Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/730

710 710 I L I M A ambassadors; but the two Illyrian wars (229 and 219 B.C.) ended in the submission of the Illyrians, a consider able part of their frontier being annexed by the conquerors. In 168 B.C. Gentius, the Illyrian king, provoked the third Illyrian war, the result of which was the annexation of the whole country by the Romans. Frequent rebellions oc curred, but at last the natives accepted the Roman civiliza tion. During the empire, the country was one of the best recruiting grounds for the Roman legions ; and in troubled times many Illyrian soldiers fought their way up from the ranks to the imperial purple. Claudius, Aurelian, Probus, Diocletian, and Maximian were all sons of Illyrian peasants. In the time of the republic Illyricum comprised the country between the Liburnians, a kindred race, on the north and Epirus on the south. Under the empire the importance of the country made its name spread over all the surrounding districts. In the 2d century after Christ, the Illyricus Limes included Noricum, Pannonia, Moesta, Dacia, and Thrace. Constantino added Greece, Epirus, and Macedonia, taking from it Thrace and part of Moesia, and made it one of the four divisions of the Roman empire governed by a &quot; praefectus prsetorio.&quot; When the empire was divided, Illyricum was halved. Illyris Barbara or Romana, including Noricum, Pannonia, &c., was an nexed to the Western empire ; while Illyris Grseca, includ ing Macedonia, Epirus, and Greece, formed part of the Eastern empire. The Via Egnatia, the great line of road which connected Rome with Constantinople and the East, led across Illyricum from Dyrrachium to Thessalonica. In the wreck of the Roman empire Illyria suffered severely. In the 4th century the Goths ravaged it repeatedly, but these, the most civilized of the barbarian invaders of Rome, with their warlike aristocracy, passed on, and were succeeded by wilder tribes. Slavs, as also Huns and other nomadic races from the East, in succession devastated the country. An agricultural population could no longer maintain itself, and all the elements of civilization disappeared. Justinian (527-565) tried in vain to defend the country by a series of forts ; his armies were defeated time after time, and at last he allowed the Huns to make settlements south of the Danube. Rome gave up the defence of civilization against the inroads of barbarism, and bribed the barbarians to be quiet. Still the Via Egnatia was defended, as the artery of communication and the highway of commerce between Constantinople and the west. The open country, however, even south of the great road, was abandoned to the Slavs and Huns. The older Illyrians partly united with these races, partly went farther south, encroaching on the Greek people, and the name of one of their tribes, Albani, is preserved in the modern name of their descendants, the Albanians. Heraclius (610-641 A.D.) settled Slavonic peoples all along the coast of Illyria as far south as Dyrrachium. The states which were thus created were of great importance in the Dark Ages. The republic of Narenta vied for a time with that of Venice ; and the commerce of Ragusa was so rich that it has given its name to all wealthy merchant vessels or &quot; argosies.&quot; The name of Illyria had by this time disappeared from history ; and the country was now divided between these powerful merchant cities and the states of Bosnia, Croatia, Servia, Rascia, and Dalmatia. In literature the name was preserved, and the scene of Shakespeare s comedy Twelfth Night is laid in Illyria. Politically the name was revived in the beginning of this century, when the small kingdom of Illyria to the north of the Adriatic was constituted at the peace of Vienna, 1809. In 1849 the territorial distribution of the Austrian empire was remodelled, and Illyria again disap peared, (w. M. RA.) ILORI, or ILOEIN (the Alourie of the Landers expedi tion), an important town of the Yoruban territory of Western Africa, situated about 60 or 70 miles south of the Niger, and about 1 60 miles north-north-east of Lagos. The wall has a circuit of 12 miles, but is badly kept in repair. Along the south-eastern side flows a small stream which joins the Asa, a tributary of the Niger. The inhabitants are Yorubas, Fellatah (Pullo), Houssas, Gambarees, Bornuese, and Nufes or Papas. Most of them speak Yoruban. An extensive native trade is carried on at Ilorin, the Houssa caravans importing manufactured goods of various sorts, not only from Central Africa, but even from the coasts of the Mediterranean. The trade from the Guinea coast on the other hand is confined to brandy, guns, and powder. The variety of local industries is very considerable : Rohlfs mentions beautiful leather goods, carved wooden vessels, finely plaited mats, embroidered work, pottery of various kinds, shoes of yellow and red leather, and, what was unique in his experience of Negro tribes, the manufacture of cheese. The population is estimated at from 60,000 to 70,000, exclusive of the resident traders from foreign parts. There are a number of mosques in the town, and the Mahometans are the dominant power, but the lower classes maintain their pagan customs. About 1820 Ilori declared itself independent of Yoruba, and assisted in the destruction of Oyo. See R. F. Burton, Abcokuta and the Camcroons Mountains, Lond., 1863 ; G. Rohlfs, Quer durcli Afrika, Leipsic, 1874. IMAGE WORSHIP. In the present article the word &quot; image &quot; will be employed to denote any artificial repre sentation, whether pictorial or sculptural, of any person or thing, real or imaginary, which is used as a direct adjunct of religious services. This definition of the word shuts out from present consideration, though at some points by an almost imperceptible boundary, the worship of all merely natural symbols, whether animate or inanimate, conventional or the reverse. Thus, for example, every form of animal worship is excluded by it, and also the cultus connected with memorial stones of which traces so unmistakable are found in the Old Testament and in almost every other ancient literature (the XI&OL AiTrapot or dX^Xt/x/^evot, j3aiTvoi, lapides vncti, la-tyli, of classical writers). So far as images (eiKoves, imagines) are merely more or less perfect productions of pictorial or plastic art,, they fall to be treated under PAINTING, SCULPTURE, MOSAIC, &c, ; so far as they have been regarded as aids to devotion and spiritual instruction, or made the objects of religious veneration, the history of their introduction and of the various aspects under which they have been viewed forms a large and not unimportant chapter in the history of religion in general and of the Christian church in particular. Only the outlines of that history can be indicated here. Most religions of which the history has been traced give distinct indications of a primitive period in which &quot;idols&quot; were unknown. Thus in India &quot; the worship of idols is a secondary formation, a later degradation of the more primitive worship of ideal gods&quot; (M. Miiller). In the Vedic hymns it is the appearances of nature themselves that are worshipped as symbols of unseen deity ; and the present image worship of the Hindus is most probably Post-Buddhistic in its origin. The testimonies of the Greek historians (Herod., i. 131 ; Strabo, p. 732; Diog. Laer., De Vit. Phil., prooem. 6) as to the absence of religious images from the worship of the ancient Persians is confirmed by all the more recent direct investigations into the primitive life of that branch of the Aryan race. There is the same concurrence of testimony as regards the ancient Greeks ; l the powers of nature were in the first instance 1 See Schoemann, Griech. Alterthumer, ii. 197 sqq