Part 77

The cipher despatch above referred to, and the whole subject of the imprisonment of General de Burlonde, are discussed at length, in the light of official records and correspondence, by M. Émile Burgaud and Commandant Bazeries (the latter of whom discovered the key to the cipher), in a book entitled "Le Masque de Fer: Révélation de la correspondance chiffrée de Louis XIV.," published at Paris in 1893. It seems to leave small doubt that the mysteriously masked prisoner was no other than General de Burlonde,

ALSO IN: _G. A. Ellis, True History of the State Prisoner commonly called the Iron Mask._

_E. Lawrence, The Man in the Iron Mask (Harper's Magazine, volume 43, page 98)._

_M. Topin, The Man in the Iron Mask (Cornhill Magazine, volume 21, page 333)._

_Quarterly Review, volume 34, page 19._

{1802}

IRONCLAD OATH.

An oath popularly styled the "Ironclad oath" was prescribed by the Congress of the United States, during the War of the Rebellion, in July, 1862, to be taken by every person elected or appointed to any office under the Government of the United States, the President only excepted. He was required to swear that he had "never voluntarily borne arms against the United States"; that he had "voluntarily given no aid, countenance, counsel, or encouragement to persons engaged in armed hostility to the National Government"; that he had "neither sought nor accepted, nor attempted to exercise the functions of any office whatever under authority or pretended authority in hostility to the United States"; that he had "never yielded a voluntary support to any pretended Government within the United States, hostile or inimical thereto."

_J. G. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, volume 2, page 88._

IRONSIDES, Cromwell's.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1643 (MAY).

"IRONSIDES, Old."

A name popularly given to the American frigate "Constitution."

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1814.

IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY, The.

According to their traditions, the founder of the League or confederacy which united the five nations of the Iroquois—the Mohawks, the Onondagas, the Oneidas, the Cayugas, and the Senecas, was Hiawatha, the hero of Iroquois legend.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY.

He was an Onondaga chief, and is supposed to have lived about the middle of the 15th century. "Hiawatha had long beheld with grief the evils which afflicted not only his own nation, but all the other tribes about them, through the continual wars in which they were engaged, and the misgovernment and miseries at home which these wars produced. With much meditation he had elaborated in his mind the scheme of a vast confederation which would ensure universal peace. In the mere plan of a confederation there was nothing new. There are probably few, if any, Indian tribes which have not, at one time or another, been members of a league or confederacy. It may almost be said to be their normal condition. But the plan which Hiawatha had evolved differed from all others in two particulars. The system which he devised was to be not a loose and transitory league, but a permanent government. While each nation was to retain its own council and its management of local affairs, the general control was to be lodged in a federal senate, composed of representatives elected by each nation, holding office during good behavior, and acknowledged as ruling chiefs throughout the whole confederacy. Still further, and more remarkably, the confederation was not to be a limited one. It was to be indefinitely expansible. The avowed design of its proposer was to abolish war altogether. He wished the federation to extend until all the tribes of men should be included in it, and peace should everywhere reign. Such is the positive testimony of the Iroquois themselves: and their statement, as will be seen, is supported by historical evidence. … His conceptions were beyond his time, and beyond ours; but their effect, within a limited sphere, was very great. For more than three centuries the bond which he devised held together the Iroquois nations in perfect amity. It proved, moreover, as he intended, elastic. The territory of the Iroquois, constantly extending as their united strength made itself felt, became the 'Great Asylum' of the Indian tribes. … Among the interminable stories with which the common people [of the Five Nations] beguile their winter nights, the traditions of Atotarho and Hiawatha became intermingled with the legends of their mythology. An accidental similarity, in the Onondaga dialect, between the name of Hiawatha and that of one of their ancient divinities, led to a confusion between the two, which has misled some investigators. This deity bears, in the sonorous Canienga tongue, the name of Taronhiawagon, meaning 'the Holder of the Heavens.' The Jesuit missionaries style him 'the great god of the Iroquois.' Among the Onondagas of the present day, the name is abridged to Taonhiawagi, or Tahiawagi. The confusion between this name and that of Hiawatha (which, in another form, is pronounced Tahionwatha) seems to have begun more than a century ago. … Mr. J. V. H. Clark, in his interesting History of Onondaga, makes the name to have been originally Ta-own-ya-wat-ha, and describes the bearer as 'the deity who presides over fisheries and hunting-grounds.' He came down from heaven in a white canoe, and after sundry adventures, which remind one of the labors of Hercules, assumed the name of Hiawatha (signifying, we are told, 'a very wise man'), and dwelt for a time as an ordinary mortal among men, occupied in works of benevolence. Finally, after founding the confederacy and bestowing many prudent counsels upon the people, he returned to the skies by the same conveyance in which he had descended. This legend, or, rather, congeries of intermingled legends, was communicated by Clark to Schoolcraft, when the latter was compiling his 'Notes on the Iroquois.' Mr. Schoolcraft, pleased with the poetical cast of the story, and the euphonious name, made confusion worse confounded by transferring the hero to a distant region and identifying him with Manabozho, a fantastic divinity of the Ojibways. Schoolcraft's volume, which he chose to entitle 'The Hiawatha Legends,' has not in it a single fact or fiction relating either to Hiawatha himself or to the Iroquois deity Taronhiawagon. Wild Ojibway stories concerning Manabozho and his comrades form the staple of its contents. But it is to this collection that we owe the charming poem of Longfellow; and thus, by an extraordinary fortune, a grave Iroquois lawgiver of the fifteenth century has become, in modern literature, an Ojibway demigod, son of the West Wind, and companion of the tricksy Paupukkeewis, the boastful Iagoo, and the strong Kwasind. If a Chinese traveler, during the middle ages, inquiring into the history and religion of the western nations, had confounded King Alfred with King Arthur, and both with Odin, he would not have made a more preposterous confusion of names and characters than that which has hitherto disguised the genuine personality of the great Onondaga reformer."

