[1] According to Varro the Romans had no animal or human image of a
god for 170 years after the founding of the city; Herodotus (i. 131)
says the Persians had no temples or idols before Artaxerxes I.;
Lucian (_De sacrif._ 11) bears similar testimony for Greece and as to
idols (_Dea Syr._ 3) for Egypt. Eusebius (_Praep. Evang._ i. 9) sums
up the theory of antiquity in his statement "the oldest peoples had
no idols." Images of the gods indeed presuppose a definiteness of
conception and powers of discrimination that could only be the result
of history and reflection. The iconic age everywhere succeeded to an
era in which the objects of worship were aniconic, e.g. wooden posts,
stone steles, cones.
IDOMENEUS, in Greek legend, son of Deucalion, grandson of Minos and
Pasiphaë, and king of Crete. As a descendant of Zeus and famous for his
beauty, he was one of the suitors of Helen; hence, after her abduction
by Paris, he took part in the Trojan War, in which he distinguished
himself by his bravery. He is mentioned as a special favourite of
Agamemnon (_Iliad_, iv. 257). According to Homer (_Odyssey_, iii. 191),
he returned home safely with all his countrymen who had survived the
war, but later legend connects him with an incident similar to that of
Jephtha's daughter. Having been overtaken by a violent storm, to ensure
his safety he vowed to sacrifice to Poseidon the first living thing that
met him when he landed on his native shore. This proved to be his son,
whom he slew in accordance with his vow; whereupon a plague broke out in
the island, and Idomeneus was driven out. He fled to the district of
Sallentum in Calabria, and subsequently to Colophon in Asia Minor, where
he settled near the temple of the Clarian Apollo and was buried on Mount
Cercaphus (Virgil, _Aeneid_, iii. 121, 400, 531, and Servius on those
passages). But the Cretans showed his grave at Cnossus, where he was
worshipped as a hero with Meriones (Diod. Sic. v. 79).
IDRIA, a mining town in Carniola, Austria, 25 m. W. of Laibach. Pop.
(1900) 5772. It is situated in a narrow Alpine valley, on the river
Idria, an affluent of the Isonzo, and owes its prosperity to the rich
mines of quicksilver which were accidentally discovered in 1497. Since
1580 they have been under the management of the government. The
mercurial ore lies in a bed of clay slate, and is found both mingled
with schist and in the form of cinnabar. A special excellence of the ore
is the greatness of the yield of pure metal compared with the amount of
the refuse. As regards the quantity annually extracted, the mines of
Idria rank second to those of Almaden in Spain, which are the richest in
the world.
IDRIALIN, a mineral wax accompanying the mercury ore in Idria. According
to Goldschmidt it can be extracted by means of xylol, amyl alcohol or
turpentine; also without decomposition, by distillation in a current of
hydrogen, or carbon dioxide. It is a white crystalline body, very
difficultly fusible, boiling above 440° C. (824° F.), of the composition
C40H28O. Its solution in glacial acetic acid, by oxidation with chromic
acid, yielded a red powdery solid and a fatty acid fusing at 62° C., and
exhibiting all the characters of a mixture of palmitic and stearic
acids.
