Eumenes II, king of Pergamon. Ruled 197 - 159 BCE. Oversaw the expansion of his kingdom by remaining faithful to the Romans.
Since Pergamon's founding in the 3rd century BCE by a stroke of good fortune (and a serious amount of cash), the city increased its territory by attaching itself to regional powers.
Once they saw the beginnings of the decline of the Seleucid Empire due to its sheer size and overstretched army, the Attalid dynasty began to look west for allies to help maintain its independence. Source ~ https://www.facebook.com/DiadochiSeleukidai/
Stater, Susa circa 287 BCE. Laureate head of Apollo, looking right. Rev. [BAΣIΛEΩΣ] Artemis about to shoot arrow, riding on an elephant biga. Above, horizontal anchor and in lower l. field, IΣ / bee. In exergue, [Σ]EΛEYK[OY]. ( of SELEUCUS ) An apparently unrecorded variety of an extremely rare type. An issue of great importance and fascination, struck on a full flan and extremely fine.
Unlike most Seleucid kings, Seleucus I struck a very large quantity of gold coins. However, the vast majority was issued in the name of Alexander III, and employed his familiar design that combined the helmeted head of Athena with Nike holding a wreath and stylis. To those we may add a significantly smaller group of staters bearing that same design, but issued in the name of Seleucus.Beyond these, there are three extraordinary rarities: distaters of the Alexandrine type bearing the name of Seleucus, darics and double-darics bearing on their obverse a portrait of Alexander III in elephant scalp and on their reverse a standing Nike, and staters with the laureate head of Apollo and a biga of elephants driven by Goddess Artemis, who draws an arrow in Her bow. The latter type, offered here, is currently known by issues from Susa and from an uncertain mint in Bactria. The Bactrian issue – though fascinating and of historical interest – is of a rustic style in comparison with the Susa issue, which is struck with an obverse die engraved in excellent Greek style.The example offered here shares the obverse die of the other recorded example from Susa, though it was struck with a different reverse die. The previously known example has in its fields the letter K and a spearhead, whereas the present coin has a horizontal anchor, a bee, and the letters IΣ; all of which are known, separately, from other Seleucus I issues of Susa. When this stater was struck, the Apollo die appears to have been in a later state than when it produced the one recorded by Houghton and Lorber, thus assuring it is a subsequent issue. SOURCE : Numisbids.com
Castor and Polydeukes, also called the Dioskouroi, meaning 'youths of Zeus', are Divine Twin brothers.
Origin
The Twins were born from an egg after Zeus, disguised as a swan, seduced Leda. Polydeukesis immortal, but his brother Castor was mortal, since his father was Leda's husband, Tyndareus. The Twins were conceived on the same night, but by different fathers. Their sisters were Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra.According to Pindar, the Dioskouroi shared immortality when they moved between Hades and Mount Olympus.
Adventures
The Twins are excellent huntsmen and participated in the Hunting of the Calydonian boar. They also took part in the Argonaut expedition, where Polydeukes beat King Amycus of the Bebryces in a boxing fight. Also, the Dioskouroi confronted Theseus, the king of Athens.He abducted their sister, the famous Helen of Troy, who was still unmarried. Castor and Polydeukes went to rescue Helen, invaded Attica and managed to retrieve her. The Twins took Aethra, Theseus’ mother as revenge and even put the king’s rival on the throne.Theseus’mother became Helen’s slave, as further punishment for the kidnapping.
Shared Immortality
Castor and Polydeukes took the daughters of Leucippus, Phoebe and Hileira,as their wives, and were pursued by Leucippus’s nephews, Idas and Lynceus. Castor was murdered by Idas, but Pollydeukes killed Lynceus; in retribution, Zeus killed Idas with a thunderbolt. Zeus then gave Polydeykes the choice between spending all his time on Olympus or giving half of his immortality to his mortal brother, so that they could continue to be together. Polydeukes chose to share his immortality with his brother.
