ISTHMIA, one of the four great national festivals of the Greeks. It was instituted in honour of Neptune, and took its name from the isthmus (i.e., of Corinth) where it was celebrated. At the narrowest part of that isthmus was a race-course and theatre, where the games were held. The conduct of the games was entrusted to the Corinthians, who enjoyed that privilege till the overthrow of their city by Mummus, B.C. 146. In that year it was devolved upon the people of Sicyon, with whom it remained till the rebuilding of Corinth by the order of Julius Caesar, when it
again reverted to the Corinthians. The Isthmia were originally celebrated at irregular intervals; but in B.C. 584, when they had come to be regarded as a national festival, they became periodical, and were held every third year, i.e., twice in each Olympiad. They continued to be so celebrated till the establishment of Christianity as the religion of the empire. Their gradual decay and final extinction date from that event.
The games themselves, which marked the recurrence of the festival, included the usual athletic sports in all their varieties of wrestling, boxing, gymnastics, and foot and chariot races, besides the higher contests of musical and poetical skill. After the establishment of the Roman power in Greece, gladiatorial shows and wild beast fights were added to the other attractions. The prizes in the Isthmia consisted of simple garlands of pine leaves. Ivy was at one time substituted; but the pine soon regained its old ascendancy. These simple rewards were as keenly contested as the costly prizes of the English race-course; and the successful aspirant for them was held in the highest honour for the remainder of his life, and became entitled to many valuable privileges and immunities. The best poets of Greece found in these victories a theme worthy of the highest efforts of their muse. The triumphal odes of Pindar are the noblest monuments of this kind of composition that have descended to us. See GAMES, GYMNASIUM, &c.
ISTRIA or HISTRIA, in Ancient Geography, a peninsula at the northern extremity of the Adriatic, jutting out between the Sinus Tergestinus (the Gulf of Tergeste or Trieste) and the Sinus Planiticus or Gulf of Quarnero. It took its name from Ister, the Greek word for the Danube, in consequence of an old popular idea that a branch of that river fell into the Adriatic near its head. The peninsula is about 50 miles in length, with an average breadth of between 30 and 40 miles, and an area of about 1900 square miles. It is nearly triangular in form, and has for its apex the Pt. Polaticum, now the Punta di Promontore. A range of bare rocky mountains shooting off from the Julian Alps, traverses its whole length, and sends off lower and smaller ranges to the sea. The highest point of the central ridge is called the Monte Maggiore, and is about 4500 feet above the sea. The coast is rugged and rocky, but, except on its eastern side, neither bold nor pic-
turesque. The numerous inlets and arms of the sea which indent it on every side form excellent harbours; that of Pola, in particular, was as famous in ancient, as it is in modern times. The rocks and shoals along the coast render these forts difficult of access, an additional advantage in the eyes of the ancient Istrians, who, like all the tribes of the Illyrian coast, were noted pirates. The soil of the peninsula, though not very fertile, is well adapted for olives, vines, and other fruit trees. The oil was held in high esteem by the Romans, and still maintains its high character. The mountains afford pasture for considerable herds of cattle, and, besides growing excellent timber, especially oaks, are valuable for their quarries of marble and freestone. The fisheries of the coast give employment to many hands both in taking the fish and in making the salt employed in curing them.
The ancient Istrians were of the same stock as their Illyrian neighbours, and like them became known to the Romans as pirates. They were first subdued by the Roman arms about the beginning of the second Punic War; in the following century it was found necessary to reconquer their country. The final annihilation of their independence was effected by C. Claudius in B.C. 177. Augustus incorporated their territory as a part of Italy, and it remained subject to Rome till the 6th century, when it fell into the hands of the Goths. The Goths were in their turn driven out by the emperors of the East, who retained Istria, till in the 10th and 11th centuries, it became subject successively to the dukes of Carinthia and Dalmatia. In the 13th century the western part of the peninsula, as far as the River Arsa, was seized by the Venetians, and retained by them till the overthrow of their republic in 1797. The eastern part of it finally fell into the hands of the Austrians, who united it to Carinthia. Western Istria, sharing the fate of the other possessions of Venice, was, by the treaty of Campo-Formio, likewise made over to Austria. The treaty of Presburg made the French masters of all the Venetian provinces till the downfall of Napoleon in 1813. From that date till 1849, Istria formed part of the government of Trieste. A new territorial arrangement of the Austrian possessions was made in 1849, by which Istria was incorporated with the Kustenland. (See AUSTRIA, ILLYRIA, and KUSTENLAND.)