IDRISI, or EDRISI [Abu Abdallah Mahommed Ibn Mahommed Ibn Abdallah Ibn
Idrisi, c. A.D. 1099-1154], Arabic geographer. Very little is known of
his life. Having left Islamic lands and become the courtier and
panegyrist of a Christian prince, though himself a descendant of the
Prophet, he was probably regarded by strict Moslems as a scandal, whose
name should not, if possible, be mentioned. His great-grandfather,
Idrisi II., "Biamrillah," a member of the great princely house which had
reigned for a time as caliphs in north-west Africa, was prince of
Malaga, and likewise laid claim to the supreme title (Commander of the
Faithful). After his death in 1055, Malaga was seized by Granada (1057),
and the Idrisi family then probably migrated to Ceuta, where a freedman
of theirs held power. Here the geographer appears to have been born in
A.H. 493 (A.D. 1099). He is said to have studied at Cordova, and this
tradition is confirmed by his elaborate and enthusiastic description of
that city in his geography. From this work we know that he had visited,
at some period of his life before A.D. 1154, both Lisbon and the mines
of Andalusia. He had also once resided near Morocco city, and once was
at (Algerian) Constantine. More precisely, he tells us that in A.D. 1117
he went to see the cave of the Seven Sleepers at Ephesus; he probably
travelled extensively in Asia Minor. From doubtful readings in his text
some have inferred that he had seen part of the coasts of France and
England. We do not know when Roger II. of Sicily (1101-1154) invited him
to his court, but it must have been between 1125 and 1150. Idrisi made
for the Norman king a celestial sphere and a disk representing the known
world of his day--both in silver. These only absorbed one-third of the
metal that had been given him for the work, but Roger bestowed on him
the remaining two-thirds as a present, adding to this 100,000 pieces of
money and the cargo of a richly-laden ship from Barcelona. Roger next
enlisted Idrisi's services in the compilation of a fresh description of
the "inhabited earth" from observation, and not merely from books. The
king and his geographer chose emissaries whom they sent out into various
countries to observe, record and design; as they returned, Idrisi
inserted in the new geography the information they brought. Thus was
gradually completed (by the month of Shawwal, A.H. 548 = mid-January,
A.D. 1154), the famous work, best known, from its patron and originator,
as _Al Rojari_, but whose fullest title seems to have been, _The going
out of a Curious Man to explore the Regions of the Globe, its Provinces,
Islands, Cities and their Dimensions and Situation_. This has been
abbreviated to _The Amusement of him who desires to traverse the Earth_,
or _The Relaxation of a Curious Mind_. The title of _Nubian Geography_,
based upon Sionita and Hezronita's misreading of a passage relating to
Nubia and the Nile, is entirely unwarranted and misleading. The
_Rogerian Treatise_ contains a full description of the world as far as
it was known to the author. The "inhabited earth" is divided into seven
"climates," beginning at the equinoctial line, and extending northwards
to the limit at which the earth was supposed to be rendered
uninhabitable by cold. Each climate is then divided by perpendicular
lines into eleven equal parts, beginning with the western coast of
Africa and ending with the eastern coast of Asia. The whole world is
thus formed into seventy-seven equal square compartments. The geographer
begins with the first part of the first climate, including the
westernmost part of the Sahara and a small (north-westerly) section of
the Sudan (of which a vague knowledge had now been acquired by the
Moslems of Barbary), and thence proceeds eastward through the different
divisions of this climate till he finds its termination in the Sea of
China. He then returns to the first part of the second climate, and so
proceeds till he reaches the eleventh part of the seventh climate, which
terminates in north-east Asia, as he conceives that continent. The
inconveniences of the arrangement (ignoring all divisions, physical,
political, linguistic or religious, which did not coincide with those of
his "climates") are obvious.