_H. Hale, editor, The Iroquois Book of Rites (Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature, number 2, pages 21-36)._

{1803}

IRREDENTISTS.

"This is the name given to a political organisation formed in 1878, with the avowed object of freeing all Italians from foreign rule, and of reuniting to the Italian kingdom all those portions of the Italy of old which have passed under foreign dominion. The operations of the 'Italia Irredenta' party are chiefly carried on against Austria, in consequence of the retention by that Empire of Trieste and the Southern Tyrol. Until these territories have been relinquished, Italy, or at least a certain part of it, will remain unsatisfied."

_J. S. Jeans, Italy (National Life and Thought, chapter 8)._

ISAAC II. (Comnenus), Emperor in the East (Byzantine, or Greek), A. D. 1057-1059.

Isaac II. (Angelus), Emperor in the East (Byzantine, or Greek), 1185-1195.

ISABELLA, Queen of Castile (wife of Ferdinand II., King of Aragon), A. D. 1474-1504.

Isabella I., Queen of Spain, 1833-1868.

ISABELLA. The city founded by Columbus on the island of Hispaniola, or Hayti.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1493-1496.

ISANDLANA, The English disaster at (1879).

See SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1877-1879.

ISASZEG, Battle of (1849).

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1848-1849.

ISAURIAN DYNASTY, The.

See BYZANTINE EMPIRE: A. D. 717-797.

ISAURIANS, The.

The Isaurians were a fierce and savage race of mountaineers, who occupied anciently a district in Asia Minor, between Cilicia and Pamphylia on the south and Phrygia on the north. They were persistently a nation of robbers, living upon the spoils taken from their neighbors, who were never able to punish them justly in their mountain fastnesses. Even the iron hand of the Romans failed to reduce the Isaurians to order, although P. Servilius, in 78 B. C., destroyed most of their strongholds, and Pompey, eleven years later, in his great campaign against the pirates, put an end to the lawless depredations on sea and land of the Cilicians, who had become confederated with the Isaurians. Five centuries afterwards, in the days of the Eastern Empire, the Isaurians were the best soldiers of its army, and even gave an emperor to the throne at Constantinople in the person of Zeno or Zenon.

