IOPHON, Greek tragic poet, son of Sophocles. He gained the second prize in 428 B.C., Euripides being first, and Ion third. He must have been living in 405, the date of the production of the Frogs of Aristophanes, in which he is spoken of as the only good Athenian tragic poet, although it is hinted that he owed much to his father’s assistance. He wrote 50 plays, of which only a few fragments remain. It is said that Iophon accused his father before the court of the phratores of being incapable of managing his affairs, to which Sophocles replied by reading the famous chorus of the Oedipus at Colonus (688 ff.), with the result that he was triumphantly acquitted.
See Aristophanes, Frogs, 73, 78, with scholia; Cicero, De senectute, vii. 22; Plutarch, Moralia, 785 B; A. Nauck, Tragicorum Graecorum fragmenta (1889); O. Wolff, De Iophonte poëta (Leipzig, 1884).
I.O.U. (“I owe you”), a written acknowledgment of a debt. It usually runs thus:
| To——. I.O.U. ——pounds. (Signed)——. Date——. |
An I.O.U., if worded as above, or even if the words “for value received” are added, does not acquire a stamp, as it contains no terms of agreement. If any such words as “to be paid on such a day” are added, it requires a stamp. An I.O.U. should be addressed to the creditor by name, though its validity is not impaired by such omission. Being a distinct admission of a sum due, it is prima facie evidence of an account stated, but where it is the only item of evidence of account it may be rebutted by showing there was no debt and no demand which could be enforced by virtue of it. An I.O.U. is not negotiable.
IOVILAE, or Jovilae, a latinized form of iůvilas, the name given by the Oscan-speaking Campanians in the 5th, 4th and 3rd centuries B.C. to an interesting class of monuments, not yet fully understood. They all bear crests or heraldic emblems proper to some family or group of families, and inscriptions directing the annual performance of certain ceremonies on fixed days. While some of them are dedicated to Jupiter (in a special capacity, which our present knowledge of Oscan is insufficient to determine), others were certainly found attached to graves.
See the articles [Osca Lingua], [Capua], [Cumae] and [Messapii]. The text of all those yet discovered (at Capua and Cumae), with particulars of similar usages elsewhere in Italy and other historical and archaeological detail, is given by R. S. Conway in The Italic Dialects (Cambridge, 1897, pp. 101 ff.). A briefer but valuable discussion of the chief characteristics of the group will be found in R. von Planta’s Oskisch-umbrische Grammatik, ii. 631 ff., and a summary description in C. D. Buck’s Osco-Umbrian Grammar, 247.
(R. S. C.)