Isauria

Isauria, in ancient geography, a district of Asia Minor, occupying the summit and northern slopes of Mount Taurus. The people were stern and savage, like their native mountains, and occupied themselves principally in robbery and piracy. At length their depredations and those of their neighbours, the Cilicians, became so formidable that the Roman proconsul, P. Servilius, chased them into their mountain fastnesses and coerced them into submission in 76 B.C., for which exploit he acquired the surname Isauricus. Nevertheless the Isaurians were not subdued. Pompey, in warring against the Mediterranean pirates, drove them off the sea; but they soon returned again. Indeed so far was their power from having been broken that they conquered the Cilicians, and remained the terror of the neighbouring states down to the 4th century. In the reign of the Emperor Gallienus (253-268) there even arose among this savage folk a rival emperor, Trebellianus, who, however, was finally crushed. This same people also gave two emperors to Byzantium, Zeno I. (474-491) and Leo III. (718-741); the descendants of the latter ruled over the empire of the East for three generations. From the 5th century onwards the Isaurians gradually disappear from history.