INTERREX. This office is said to have been instituted on the death of
Romulus, when the senate wished to share the sovereign power among
themselves, instead of electing a king. For this purpose, according
to Livy, the senate, which then consisted of one hundred members,
was divided into ten decuries; and from each of these decuries one
senator was nominated. These together formed a board of ten, with the
title of _Interreges_, each of whom enjoyed in succession the regal
power and its badges for five days; and if no king was appointed at
the expiration of fifty days, the rotation began anew. The period
during which they exercised their power was called an _Interregnum_.
These ten interreges were the _Decem Primi_, or ten leading senators,
of whom the first was chief of the whole senate. The interreges
agreed among themselves who should be proposed as king, and if the
senate approved of their choice, they summoned the assembly of the
curiae, and proposed the person whom they had previously agreed
upon; the power of the curiae was confined to accepting or rejecting
him. Interreges were appointed under the republic for holding the
comitia for the election of the consuls, when the consuls, through
civil commotions or other causes, had been unable to do so in their
year of office. Each held the office for only five days, as under
the kings. The comitia were hardly ever held by the first interrex;
more usually by the second or third; but in one instance we read of
an eleventh, and in another of a fourteenth interrex. The interreges
under the republic, at least from B.C. 482, were elected by the
senate from the whole body, and were not confined to the decem primi
or ten chief senators, as under the kings. Plebeians, however, were
not admissible to this office; and consequently, when plebeians were
admitted into the senate, the patrician senators met without the
plebeian members to elect an interrex. For this reason, as well as on
account of the influence which the interrex exerted in the election
of the magistrates, we find that the tribunes of the plebs were
strongly opposed to the appointment of an interrex. The interrex had
jurisdictio. Interreges continued to be appointed occasionally till
the time of the second Punic war, but after that time we read of no
interrex, till the senate, by command of Sulla, created an interrex
to hold the comitia for his election as dictator, B.C. 82. In B.C. 55
another interrex was appointed, to hold the comitia in which Pompey
and Crassus were elected consuls; and we also read of interreges in
B.C. 53 and 52, in the latter of which years an interrex held the
comitia in which Pompey was appointed sole consul.
ISTHMĬA (ἴσθμια), the Isthmian games, one of the four great national
festivals of the Greeks. This festival derived its name from the
Corinthian isthmus, where it was held. Subsequent to the age of
Theseus the Isthmia were celebrated in honour of Poseidon; and this
innovation is ascribed to Theseus himself. The celebration of the
Isthmia was conducted by the Corinthians, but Theseus had reserved
for his Athenians some honourable distinctions: those Athenians who
attended the Isthmia sailed across the Saronic gulf in a sacred
vessel (θεωρίς), and an honorary place (προεδρία), as large as the
sail of their vessel, was assigned to them during the celebration
of the games. In times of war between the two states a sacred truce
was concluded, and the Athenians were invited to attend at the
solemnities. These games were celebrated regularly every other year,
in the first and third years of each Olympiad. After the fall of
Corinth, in 146 B.C., the Sicyonians were honoured with the privilege
of conducting the Isthmian games; but when the town of Corinth was
rebuilt by Julius Caesar, the right of conducting the solemnities
was restored to the Corinthians. The season of the Isthmian
solemnities was, like that of all the great national festivals,
distinguished by general rejoicings and feasting. The contests and
games of the Isthmia were the same as those at Olympia, and embraced
all the varieties of athletic performances, such as wrestling,
the pancratium, together with horse and chariot racing. Musical
and poetical contests were likewise carried on, and in the latter
women were also allowed to take part. The prize of a victor in the
Isthmian games consisted at first of a garland of pine-leaves, and
afterwards of a wreath of ivy. Simple as such a reward was, a victor
in these games gained the greatest distinction and honour among
his countrymen; and a victory not only rendered the individual who
obtained it a subject of admiration, but shed lustre over his family,
and the whole town or community to which he belonged. Hence Solon
established by a law, that every Athenian who gained the victory at
the Isthmian games should receive from the public treasury a reward
of one hundred drachmae. His victory was generally celebrated in
lofty odes, called Epinikia, or triumphal odes, of which we still
possess some beautiful specimens among the poems of Pindar.