Imagery
In Homer’s Iliad, the Twins are described as strong men, with blond hair and big eyes. In art, They can frequently be recognized by the skull caps they wear, fragments of the egg they hatched out of. They are also depicted on their horses, carrying spears. We often see them on ancient coins. In ancient Greece, the weather phenomenon known as 'st.Elmo's fire' was associated with the Dioskouroi. When sailors saw this strange light during a storm, they knew that the Twins had come to their aid.The twins characteristically intervene in times of danger,helping those who honour and trust them. Generally, The Dioskouroi are regarded as benevolent deities; protectors of travellers and sailors, who invoke them to seek a smooth journey. They also protect mortals during war. Castor and Polydeukes are closely linked to sports and horses. Castor excels at horsetaming and Polydeukes is a gifted boxer; that's whey They were patrons of athletes and sports contests.
Coin of the Greek King Eucratides, where the Dioskouroi are depicted armed and on horseback.
` In ancient Greece, the Dioskouroi were honoured both as Gods on Olympus, and as deceased mortals in Hades. Shrines to Castor, Polydeukes and Helen existed in areas around Sparta,their homeland. The pear tree was regarded by the Spartans as sacred to Castor and Polydeukes, and images of the Twins were hung in its branches. The cult of the Twins dated back to the mid-6th century BCE.
The coins of Ancient Athens depicted the Owl of Goddess Athena since about 560 BCE. The bird is commonly shown in a seated position. However, the Athenian decadrachms are an exception to that rule. In 480 BCE,on the day of the Battle of Salamis, the Athenians saw owls flying above their army.They considered this event as a blessing from Goddess Athena Herself, since the owl is Her sacred animal companion. The Greeks emerged triumphant from the Battle, and from then on, they depicted an owl with open wings on their decadrachms.
Heliocles II Dikaios (Greek: Ηλιοκλής Β' ο Δίκαιος- "the Righteous") is thought to have been one of the later Indo-Greek Kings and a relative of the Bactrian king Heliocles I. Heliocles II was about 30-40 years later, he may have been the son or grandson of Heliocles I.He ruled in 95–80 BCE.
Heliocles II seems to have been engaged in a conquest wars with Strato I in Gandhara and Punjab; the two share several mintmarks and Heliocles II overstruck many of his coins. During this period, a number of kings fought for hegemony in the Indo-Greek territories. Some of them were likely supported by nomad Saka rulers, such as Maues.
Heliocles II used a reverse of standing Zeus, who was a common God among the later Indo-Greek kings. It has been suggested that Heliocles was the son of the important king Antialcidas Nikephoros (whose type was sitting Zeus) and perhaps the grandson of Heliocles I. Therefore, he was the older brother of the king Archebius Nikephoros Dikaios, who seems to have succeeded Heliocles II in Gandhara (perhaps after his death from disease; Heliocles looks emaciated on his later portraits). Archebius uses a very similar reverse and combines the epithets of Heliocles II and Antialcidas; in addition, their coin portraits are similar, with hooked noses and fierce expressions.
R.C. Senior has instead suggested a connection with Demetrius III, who used a similar reverse of standing Zeus. Heliocles II issued Indian silver with portrait (diademed, helmeted or spear-throwing) / standing Zeus and bronzes with bearded diademed portrait (Heliocles or Zeus) / elephant. It is uncertain whether he struck Attic coins. A number of posthumous coins for Heliocles I have been found in Bactria; possibly some of these may have been struck by Heliocles II, though there are no similar monograms. SOURCE:Wikipedia
Archaeologists have uncovered two 2,000-year-old marble eagle statues in a Hellenistic temple at the Kınık Mound, located near the Yeşilyurt village in Niğde's Altunhisar district. The excavations at the mound are being carried out by a group of Italian, Turkish, American and French archaeologists. The two statues, one worn out and one solid, probably belong to the late Hellenistic period. They were uncovered at the pits of a square near the 2,100-year-old Hellenistic temple discovered last year. The 70-centimeter eagle statues with their wings closed and their heads turned slightly to the right have wild goats under their claws. They are being displayed at Niğde Museum following restoration. Another 1-meter-long eagle statue, which was discovered last year, is also at Niğde Museum. New York University professor Lorenzo D'Alfonso, who is leading the excavation team, told Anadolu Agency (AA) that the excavations began in 2011 and have continued since. He said they found the traces of a new period last year. "We found the Early Bronze Age levels in the lower city. This means that life began as a city at Kınık Mound around 3000 BCE and continued until the late Hellenistic period. There are 5,000 years of history in layers. The late Hellenistic period covers the period from 150 BCE to 1 CE. We found a large square and dug out two temples. We discovered statues in the pits during the excavation. There are marble, stone and ceramic sculptures. We found two eagle statues this year."
