at Chalcis in Euboea. He lived to the middle of the 4th century at Athens, probably as a resident alien (metoikos), writing forensic speeches for other people and giving instruction in rhetoric. Demosthenes was for several years his pupil. Of the sixty-four speeches attributed to him by antiquity, we have (besides some not unimportant fragments) eleven speeches dealing with matters relating to inheritance, and therefore of great importance as throwing light upon Attic private, law. In his style he most closely resembles Lysias, to whom he is inferior in natural elegance, while he surpasses him in oratorical skill.
ISIDORUS A Spaniard who, from the beginning of the 7th century, was bishop of Seville (in Latin Hispalis, whence he is called Hispalensis). He died about 636 A.D. He possessed a width of reading which was remarkable for his time, and an extraordinary faculty for collecting information. Next to Boethius and Cassiodorus, he exercised the most important influence upon the general culture and literature of the Middle Ages. Besides works on grammar, theology, and history (including a Chronicle of the World to his own day, and histories of the Goths, Vandals, and Suevi), he composed in the last years of his life his greatest and most important work, an immense but imperfect encyclopaedic survey of all knowledge, in twenty volumes, entitled the Etymologoe or Origines, from its often very capricious and marvellous explanations of the various subjects of which it treats. Though it is only a vast congeries of collected excerpts, devoid of a single original idea, it is nevertheless important owing to the variety of its contents and its citations from writings now lost, such as those of Suetonius. Another work, which is similarly a compilation, but was greatly used in the Middle Ages, is his De Natura Rerum, a handbook of natural history.
ISIS The divinity most extensively worshipped, with her brother and husband Osiris, by the Egyptians, among whom she represented the feminine, receptive, and producing principle in nature. As the goddess of procreation and birth her symbol was the cow. On monuments she is mostly represented as of youthful appearance with a cow's horns on her head, between the horns the orb of the moon, and with a sceptre of flowers and the emblem of life in her hands (fig. 1). Her greatest temple stood at Busiris (i.e. Pe-Osiri, or Abode of Osiris) in the midst of the Delta of the Nile, where, amidst the fruitful fields, the inhabitants worshipped the mightiest god and goddess with ceremonies which typified the search and discovery of Osiris by his mourning wife after his murder by Typhon. Like Osiris she was a divinity who ruled over the world below. In the course of the fusion of religions which took place under the Ptolemies, Isis and Osiris were confounded with all manner of Asiatic and Greek gods. In process of time she became in her power the most universal of all goddesses, ruling in heaven, on earth, and on the sea, and in the world below, decreeing life and death, deciding the fate of men, and dispensing rewards and punishments. Her worship spread over Greece, and after the second Punic War obtained a firm footing in Rome in spite of repeated interference by the State. In the days of the Empire it obtained recognition by the State and established itself in all parts of the Roman dominions. The attractiveness of the service of Isis lay in the religious satisfaction which it was calculated to insure. Through abstinence from food and from sensual pleasures, and through expiations and purifications, it promised to lead its votaries to sanctification of life and to a true perception of the life divine. The ritual consisted in part of a morning and evening service to the god, partly in annual festivals celebrated in spring at the return of the season for navigation, and also in the late autumn before the advent of winter. At the former festival, held on the 5th of March, and called the ship of Isis (Isidis navigium), in recognition of her being the patroness of navigation, and inventress of the sail, the people in general, with the devotees and priests of Isis, went in solemn procession down to the seashore, where a sailing vessel painted in the Egyptian manner and laden with spices, was committed to the sea. [Apuleius, Met. xi 8-17P esp. 11; Firmicus Maternus, De Err. Prof. Relig. 2.] The other feast was emblematic of the grief of Isis at her loss and her joy at finding again her husband Osiris and her son Horus. Besides these popular feasts there were also certain special mysteries of Isis, which in all their essentials were borrowed from the Eleusinian mysteries of Demeter. In these, all who were called thereto by the goddess in a dream were admitted to the select circle of the worshippers of Isis. These devotees, like the priests, were recognised by their linen robes and their shaven heads, and had to devote themselves to an ascetic life. Oracular responses received in dreams were as much associated with the temples of Isis as with those of Serapis (q.v.). In Greek art the goddess is represented as similar to Hera. Her attributes are a serpent, a cornucopia, ears of corn, lotus, moon and horns, as well as the sistrum, a metal rattle, specially employed in her service (fig. 2).