_E. W. Brooks, The Emperor Zenon and the Isaurians (English Historical Review, April, 1893)._

ISCA.

The name of two towns in Roman Britain, one of which is identified with modern Exeter and the other with Caerleon-on-Usk. The latter was the station of the 2d legion.

_T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 8, chapter 5._

See EXETER, ORIGIN OF; also, CAERLEON.

ISHMAELIANS, The. See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 908-1171; also, ASSASSINS; and CARMATHIANS.

ISIDORE, The False Decretals of.

See PAPACY: A. D. 829-847.

ISINÆ.

See CAUSENNÆ.

ISLAM.

"The religion founded by Mahomet is called Islam, a word meaning 'the entire surrender of the will to God'; its professors are called Mussulmans—'those who have surrendered themselves,' or 'Believers,' as opposed to the 'Rejectors' of the Divine messengers, who are named 'Kafirs,' or 'Mushrikin,' that is, 'those who associate, are [not?] companions or sharers with the Deity.' Islam is sometimes divided under the two heads of Faith and Practical Religion.

I. Faith (Iman) includes a belief in one God, omnipotent, omniscient, all-merciful, the author of all good; and in Mahomet as his prophet, expressed in the formula 'There is no God but God, and Mahomet is the Prophet of God.' It includes, also, a belief in the authority and sufficiency of the Koran, in angels, genii, and the devil, in the immortality of the soul, the resurrection, the day of judgment and in God's absolute decree for good and evil.

II. Practical religion (Din) consists of five observances: (1) Recital of the formula of Belief, (2) Prayer with Ablution, (3) Fasting, (4) Almsgiving, (5) the Pilgrimage.

… The standard of Moslem orthodoxy is essentially the Koran and to it primary reference is made; but … some more extended and discriminating code became necessary. The deficiency was supplied by the compilation of the 'Sunnah,' or Traditional Law, which is built upon the sayings and practices of Mahomet, and, in the opinion of the orthodox, is invested with the force of law, and with some of the authority of inspiration. … In cases where both the Koran and the Sunnah afford no exact precept, the 'Rule of Faith' in their dogmatic belief, as well as the decisions of their secular courts, is based upon the teaching of one of the four great Imams, or founders of the orthodox sects, according as one or another of these prevails in any particular country. … The great Sunni sect is divided among the orthodox schools mentioned above, and is so called from its reception of the 'Sunnah,' as having authority concurrent with and supplementary to the Koran. In this respect it differs essentially from the Shias, or partisans of the house of Ali [the nephew of Mahomet and husband of his daughter Fatima] who, adhering to their own traditions, reject the authority of the 'Sunnah.' These two sects, moreover, have certain observances and matters of belief peculiar to themselves, the chief of which is the Shia doctrine, that the sovereign Imamat, or temporal and spiritual lordship over the faithful, was by divine right vested in Ali and in his descendants, through Hasan and Hosein, the children of Fatima, the daughter of the prophet. And thus the Persian Shias add to the formula of belief the confession, 'Ali is the Caliph of God.' In Persia the Shia doctrines prevail, and formerly so intense was sectarian hatred that the Sunni Mahometans paid a higher capitation tax there than the infidels. In Turkey the great majority are Sunni. In India the Shias number about one in twenty. The Shias, who reject this name, and call themselves Adliyah, or the 'Society of the Just,' are subdivided into a great variety of minor sects; but these … are united in asserting that the first three Caliphs, Abu Bekr, Omar, and Othman were usurpers, who had possessed themselves of the rightful and inalienable inheritance of Ali."

_J. W. H. Stobart, Islam and its Founder, chapter 10._

"The twelve Imams, or pontiffs, of the Persian creed, are Ali, Hassan, Hosein, and the lineal descendants of Hosein to the ninth generation. Without arms, or treasures, or subjects, they successively enjoyed the veneration of the people and provoked the jealousy of the reigning caliphs. … The twelfth and last of the Imams, conspicuous by the title of Mahadi, or the Guide, surpassed the solitude and sanctity of his predecessors. He concealed himself in a cavern near Bagdad: the time and place of his death are unknown; and his votaries pretend that he still lives and will appear before the day of judgment."