Though Idrisi was in such close relations with one of the most civilized
of Christian courts and states, we find few traces of his influence on
European thought and knowledge. The chief exception is perhaps in the
delineation of Africa in the world-maps of Marino Sanuto (q.v.) and
Pietro Vesconte. His account of the voyage of the _Maghrurin_ or
"Deceived Men" of Lisbon in the Atlantic (a voyage on which they seem to
have visited Madeira and one of the Canaries) may have had some effect in
stimulating the later ocean enterprise of Christian mariners; but we have
no direct evidence of this. Idrisi's Ptolemaic leanings give a distinctly
retrograde character to certain parts of his work, such as east Africa
and south Asia; and, in spite of the record of the Lisbon Wanderers, he
fully shares the common Moslem dread of the black, viscous, stormy and
wind-swept waters of the western ocean, whose limits no one knew, and
over which thick and perpetual darkness brooded. At the same time his
breadth of view, his clear recognition of scientific truths (such as the
roundness of the world) and his wide knowledge and intelligent
application of preceding work (such as that of Ptolemy, Masudi and Al
Jayhani) must not be forgotten. He also preserves and embodies a
considerable amount of private and special information--especially as to
Scandinavia (in whose delineation he far surpasses his predecessors),
portions of the African coast, the river Niger (whose name is perhaps
first to be found, after Ptolemy's doubtful Nigeir, in Idrisi), portions
of the African coast, Egypt, Syria, Italy, France, the Adriatic
shore-lands, Germany and the Atlantic islands. No other Arabic work
contains a larger assortment of valuable geographical facts;
unfortunately the place-names are often illegible or hopelessly corrupted
in the manuscripts. Idrisi's world-map, with all its shortcomings, is
perhaps the best product of that strangely feeble thing--the Mahommedan
cartography of the middle ages.
Besides the _Rojari_, Idrisi wrote another work, largely geographical,
cited by Abulfida as _The Book of Kingdoms_, but apparently entitled by
its author _The Gardens of Humanity and the Amusement of the Soul_. This
was composed for William the Bad (1154-1166), son and successor of Roger
II., but is now lost. He likewise wrote, according to Ibn Said, on
_Medicaments_, and composed verses, which are referred to by the
Sicilian Mahommedan poet Ibn Bashrun.
Two manuscripts of Idrisi exist in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris,
and other two in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. One of the English
MSS., brought from Egypt by Greaves, is illustrated by a map of the
known world, and by thirty-three sectional maps (for each part of the
first three climates). The second manuscript, brought by Pococke from
Syria, bears the date of A.H. 906, or A.D. 1500. It consists of 320
leaves, and is illustrated by one general and seventy-seven particular
maps, the latter consequently including all the parts of every
climate. The general map was published by Dr Vincent in his _Periplus
of the Erythraean Sea_. A copy of Idrisi's work in the Escorial was
destroyed by the fire of 1671.
An epitome of Idrisi's geography, in the original Arabic, was printed,
with many errors, in 1592 at the Medicean press in Rome, from a MS.
preserved in the Grand Ducal library at Florence (_De geographia
universali. Hortulus cultissimus ..._ ). Even the description of Mecca
is here omitted. Pococke supplied it from his MS. In many
bibliographical works this impression has been wrongly characterized
as one of the rarest of books. In 1619 two Maronite scholars, Gabriel
Sionita, and Joannes Hezronita, published at Paris a Latin translation
of this epitome (_Geographia Nubiensis, id est, accuratissima totius
orbis in VII. climata divisi descriptio_). Besides its many
inaccuracies of detail, this edition, by its unlucky title of _Nubian
Geography_, started a fresh and fundamental error as to Idrisi's
origin; this was founded on a misreading of a passage where Idrisi
describes the Nile passing into Egypt through Nubia--not "_terram
nostram_," as this version gives, but "_terram illius_" is here the
true translation. George Hieronymus Velschius, a German scholar, had
prepared a copy of the Arabic original, with a Latin translation,
which he purposed to have illustrated with notes; but death
interrupted this design, and his manuscript remains in the university
library of Jena. Casiri (_Bib. Ar. Hisp._ ii. 13) mentions that he had
determined to re-edit this work, but he appears never to have executed
his intention. The part relating to Africa was ably edited by Johann
Melchior Hartmann (_Commentatio de geographia Africae Edrisiana_,
Göttingen, 1791, and _Edrisii Africa_, Göttingen, 1796), Here are
collected the notices of each region in other Moslem writers, so as to
form, for the time, a fairly complete body of Arabic geography as to
Africa. Hartmann afterwards published Idrisi's Spain (_Hispania_,
Marburg, 3 vols., 1802-1818).