ISMENE A daughter of CEdipus (q.v.).
ISOCRATES The fourth among the Ten Attic Orators, was born at Athens B.C. 436. He was the son of Theodorus, the wealthy proprietor of a flute manufactory, who provided for his son's receiving a careful education. Accordingly he had the advantage of being instructed by Prodicus, Protagoras, Theramenes, and (above all) Gorgias; his character was also moulded by the influence of Secrates, although he never belonged to the more restricted circle of his pupils. Bashfulness and a weak voice prevented him from taking part in public life. After the fall of the Thirty, as his father had lost his means in the calamitous years that closed the Peloponnesian War, he turned his attention to composing forensic speeches for others. After having taught rhetoric at Chios [possibly about 404 B.C.], he returned to Athens in 403, and there opened a regular school of rhetoric about 392. It was largely attended by both Athenians and non-Athenians, and brought him in considerable wealth. The total number of his pupils has been given at one hundred, including Timotheus, the son of Conon, the orators Isaeus, Hyperides, and Lycurgus, and the historians Ephorus and Theopompus. Isocrates also had friendly relations with foreign princes, especially with Evagoras of Cyprus and his son Nicocles, who loaded him with favours. He kept himself completely aloof from any personal share in the public life of his day; yet he attempted to influence the political world, not only within the narrow bounds of his native land, but also throughout the whole of Greece, by a series of rhetorical declamations, not intended to be delivered, but only to be read. This he did in the first place in his Panegyricus, which he published in 380 B.C., after spending ten or (according to another account) as many as fifteen years over its preparation. This is a kind of festal oration eulogising the services of Athens to Greece, exhorting the Spartans peacefully to share the supremacy with Athens, and calling on the Greeks to lay aside all internal dissensions and attack the barbarians with their united strength. In the ninetieth year of his age, in a discourse addressed to Philip, in 346 B.C., he endeavours to induce that monarch to carry out his policy by reconciling all the Greeks to one another, and leading their united forces against the Persians. Other discourses relate, to the internal politics of Athens. Thus, in the Areopagiticus, he recommends his fellow citizens to get rid of the existing weaknesses in their political constitution by returning to the democracy as founded by Solon and reconstituted by Clisthenus, and by reinstating the Areopagus as the supreme tribunal of censorship over public decorum and morality. He retained his mental and bodily powers unimpaired to an advanced age, and in his ninety-eighth year completed the Panathenaicus, a discourse in praise of Athens. He lived to see the total wreck of all his hopes for a regeneration of Greecep and died B.C. 338, a few days after the battle of Chaeronea, He is said to have died of voluntary starvation, owing to his despair at the downfall of Greek liberty; [but this account of his death, familiarised by Milton in his fifth English sonnet, must be considered as doubtful.] There were sixty compositions bearing his name known to antiquity, but less than half that number were considered genuine. Of the twenty-one which have come down to us, the first, the Letter to Demonicus, is often regarded as spurious, [but there is no reason to doubt the genuineness of nine of the ten other Letters. It is only the letter prefixed to the nine in the older editions that is not genuine, having been really written by Theophylact Simocatta early in the 7th century A.D.] Of the speeches, six are forensic orations, written to be delivered by others; the rest are declamations, chiefly on political subjects. By his mastery of style, Isocrates had a far-reaching influence on all subsequent Greek prose, which is not confined to oratorical composition alone. His chief strength lies in a careful choice of expression, not only in his vocabulary, but also in the rhythmical formation of his flowing periods, in a skilful use of the figures of speech, and in all that lends euphony to language. [Even in Latin, the oratorical prose of Cicero is, on its formal side, founded chiefly on that of Isocrates. Modern literary prose has, in its turn, been mainly modelled on that of Cicero, and thus the influence of Isocrates has endured to the present day.]
ISOTELIA At Athens, the position of partial equality with the citizens which was granted to the more deserving of the metoeci (q.v.).
