Hyrcania

For his bonnet or cap were taken up three hundred two ells and a quarter of white velvet, and the form thereof was wide and round, of the bigness of his head, for his father said that the caps of the Marabez fashion, made like the cover of a pasty, would one time or other bring a mischief on those that wore them.

For his plume he wore a fair great blue feather, plucked from an anacrotal of the country of Hyrcania the Wild, very prettily hanging down over his right ear.

For the jewel or brooch which in his cap he carried, he had in a cake of gold, weighing three score and eight marks, a fair piece enameled, wherein was portrayed a man's body with two heads, looking towards one another, four arms, four feet, two arses, such as Plato in Symposio says was the mystical beginning of man's nature.

And about it was written in Ionic letters, Agamouzetaitaut, or rather, Anerkai guna zugada anthrotos idaitata, that is, Vir et mulier iunctum propriissime homo.

It is requisite that you first have the Lesser Asia, Caria, Lycia, Pamphylia, Cilicia, Lydia, Phrygia, Mysia, Bithynia, Carazia, Satalia, Samagaria, Castamena, Luga, Sebasta, even unto Euphrates.

Shall we see, said Picrochole, Babylon and Mount Sinai? There is no need, said they, at this time.

Have we not hurried up and down, traveled and toiled enough in having transfretted and passed over the Hyrcanian Sea, marched amongst the two Armenias and the three Arabias? Aye, by my faith, said he, we have played the fools and are undone.

Ah, poor souls.

From end to end, moreover, this plateau, whether elevated or low, has one pervading characteristic.

It is bordered on every side by mountain ranges, in Pontus as in Carmania, in Calicia as in Hyrcania, which slope more or less abruptly on the other side and have a comparatively narrow fringe of habitable country at their base.

Once more we may change our point of view and remark that rich as was the empire in every sort of produce, this richness was confined within narrow and well-defined limits, especially to the valleys of the four great rivers.

Take out of the empire the upper waters of the Oxus and the Indus and the basins of the Euphrates and the Nile, and a glance at the map will show that we have taken away its fairest and most prolific regions.

He had still the support of satraps, undaunted as Bessus and loyal as Artabazos.

But all heart was gone from his resistance, and his one thought was to flee from Alexander's face to the farthest corner of his empire.

With this view the heavy baggage and the harem had been sent forward some day's journey in advance, and when he learnt that his restless enemy, not content with being master of his finest capitals and of the fairest parts of his empire, was bent on having possession of his person also, he delayed no more, but set out eastwards at once, intending to pass through Hyrcania and Parthia and to hinder his pursuer's march by ravaging as he went.

July 330.

For his bonnet or cap were taken up three hundred two ells and a quarter of white velvet, and the form thereof was wide and round, of the bigness of his head, for his father said that the caps of the Marabese fashion, made like the cover of a pasty, would one time or other bring a mischief on those that wore them.

For his plume he wore a fair great blue feather, plucked from an anacrotal of the country of Hyrcania the Wild, very prettily hanging down over his right ear.

For the jewel or brooch which in his cap he carried, he had in a cake of gold, weighing three score and eight marks, a fair piece enamelled, wherein was portrayed a man's body with two heads, looking towards one another, four arms, four feet, two arses, such as Plato, in Symposio, says was the mystical beginning of man's nature.

And about it was written, in Ionic letters, Agamouzetaitaut, or rather, Aner kai guna zugada anthrotos idaitata, that is, vir et mulier iunctum propriissime homo.

Can you tell what Octavian Augustus said? Festina lente.

It is requisite that you first have the Lesser Asia, Caria, Lycia, Pamphylia, Cilicia, Lydia, Phrygia, Mysia, Bithynia, Carazia, Satalia, Zamagaria, Castamena, Luga, Sebasta, even unto Euphrates." "Shall we see," said Pichrachel, "Babylon and Mount Sinai?" "There is no need," said they, "at this time.