_E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 50._

ALSO IN: _E. Sell, The Faith of Islam._

_S. Lane-Poole, Studies in a Mosque, chapters 3 and 7._

_R. D. Osborn, Islam under the Arabs, part 2, chapter 1._

_W. C. Taylor, History of Mohammedanism, chapters 5-13._

_R. Bosworth Smith, Mohammed and Mohammedanism_

_T. Nöldeke, Sketches from Eastern History, chapter 3._

See, also, MAHOMETAN CONQUEST.

{1804}

ISLAM, Dar-ul-, and Dar-ul-harb.

See DAR-UL-ISLAM.

ISLAND NUMBER TEN, The capture of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (MARCH-APRIL: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).

ISLE OF FRANCE.

The old French province containing Paris. Also the French name of Mauritius island, taken by England in 1810.

ISLE ROYALE.

See CAPE BRETON: A. D. 1720-1745.

ISLES, Lords of the.

See HEBRIDES: A. D. 1346-1504, and HARLAW, BATTLE OF.

ISLES OF THE BLESSED.

See CANARY ISLANDS.

ISLY, Battle of (1843).

See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1830-1846.

ISMAIL, Khedive of Egypt, The reign and the fall of.

See EGYPT: A. D. 1840-1869; 1870-1883; and 1875-1882.

Ismail I., Shah of Persia, A. D. 1502-1523.

Ismail II., Shah of Persia, 1576-1577.

ISMAIL, Siege and capture of (1790).

See TURKS: A. D. 1776-1792.

ISMAILEANS, OR ISHMAELIANS.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 908-1171; also, ASSASSINS; and CARMATHIANS.

ISONOMY. ISOTIMY. ISAGORIA.

"The principle underlying democracy is the struggle for a legalised equality which was usually described [by the ancient Greeks] by the expressions Isonomy, or equality of law for all,—Isotimy, or proportionate regard paid to all, —Isagoria, or equal freedom of speech, with special reference to courts of justice and popular assemblies."

_G. F. Schömann, Antiquity of Greece: The State, part 2, chapter 12._

ISONZO, Battle of the (A. D. 489).

See ROME: A. D. 488-526.

ISOPOLITY.

"Under Sp. Cassius [B. C. 493], Rome concluded a treaty with the Latins, in which the right of isopolity or the 'jus municipi' was conceded to them. The idea of isopolity changed in the course of time, but its essential features in early times were these: between the Romans and Latins and between the Romans and Caerites there existed this arrangement, that any citizen of the one state who wished to settle in the other, might forthwith be able to exercise there the rights of a citizen."

_B. G. Niebuhr, Lectures on the History of Rome, lecture 13 (volume 1)._

ISRAEL.

See JEWS.

ISRAEL, Lost Ten Tribes of.

See JEWS: THE KINGDOMS OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH.

ISSUS, Battle of (B. C. 333).

See MACEDONIA: B. C. 334-330.

ISTÆVONES, The.

See GERMANY: AS KNOWN TO TACITUS.

ISTAKR, OR STAKR.

The native name under the later, or Sassanian, Persian empire, of the ancient capital, Persepolis.

_G. Rawlinson, Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy, chapter 3, footnote._

ISTER, The.

The ancient Greek name of the Danube, below the junction of the Theiss and the Save.

ISTHMIAN GAMES.

See NEMEAN.

ISTRIA: Start--------

ISTRIA: Slavonic Occupation of.

See SLAVONIC PEOPLES: SIXTH AND SEVENTH CENTURIES.

ISTRIA: A. D. 1797. Acquisition by Austria.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1797 (MAY-OCTOBER).

ISTRIA: End--------

ISTRIANS, The.

See ILLYRIANS.

ISURIUM.

A Roman town in Britain, which had previously been the chief town of the British tribe of the Brigantes. It is identified with Aldborough, Yorkshire, "where the excavator meets continually with the tessellated floors of the Roman houses."

