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Farsakh
The parasang is a historical Iranian unit of walking distance, the length of which varied according to terrain and speed of travel. The European equivalent is the league. In modern terms the distance is about 3 or 3½ miles (4.8 or 5.6 km). Historical usage The parasang may have originally been some fraction of the distance an infantryman could march in some predefined period of time. Mid-5th-century BCE Herodotus (v.53) speaks of n armytraveling the equivalent of five parasangs per day. In antiquity, the term was used throughout much of the Middle East, and the Old Iranian language from which it derives can no longer be determined (only two—of what must have been dozens—of Old Iranian languages are attested). There is no consensus with respect to its etymology or literal meaning. In addition to its appearance in various forms in later Iranian languages (e.g. Middle Persian ''frasang'' or Sogdian ''fasukh''), the term also appears in Greek as ''parasangēs'' (), in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Persia 1814
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmenistan to the north, by Afghanistan and Pakistan to the east, and by the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf to the south. It covers an area of , making it the 17th-largest country. Iran has a population of 86 million, making it the 17th-most populous country in the world, and the second-largest in the Middle East. Its largest cities, in descending order, are the capital Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan, Karaj, Shiraz, and Tabriz. The country is home to one of the world's oldest civilizations, beginning with the formation of the Elamite kingdoms in the fourth millennium BC. It was first unified by the Medes, an ancient Iranian people, in the seventh century BC, and reached its territorial height in the sixth century BC, when Cyrus the Great fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isidore Of Charax
Isidore of Charax (; grc, Ἰσίδωρος ὁ Χαρακηνός, ''Isídōros o Charakēnós''; la, Isidorus Characenus) was a Greco-Roman geographer of the 1st century BC and 1st century AD, a citizen of the Parthian Empire, about whom nothing is known but his name and that he wrote at least one work. Name Isidore's name has been interpreted by his editor and translator W.H. Schoff to indicate that he was from the city of Charax in Characene on the northern end of the present Persian Gulf. However, the Greek ''charax'' merely means "palisade" and there were several fortified towns that bore the name (''see Charax''). Parthian Stations Isidore's best known work is "The Parthian Stations" ( grc, Σταθμοί Παρθικοί, ''Stathmœ́ Parthicœ́''; la, Mansiones Parthicae), an itinerary of the overland trade route from Antioch to India along the caravan stations maintained by the Arsacid Empire. He seems to have given his distances in schoeni ("ropes") of debated ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agathias
Agathias or Agathias Scholasticus ( grc-gre, Ἀγαθίας σχολαστικός; Martindale, Jones & Morris (1992), pp. 23–25582/594), of Myrina (Mysia), an Aeolian city in western Asia Minor (Turkey), was a Greek poet and the principal historian of part of the reign of the Roman emperor Justinian I between 552 and 558. Biography Agathias was a native of Myrina (Mysia). His father was Memnonius. His mother was presumably Pericleia. A brother of Agathias is mentioned in primary sources, but his name has not survived. Their probable sister Eugenia is known by name. The ''Suda'' clarifies that Agathias was active in the reign of the Roman emperor Justinian I, mentioning him as a contemporary of Paul the Silentiary, Macedonius of Thessalonica and Tribonian. Agathias mentions being present in Alexandria as a law student at the time when an earthquake destroyed Berytus (Beirut). The law school of Berytus had been recognized as one of the three official law schools of the empire ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xenophon
Xenophon of Athens (; grc, wikt:Ξενοφῶν, Ξενοφῶν ; – probably 355 or 354 BC) was a Greek military leader, philosopher, and historian, born in Athens. At the age of 30, Xenophon was elected commander of one of the biggest Ancient Greek mercenaries, Greek mercenary armies of the Achaemenid Empire, the Ten Thousand, that marched on and came close to capturing Babylon in 401 BC. As the military historian Theodore Ayrault Dodge wrote, "the centuries since have devised nothing to surpass the genius of this warrior". Xenophon established precedents for many logistical operations, and was among the first to describe strategic flanking maneuvers and feints in combat. Xenophon's ''Anabasis (Xenophon), Anabasis'' recounts his adventures with the Ten Thousand while in the service of Cyrus the Younger, Cyrus's failed campaign to claim the Persian throne from Artaxerxes II of Persia, and the return of Greek mercenaries after Cyrus's death in the Battle of Cunaxa. ''Anabasis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hesychius Of Alexandria
Hesychius of Alexandria ( grc, Ἡσύχιος ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεύς, Hēsýchios ho Alexandreús, lit=Hesychios the Alexandrian) was a Greek grammarian who, probably in the 5th or 6th century AD,E. Dickey, Ancient Greek Scholarship (2007) p. 88. compiled the richest lexicon of unusual and obscure Greek words that has survived, probably by absorbing the works of earlier lexicographers. The work, titled "Alphabetical Collection of All Words" (, ''Synagōgē Pasōn Lexeōn kata Stoicheion''), includes more than 50,000 entries, a copious list of peculiar words, forms and phrases, with an explanation of their meaning, and often with a reference to the author who used them or to the district of Greece where they were current. Hence, the book is of great value to the student of the Ancient Greek dialects and in the restoration of the text of the classical authors generallyparticularly of such writers as Aeschylus and Theocritus, who used many unusual words. Hesychius is importan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Suda