Have we not hurried up and down, traveled and toiled enough in having transfretted and passed over the Hyrcanian Sea, marched amongst the two Armenias and the three Arabias?" "Ay, by my faith," said he, "we have played the fools and are undone.

Ah, poor souls!" "What's the matter?" said they.

However, the Cimmerians of Conan are really something much more like highly romanticized Celts with a strangely Indo-European migration origin.

If you really want to find the best analog to the historical Cimmerians in Howard's mythos, you would look to the Hyrcanians, the classic steppe peoples, who Howard imagines actually mixed with his fictional Cimmerians to birth the Scythians.

Now, this is quite false and perhaps confusingly so, but I would recommend that you do go through the rest of this episode imagining that every Cimmerian in real history looked and spoke like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

He may not have been the most accurate Conan, but he certainly was the best.

Shall Eastern hordes and greedy hirelings Keep their loved Pompeius ever at the helm? Shall chariots of triumph be for him, Though youth and law forbade them? Shall he seize On Rome's chief honors ne'er to be resigned? And what of harvests blighted through the world, And ghastly famine made to serve his ends? Who hath forgotten how Pompeius' bands Seized on the Forum, and with glittering arms Made outraged Justice tremble, while their swords Hemmed in the judgment-seat where Milo stood? And now when warm, and old, and ripe for rest, Greedy of power, the impious sword Again he draws.

As tigers in Hyrcanian woods wandering, or in the caves That saw their birth, once having lapped the blood Of slaughtered kine, shall never cease from rage— And so this whelp of cruel Sulla, nursed In civil war, outstrips his master, and The tongue which licked that reeking weapon Ever thirsts for more.

Stain once the lips with blood, No other meal they shall enjoy.

And shall There be no end of these long years of power And crime? Nay, this one lesson, ere it be Too late, learn of thy gentle Sulla, to Retire.

From that mountain zone They come, where, rising from a common fount, Euphrates flows and Tigris, and, did earth permit, Were joined with either name.

But now, while like Th' Egyptian flood Euphrates spreads his fertilizing water, Tigris first drawn down by earth-incovered depths Is plunged and holds a secret course; then born Again flows on unhindered to the Persian Sea.

But warlike Parthia wavered 'twixt the chiefs, Content to have made them two; while Scythia's hordes Dipped fresh their darts in poison, whom the stream Of Bactros bound in vast Hyrcanian woods.

Hence springs that rugged nation, swift and fierce, Descended from the Twin's great charioteer.

From the four corners of the earth they come to kiss this shrine, this mortal-breathing saint.

The Hyrcanian deserts and the vasty wilds of wide Arabia are as thoroughfares now for princes to come view Fair Portia.

The watery kingdom, whose ambitious head spits in the face of heaven, is no bar to stop the foreign spirits, but they come as o'er a brook to see Fair Portia.' One of these three contains her heavenly picture.

Is it like that lead contains her? T'were damnation to think so base a thought.

i returned therefore to my night of habitation with a full resolution to settle it for the ransom of my wife my little cot with the appurtenance was worth about threescore ounces of gold but as the purchasers found i was necessitous and drove to my last shifts The first whom I applied to offered me thirty ounces, the second twenty, and the third but ten.

Just as I had come to terms of accommodation with one of them, the prince of Hyrcania came to Babylon and swept all before him.

My little cottage, with all its furniture, was first plundered of all that was valuable, and at last reduced to ashes.

Having thus lost my money, my wife and my house, I withdrew to this desert, where you see me.

whereupon I was taken from my magnificent prison, the bowels of his god, and set up at the head of a very powerful party.

Your friend Cador flew to Memphis in hopes to find you there and bring you back to Babylon.

The prince of Hyrcania, hearing of these intestine broils, returned with a powerful army in order to form a third party, among the Babylonians.

He attacked the king who fled with his fair but fickle Egyptian before him.