An (indifferent) French translation of the whole of Idrisi's geography
(the only complete version which has yet appeared), based on one of
the MSS. of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, was published by Amédée
Jaubert in 1836-1840, and forms volumes v. and vi. of the _Recueil de
voyages_ issued by the Paris Société de Géographie; but a good and
complete edition of the original text is still a desideratum. A number
of Oriental scholars at Leiden determined in 1861 to undertake the
task. Spain and western Europe were assigned to Dozy; eastern Europe
and western Asia to Engelmann; central and eastern Asia to Defrémery;
and Africa to de Goeje. The first portion of the work appeared in
1866, under the title of _Description de l'Afrique et de l'Espagne par
Edrisi, texte arabe, publié avec une traduction, des notes et un
glossaire par R. Dozy et M. J. de Goeje_ (Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1866);
but the other collaborators did not furnish their quota. Other parts
of Idrisi's work have been separately edited; e.g. "Spain"
(_Descripcion de España de ... Aledris_), by J. A. Condé, in Arabic
and Spanish (Madrid, 1799); "Sicily" (_Descrizione della Sicilia ...
di Elidris_), by P. D. Magri and F. Tardia (Palermo, 1764); "Italy"
(_Italia descritta nel "libro del Re Ruggero," compilato da Edrisi_),
by M. Amari and C. Schiaparelli, in Arabic and Italian (Rome, 1883);
"Syria" (_Syria descripta a ... El Edrisio ..._ ), by E. F. C.
Rosenmüller, in Arabic and Latin, 1825, and (_Idrisii ... Syria_), by
J. Gildemeister (Bonn, 1885) (the last a Beilage to vol. viii. of the
_Zeitschrift d. deutsch. Palästina-Vereins_). See also M. Casiri,
_Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispana Escurialensis_ (2 vols., Madrid,
1760-1770); V. Lagus, "Idrisii notitiam terrarum Balticarum ex
commerciis Scandinavorum et Italorum ... ortam esse" in _Atti del IV°
Congresso internaz. degli orientalisti in Firenze_, p. 395 (Florence,
1880); R. A. Brandel "Om och ur den arabiske geografen Idrisi," _Akad.
afhand._ (Upsala, 1894). (C. R. B.)
IDUMAEA ([Greek: 'Idoumaia]), the Greek equivalent of Edom ([Hebrew:
Edom]), a territory which, in the works of the Biblical writers, is
considered to lie S.E. of the Dead Sea, between the land of Moab and the
Gulf of Akaba. Its name, which is connected with the root meaning "red,"
is probably applied in reference to the red sandstone ranges of the
mountains of Petra.[1] This etymology, however, is not certain. The
apparently theophorous name Obed-Edom (2 Sam. vi. 10) shows that Edom is
the name of a divinity. Of this there is other evidence; a Leiden
papyrus names Etum as the wife of the Semitic fire-god Reshpu.
The early history of Edom is hidden in darkness. The Egyptian references
to it are few, and do not give us much light regarding its early
inhabitants. In the early records of the Pentateuch, the country is
often referred to by the name of Seir, the general name for the whole
range of mountains on the east side of the Jordan-Araba depression south
of the Dead Sea. These mountains were occupied, so early as we can find
any record, by a cave-dwelling aboriginal race known as Horites, who
were smitten by the much-discussed king Chedorlaomer (Gen. xiv. 6) and
according to Deut. ii. 22 were driven out by the Semitic tribes of
Esau's descendants. The Horites are to us little more than a name,
though the discovery of cave-dwellers of very early date at Gezer in the
excavations of 1902-1905 has enabled us to form some idea as to their
probable culture-status and physical character.