Worship of Zeus
Assistant Head of Excavation Burak Yolaçan of Dokuz Eylül University said they found a large eagle statue last year and that the newly discovered smaller eagle statues are very similar to that one. Yolaçan explained that the two eagle sculptures were thrown into the pits, probably on purpose, and added, "They were buried firmly, either to be concealed or people did not want to throw them away due to their holiness. Both of the eagle statues can be traced back to the late Hellenistic period according to our initial predictions." "This is a common motif in the region. There are similar eagle statues in the Nevşehir, Niğde, Kayseri museums and even in the Ankara Anatolian Civilizations Museum. The wings of the eagle statues are closed, their head is slightly turned above the right, and they are standing with their claws on wild goats. We also discovered an inscription close to the statues," he added. "In a small piece belonging to a base there are inscriptions that say a woman was healed next to a statue of Zeus or the temple of Zeus, and that's why they are making a vow. That is why we believe these eagle statues are related to the worship of Zeus. The wild goat is a motif we don't certainly know the meaning of yet," he added. "The eagle is a common motif in the region. Animal motifs, deer, bulls and wild goats with an eagle in particular express holiness," Yolaçan said. SOURCE: www.dailysabah.com
The presence of Greek God Poseidon in Bactria signifies the unusual pairing of a Hellenic sea-God with landlocked Central Asia. From the time of Alexander the Great’s invasion, the worship of various Greek Gods and Goddesses spread through the region. Isolated archaeological finds provide tangible evidence of this phenomenon in places such as Ai Khanoum, Takht-i Sangin Dilberdjin, and Tillya-Tepe.
That evidence expands significantly when we add numismatic sources, since Bactrian coins survive in sufficient numbers to provide a more or less continuous historical record, and because many of these coins bear the images of Greek Gods and heroes. Beyond the personal cults of the Bactrian Kings themselves, the coinages attest an official reverence for Zeus, Apollo, Dionysos, Heracles, the Dioskouroi, Athena, Artemis, Nike, Helios, Selene, Hermes, and Poseidon.
Only the latter God seems incongruous given his normal association with the sea; yet, an unmistakable image of Poseidon with His trident and a palm branch appears on the coins of the Bactrian King Antimachus I Theos (ca. 175 BCE). Many scholars have assumed that this type of coin must indicate some naval victory by the King. Nearly every waterway in the region has been suggested as the site of this putative battle: the Oxus River, the lakes of Drangiana, the Aral Sea, the Indus River, the Indian Ocean, the Hydaspes River, and even (by Seleucid proxy) the Mediterranean Sea.However, no evidence corroborates the existence of a Graeco-Bactrian warfleet on any of these waters.
If not as God of the sea, then perhaps Poseidon in his role as the ‘Earth-Shaker’ may have been associated in Central Asia with earthquakes, since seismic activity in the region is certainly common. Yet, the palm branch on Poseidon's hand ( a symbol of victory )on the coins of Antimachus, seems inappropriate in this context. For this reason, scholars have now turned to the third major aspect of Poseidon’s power to explain his significance to Central Asia. According to Pausanias, “All men call Poseidon the God of the sea (Pelagaios), of earthquakes (Asphaleios), and of horses (Hippios).” As the Creator of horsemanship, Poseidon Hippios was often worshipped, trident and all, at inland Greek sites such as Mantinea in the central Peloponnese.The historical primacy of cavalry forces in Bactria and surrounding regions makes sense of the victorious Poseidon appearing on the coinage of Antimachus I. Indeed, on the coins of his successor Antimachus II Nikephoros (ca. 160 BCE), the King appears as a cavalryman galloping to victory. On balance, such an interpretation makes much more sense than a naval victory by Poseidon Pelagaios or a generalized evocation of the earth-rattling Poseidon Asphaleios.