The ''Suda'' or ''Souda'' (; grc-x-medieval, Σοῦδα, Soûda; la, Suidae Lexicon) is a large 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Soudas (Σούδας) or Souidas (Σουίδας). It is an encyclopedic lexicon, written in Greek, with 30,000 entries, many drawing from ancient sources that have since been lost, and often derived from medieval Christian compilers. Title The derivation is probably from the Byzantine Greek word ''souda'', meaning "fortress" or "stronghold", with the alternate name, ''Suidas'', stemming from an error made by Eustathius, who mistook the title for the author's name. Paul Maas once ironized by suggesting that the title may be connected to the Latin verb ''suda'', the second-person singular imperative of ''sudāre'', meaning "to sweat", but Franz Dölger traced its origins back to Byzantine military lexicon (σοῦδα, "ditch, trench", then "fortress"). Silvio Giuse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Schoenus
Schoenus ( la, schœnus; grc-gre, σχοίνος, ''schoinos'', " rush rope"; egy, i͗trw, "river-measure") was an ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman unit of length and area based on the knotted cords first used in Egyptian surveying. Length The Greeks, who adopted it from the Egyptians, generally considered the schoinos equal to 40 stades, but neither the schoinos nor the stadion had an absolute value, and there were several regional variants of each. Strabo noted that it also varied with terrain, and that when he "ascended the hills, the measures of these schoeni were not everywhere uniform, so that the same number sometimes designated a greater, sometimes a less actual extent of road, a variation which dates from the earliest time and exists in our days."Herodotus2.6an says, that schoenus is 60 stadia or about . This agrees with the distance implied by the Triacontaschoenus stretching south of the First Cataract in Roman-era Nubia. Pliny the Elderbr>5.11that is 30 stad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stadia (length)
The stadion (plural stadia, grc-gre, ; latinized as stadium), also anglicized as stade, was an ancient Greek unit of length, consisting of 600 Ancient Greek feet (''podes''). Calculations According to Herodotus, one stadium was equal to 600 Greek feet (''podes''). However, the length of the foot varied in different parts of the Greek world, and the length of the stadion has been the subject of argument and hypothesis for hundreds of years. An empirical determination of the length of the stadion was made by Lev Vasilevich Firsov, who compared 81 distances given by Eratosthenes and Strabo with the straight-line distances measured by modern methods, and averaged the results. He obtained a result of about . Various equivalent lengths have been proposed, and some have been named. Among them are: Which measure of the stadion is used can affect the interpretation of ancient texts. For example, the error in the calculation of Earth's circumference by Eratosthenes or Posidoniu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herodotus
Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria ( Italy). He is known for having written the '' Histories'' – a detailed account of the Greco-Persian Wars. Herodotus was the first writer to perform systematic investigation of historical events. He is referred to as " The Father of History", a title conferred on him by the ancient Roman orator Cicero. The ''Histories'' primarily cover the lives of prominent kings and famous battles such as Marathon, Thermopylae, Artemisium, Salamis, Plataea, and Mycale. His work deviates from the main topics to provide a cultural, ethnographical, geographical, and historiographical background that forms an essential part of the narrative and provides readers with a wellspring of additional information. Herodotus has been criticized for his inclusion of "legends and f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Statute Mile
The mile, sometimes the international mile or statute mile to distinguish it from other miles, is a British imperial unit and United States customary unit of distance; both are based on the older English unit of length equal to 5,280 English feet, or 1,760 yards. The statute mile was standardised between the British Commonwealth and the United States by an international agreement in 1959, when it was formally redefined with respect to SI units as exactly . With qualifiers, ''mile'' is also used to describe or translate a wide range of units derived from or roughly equivalent to the Roman mile, such as the nautical mile (now exactly), the Italian mile (roughly ), and the Chinese mile (now exactly). The Romans divided their mile into 5,000 Roman feet but the greater importance of furlongs in Elizabethan-era England meant that the statute mile was made equivalent to or in 1593. This form of the mile then spread across the British Empire, some successor states of which conti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Road To Oxiana
''The Road to Oxiana'' is a travelogue by the explorer Robert Byron, first published in 1937. It documents Byron's travels around Persia and Afghanistan, and is considered one of the most influential travel books of the 1930s. The word " Oxiana" in the title refers to the ancient name for the region along Afghanistan's northern border. Plot The book is an account of Byron's ten-month journey in the Middle East, Afghanistan and India in 1933–34, initially in the company of Christopher Sykes. It is in the form of a diary with the first entry "Venice, 20 August 1933" after which Byron travelled by ship to the island of Cyprus and then on to the countries of Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. The journey ended in Peshawar, India (now part of Pakistan) on 19 June 1934, from where he returned to England. The primary purpose of the journey was to visit the region's architectural treasures of which Byron had an extensive knowledge, as evidenced by his observations along th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
