er captured Khartoum, but died at
Omdurman shortly afterwards.

ISMENE, the sister of Antigone, who requested, as her accomplice, to
be promoted to be sharer in her fate.

ISOCRATES, an Athenian rhetorician, of a school that was an offshoot
of the SOPHISTS (q. v.), and the whole merit of whose oratory
depended upon style or literary finish and display; he is said to have
starved himself to death after the battle of Cheronea at the age of 98
because he could not brook to outlive the humiliation of Greece by Philip
of Macedon and the destruction of its freedom (436-338 B.C.).

ISODORIAN DECRETALS, a body of ecclesiastical decretals imposed upon
the Church under the name of ISODORE OF SEVILLE (q. v.).

ISOLDE, the wife of King Mark of Cornwall, who, under the potency of
some philter which she had inadvertently taken, conceived an illicit
passion for Sir Tristram, her husband's nephew, the story of which is
celebrated in mediaeval romance.

ISPAHAN (60), the ancient capital of Persia, 226 m. S. of Teheran,
on the river Zenderud, which, as its greatest glory, is spanned by a
noble bridge of 34 arches; it stands in a fertile plain abounding in
groves and orchards, amid ruins of its former grandeur, and is a centre
of Mohammedan learning; the inhabitants are said to have at one time
numbered a million; it produces rich brocades and velvets, firearms,
sword-blades, and much ornamental ware; there are many fine buildings,
and signs of returning prosperity.

ISRAEL, KINGDOM OF, the name given to the northern kingdom of the 10
tribes of the Israelites which revolted from the kingdom of Judah after
the death of Solomon.

ISRAeELS, JOSEF, a Dutch oil and water-colour artist and etcher, born
in Groeningen; studied in Amsterdam and Paris; devoting himself to _genre_
subjects, he has depicted the pathetic side of the life of the Dutch
fisher-folks with great sympathy and power; he won a _grand prix_ at the
Paris Exhibition of 1889; _b_. 1824.

ISRAFEEL, in the Mohammedan mythology an angel whose office it will
be to sound the trumpet on the resurrection morning.

ISSUS, a river in Cilicia, Asia Minor, where Alexander the Great
defeated Darius, 333 B.C.

ISSY (12), a village 1/2 m. SW. of Paris, where Davout was defeated by
Bluecher on 3rd July 1815, and which suffered severely during the siege of
Paris by the Germans in 1870-71.

ISTAMBOUL, the Turkish name for Constantinople.

ISTHMIAN GAMES, one