_T. Wright, Celt, Roman and Saxon, chapter 5._

ITALI, The.

See ŒNOTRIANS.

ITALIAN WAR, The.

See ROME: B. C. 90-88.

ITALIOTES.

See SICELIOTEB.

ITALY: Start--------

[Image: Two maps of Italy, at the beginning of the Seventh Century, and A. D. 1492.]

ITALY: Ancient. Early Italians.

"It was not till the close of the Republic, or rather the beginning of the Empire, that the name of Italy was employed, as we now employ it, to designate the whole Peninsula, from the Alps to the Straits of Messina.

See ROME: B. C. 275.

The term Italia, borrowed from the name of a primæval tribe who occupied the southern portion of the land, was gradually adopted as a generic title in the same obscure manner in which most of the countries of Europe, or (we may say) the Continents of the world, have received their appellations. In the remotest times the name only included Lower Calabria: from these narrow limits it gradually spread upwards, till about the time of the Punic Wars, its northern boundary ascended the little river Rubicon (between Umbria and Cisalpine Gaul), then followed the ridge of the Appennines westward to the source of the Macra, and was carried down the bed of that small stream to the Gulf of Genoa. When we speak of Italy, therefore, in the Roman sense of the word, we must dismiss from our thoughts all that fertile country which was at Rome entitled the provincial district of Gallia Cisalpina, and Liguria."

_H. G. Liddell, History of Rome, introduction, section. 2._

"Philological research teaches us to distinguish three primitive Italian stocks, the Iapygian, the Etruscan, and that which we shall call the Italian. The last is divided into two main branches,—the Latin branch, and that to which the dialects of the Umbri, Marsi, Volsci and Samnites belong. As to the Iapygian stock, we have but little information. {1805} At the southeastern extremity of Italy, in the Messapian or Calabrian peninsula, inscriptions in a peculiar extinct language have been found in considerable numbers; undoubtedly remains of the dialect of the Iapygians, who are very distinctly pronounced by tradition also to have been different from the Latin and Samnite stocks. … With the recognition of … a general family relationship or peculiar affinity between the Iapygians and Hellenes (a recognition, however, which by no means goes so far as to warrant our taking the Iapygian language to be a rude dialect of Greek), investigation must rest content. … The middle of the peninsula was inhabited, as far back as reliable tradition reaches, by two peoples or rather two branches of the same people, whose position in the Indo-Germanic family admits of being determined with greater precision than that of the Iapygian nation. We may with propriety call this people the Italian, since upon it rests the historical significance of the peninsula. It is divided into the two branch-stocks of the Latins and the Umbrians; the latter including their southern off-shoots, the Marsians and Samnites, and the colonies sent forth by the Samnites in historical times. … These examples [philological examples, given in the work, but omitted from this quotation], selected from a great abundance of analogous phenomena, suffice to establish the individuality of the Italian stock as distinguished from the other members of the Indo-Germanic family, and at the same time show it to be linguistically the nearest relative, as it is geographically the next neighbour, of the Greek. The Greek and the Italian are brothers; the Celt, the German and the Slavonian are their cousins. … Among the languages of the Italian stock, again, the Latin stands in marked contrast with the Umbro-Samnite dialects. It is true that of these only two, the Umbrian and the Samnite or Oscan, are in some degree known to us. … A conjoint view, however, of the facts of language and of history leaves no doubt that all these dialects belonged to the Umbro-Samnite branch of the great Italian stock. … It may … be regarded as certain that the Italians, like the Indians, migrated into their peninsula from the north. The advance of the Umbro-Sabellian stock along the central mountain-ridge of Italy, in a direction from north to south, can still be clearly traced; indeed its last phases belong to purely historical times. Less is known regarding the route which the Latin migration followed. Probably it proceeded in a similar direction along the west coast, long, in all likelihood, before the first Sabellian stocks began to move."

_T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 1, chapters 2-3._

See, also, ETRUSCANS; LATIUM; SABINES; SAMNITES; UMBRIANS; MAGNA GRÆCIA; also, ROME: B. C. 343-290, and 339-338.