The occupants of Edom during practically the whole period of Biblical
history were the Bedouin tribes which claimed descent through Esau from
Abraham, and were acknowledged by the Israelites (Deut. xxiii. 7) as
kin. That they intermarried with the earlier stock is suggested by the
passage in Gen. xxxvi. 2, naming, as one of the wives of Esau,
Oholibamah, daughter of Zibeon the Horite (corrected by verse 20). Among
the peculiarities of the Edomites was government by certain officials
known as [Hebrew: alufim][2] which the English versions (by too close a
reminiscence of the Vulgate _duces_) translate "dukes." The now
naturalized word "sheikhs" would be the exact rendering. In addition to
this Bedouin organization there was the curious institution of an
elective monarchy, some of whose kings are catalogued in Gen. xxxvi.
31-39 and 1 Chron. i. 43-54. These kings reigned at some date anterior
to the time of Saul. No deductions as to their chronology can be based
on the silence regarding them in Moses' song, Exodus xv. 15. There was a
king in Edom (Num. xx. 14) who refused passage to the Israelites in
their wanderings.
The history of the relations of the Edomites and Israelites may be
briefly summarized. Saul, whose chief herdsman, Doeg, was an Edomite (1
Sam. xxi. 7), fought successfully against them (1 Sam. xiv. 47). Joab (1
Kings xi. 16) or Abishai, as his deputy (1 Chron. xviii. 11, 13),
occupied Edom for six months and devastated it; it was garrisoned and
permanently held by David (2 Sam. viii. 14). But a refugee named Hadad,
who escaped as a child to Egypt and grew up at the court of the Egyptian
king, returned in Solomon's reign and made a series of reprisal raids on
the Israelite territory (1 Kings xi. 14). This did not prevent Solomon
introducing Edomites into his harem (1 Kings xi. 1) and maintaining a
navy at Ezion-geber, at the head of the Gulf of Akaba (1 Kings ix. 26).
Indeed, until the time of Jehoram, when the land revolted (2 Kings viii.
20, 22), Edom was a dependency of Judah, ruled by a viceroy (1 Kings
xxii. 47). An attempt at recovering their independence was temporarily
quelled in a campaign by Amaziah (2 Kings xiv. 7), and Azariah his
successor was able to renew the sea trade of the Gulf of Akaba (2 Kings
xiv. 22) which had probably languished since the wreck of Jehoshaphat's
ships (1 Kings xxii. 48); but the ancient kingdom had been
re-established by the time of Ahaz, and the king's name, Kaush-Malak, is
recorded by Tiglath Pileser. He made raids on the territory of Judah (2
Chron. xxviii. 17). The kingdom, however, was short-lived, and it was
soon absorbed into the vassalage of Assyria.
The later history of Edom is curious. By the constant westward pressure
of the eastern Arabs, which (after the restraining force of the great
Mesopotamian kingdoms was weakened) assumed irresistible strength, the
ancient Edomites were forced across the Jordan-Araba depression, and
with their name migrated to the south of western Palestine. In 1
Maccabees v. 65 we find them at Hebron, and this is one of the first
indications that we discover of the cis-Jordanic Idumaea of Josephus and
the Talmud.
Josephus used the name Idumaea as including not only Gobalitis, the
original Mount Seir, but also Amalekitis, the land of Amalek, west of
this, and Akrabatine, the ancient Acrabbim, S.W. of the Dead Sea. In
_War_ IV. viii. 1, he mentions two villages "in the very midst of
Idumaea," named Betaris and Caphartobas. The first of these is the
modern Beit Jibrin (see ELEUTHEROPOLIS), the second is Tuffuh, near
Hebron. Jerome describes Idumaea as extending from Beit Jibrin to Petra,
and ascribes the great caves at the former place to cave-dwellers like
the aboriginal Horites. Ptolemy's account presents us with the last
stage, in which the name Idumaea is entirely restricted to the
cis-Jordanic district, and the old trans-Jordanic region is absorbed in
Arabia.
The Idumaean Antipater was appointed by Julius Caesar procurator of
Judaea, Samaria and Galilee, as a reward for services rendered against
Pompey. He was the father of Herod the Great, whose family thus was
Idumaean in origin. (See PALESTINE.) (R. A. S. M.)