ISTHMIAN GAMES One of the four great national festivals of the Greeks, held on the Isthmus of Corinth, in a grove of pine trees sacred to Poseidon, near the shrines of the Isthmian Poseidon and of Melicertes. From B.C. 589, they were held in the first month of spring, in the second and fourth years of each Olympiad. According to legend, the Isthmian Games were originally funeral games in memory of Melicertes (q.v.); another tradition relates that they were established by Theseus either in honour of Poseidon, or in commemoration of his victory over Sciron and Sinis. In any case, the Athenians were specially interested in the festival from the earliest times. It was alleged that, from the days of Theseus downwards, they had what was called the proedria, the right of occupying the most prominent seats at the games, and, in accordance with a law attributed to Solon, they presented to those of their citizens who were victors in the contests a reward amounting to 100 drachmoe. [The only occasion when Socrates was absent from Athens, except with the army, was to attend this festival.] The inhabitants of Elis were completely excluded from the games, being debarred from either sending competitors or festal envoys. The Corinthians had the presidency, which was transferred to the Sicyonians after the destruction of Corinth (B.C. 146), but at the rebuilding of Corinth (B.C. 46) it was restored to that city. The contests included gymnastic exercises, horse-races, and competitions in music. The two former differed in no essential way from the Olympian Games (q.v.); in the third, besides musicians, poets of either sex contended for the prize. Besides the customary palm, the prize in Pindar's time consisted of a wreath of dry selinon [often translated "parsley," but more probably identical with the "wild celery," apium graveolens. The selinon was a symbol of funeral games], After the destruction of Corinth, a crown of pine leaves was substituted for it. The games long continued to be held, even under the Roman Empire. [Cp. Plutarch, Timoleon, 26, and Sympos. v 3, 1-3.]
ITINERARIA The Roman term for (1) compendious lists of the names and distances of the different stations on the public roads, after the manner of our road-books (itineraria adnotata or scripta); or (2) chartographic representations similar to our travelling maps (itineraria picta). Of the former kind we have (1) the two Antonine Itineraries, the basis of which belongs to the time of the emperor Antoninus Caracalla; but the edition which has come down to us dates from the beginning of the 4th century. They contain lists of routes by land and sea in the Roman empire. (2) The Itinerarium Burdigalense or Hierosolymitanum, 333 A.D., the route of a pilgrimage from Burdigala (Bordeaux) to Jerusalem. (3) The Itinerarium Alexandri, an abstract of the Persian expedition of Alexander the Great, drawn up mainly from Arrian for the expedition of the emperor Constantius against the Persians (A.D. 340-345). Of the other kind of itineraries, in the form of maps, we have a specimen in the Peutinger Map, tabula Peutingeriana, now in Vienna. It received its name from its former possessor, Konrad Peutinger, a councillor of Augsburg. It was painted at Kolmar in 1265 on the model of an original map which dates back to the middle of the 3rd century A.D. It consists of twelve broad strips of parchment, on which are delineated all those parts of the world which were known to the Romans: only the pieces which should contain Spain and Britain are lost [with the exception of part of Kent.] It is disproportionately elongated in the direction of east to west, the ratio of its height to its breadth being 1:21. The distances from town to town are marked on lines running from east to west, and the relative sizes of the towns indicated by distinctive marks. [A cheap and excellent facsimile was published by O. Maier of Ravensburg in 1888.]
ITYLUS
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See AEDON, PROCNE.
IXION Son of Phlegyas (or of Ares), and king of the Lapithae. By Dia he was the father of Pirithae (who, according to Homer, however, was a son of Zeus). He attempted to withhold from his father-in-law, Deloneus, the bridal gifts he had promised. Deloneus accordingly detained the horses of Ixion. The latter invited him to his house and threw him into a pit filled with fire. When Zeus not only purified him from this murder, but even invited him to the table of the gods, he became arrogant and insolent, and even sought to win the love of Hera. Zeus thereupon formed of the clouds a phantom resembling Hera, and by it Ixion became the father of the Centaurs. On his boasting of the favours he imagined the goddess to have granted him, Zeus caused him to be punished for this crime by being fastened to a wheel, on which he was to turn in terror for evermore in the world below.
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