The following Hymn is dedicated to the Greek God Helios ( the Sun ). It was written by Mesomedes of Crete, a Greek lyric poet. Below the video, there is a translation of the Hymn in English and the original lyrics in Ancient Greek.
Singers: Kostis Georgalis
& Nikos Konstantinopoulos
Orchestration: Petros Tabouris
Video-Creation: Heliodromion
Translation in English :
Father of the Dawn with her snow-white eyelids,
You who follow in Your rose-pink chariot
the track of your flying steeds,
exulting in the gold of Your hair,
twining Your darting rays
across the boundless vault of sky,
whirling around the whole earth
the thread of Your all-seeing beams,
while flowing rivers of Your deathless fire
beget the lovely day.
For You the peaceful chorus of stars
dance their measure across Olympos their Lord,
forever singing their leisured song,
rejoicing in the music of Apollo’s lyre;
and leading them the silvery-grey Moon
marshals the months and seasons,
drawn by Her team of milk-white heifers.
And Your benevolent mind rejoices
as it whirls around the manifold raiment of the universe.
The ancient name of Afghanistan is Bactria. Persian shahs (550-330 BCE) ruled these wild lands without being too involved with them, getting silver and military service in tribute from the skilled tribesmen of the region. Then,Alexander the Great arrived with his army of Greeks. Alexander kept the sensible structure of the Persian Empire, and he gave territories to his generals, and appointed them as satraps, or provincial rulers. After Alexander’s death, these satraps turned the his Empire into a multitude of Kingdoms who fought one another. A general named Seleucus (born 358 BCE, assassinated 281) ruled much of the East, including Bactria, establishing a dynasty that would last for almost 250 years. Greeks settled in the new lands and intermarried with the locals. A new society was created, combining Mediterranean, Indian and Central Asian characteristics. One tradition the Greeks brought with them, was the taste for artistic coinage on precious metals.
From Satrap to King
Antiochus I
Antiochus I.
Some of the earliest Greek coinage struck in Bactria is attributed to the mint of Ai Khanoum, a “lost city” rediscovered in 1961. Gold staters and silver tetradrachms were issued in the name of Antiochus I, son of Seleucus. Around 250 BCE, the satrap Diodotus, followed by his son Diodotus II, began to assert independence, eventually replacing the Seleucid reverse image of seated Apollo with their own symbol, Zeus hurling a thunderbolt.
Diodotus II
The coins are rare, and the debate over which Diodotus struck what coin and when, has intrigued generations of scholars. Some cataloguers simply describe coins as “Diodotus I or II.” There was at least one other mint apart from the one in Ai Khanoum, possibly at Bactra, the ancient capital, and there also may have been a third ruler, confusingly named Antiochus Nikator. They issued a range of gold, silver and bronze denominations. Many surviving Diodotid gold staters have deeply chiseled “test cuts,” perhaps because plated fakes circulated in later years.
Euthydemus
Between 230 and 223 BCE, a general named Euthydemus overthrew the Diodotids. He fought the Seleucid king, Antiochus III (“The Great”), resisting a three-year siege of Bactra (208-206 BCE). Antiochus finally made peace, and gave his daughter in marriage to Demetrius, son of Euthydemus. Euthydemus was unusually lucky for a Hellenistic monarch- his reign was long, perhaps over 30 years.In his coin portraits, we can see him aging gradually. On the reverse, coins of Euthydemus depict a weary Heracles resting on a rock pile, holding his emblematic club.
Conqueror of India
Demetrius I
Born in about 222 BCE, Demetrius I, son of Euthydemus, ruled from c. 200 to 180. He was never defeated in battle, earning the epithet Aniketos (“Invincible”). In about 180 BCE, he invaded India, conquering the Indus valley and advancing far into the Ganges plain. His coinage is a testament of his achievements,as he appears wearing the “Elephant Scalp” headdress. For the Greeks, this was a bold claim to the glory of Alexander the Great, who was similarly depicted on coins struck for Ptolemy I of Egypt, 130 years earlier. On his bronze coinage, Demetrius placed the head of an elephant, with a kerykeion on the reverse–the symbolic staff carried by Greek heralds, which is also a famous symbol of the God Hermes.
The Smile of Antimachus
Antimachus may have been a son of Euthydemus and brother of Demetrius. His reign is estimated during 171 – 160 BCE, but like most dates in Bactrian history, the margin of error is wide.Apart from his coins, almost nothing is known about him.
He placed a graceful standing image of Poseidon on the reverse of his coins. Since Poseidon is the God of the seas, this might seem strange for a landlocked country. Poseidon,however is also the patron God of horses, for which Bactria was famous. The inscription is BASILEUS THEOU ANTIMACHOU (“of King Antimachus the God”). Although Hellenistic rulers often claimed that they had Divine origins in their court protocol or monuments, no living King had ever called himself a god on his coinage before. The coin of Antimachus shows him wearing a kausia, the Macedonian hat, from which the distinctive Afghan pakol has its origins. On the best dies, the king’s face has a gentle, enigmatic smile which, like Mona Lisa’s mysterious grin, has fascinated generations of viewers.
We do not know the fate of Antimachus. He (or possibly one of his sons) was overthrown by Eucratides.
Mysterious Nickel
For about 15 years (185-170 BCE), three obscure Bactrian kings issued coinage in a copper-nickel alloy–something otherwise unknown in ancient numismatics. The denomination was a dichalkon, or “double unit”, of 7-8 grams and about 24 mm in diameter, or more rarely a chalkon (about 3.7 grams, 18 mm). Two of the kings, Pantaleon and Agathokles, were probably brothers. They used the same design: an obverse bust of Dionysos, the God of ecstasy and wine; on the reverse a walking panther (pantaleon means “panther” in Greek; leopards are known animal companions of Dionysos).
Euthydemus II used an obverse laureate bust of Apollo, with a tripod on the reverse. Τhe nickel may have come to Bactria through trade exchanges with China. We do not know why it was alloyed with copper; nevertheless, Greek furnaces couldn't produce enough heat in order to melt nickel properly;thus, the coins tend to have pitted surfaces full of grain.
Eucratides the Great
Eucratides seized the throne by force, and ruled for about 25 years before being murdered by his own son. Judging by his coinage, which is almost the only evidence we have about him, Bactria reached a peak of prosperity and grandeur under his rule. Eucratides issued the largest surviving gold coin struck in antiquity, perhaps as a diplomatic presentation piece.
On that unique medallion, and on his very rare gold staters and more common silver tetradrachms, Eucratides appears in armor, wearing a plumed Macedonian cavalry helmet of surprisingly modern design. On the reverse, we see the Dioskouroi, Castor and Polydeukes, holding lances and riding galloping war horses. When the Afghan Central Bank was established in 1939, it adopted this reverse design as its seal, and it still appears on current Afghan banknotes.
The End of Greek Baktria
Heliocles
Heliocles may or may not be the son who murdered Eucratides:
“[A]S IF HE DIDN’T KILL A FATHER BUT AN ENEMY, RAN WITH HIS CHARIOT OVER THE BLOOD OF HIS FATHER, AND ORDERED THE CORPSE TO BE LEFT WITHOUT A SEPULTURE” -JUSTIN, HISTORIARUM PHILIPPICARUM LIBRI XLIV, BOOK 41:6
2nd-century Roman historian, Justin, describes the murder,but never names the killer. Heliocles uses the epithet Dikaios (“The Righteous”) on his coins, perhaps in an attempt to justify his act. About 130 BCE, a wild nomadic tribe,the Yuezhi,conquered Bactria. Heliocles may have fallen in battle against them. Although Indo-Greek kingdoms south of the mountains would last for more than one century, Heliocles' fall marked the end of Greek rule north of the Hindu Kush.
Long ago, traders with a taste for illegal transactions in the bazaars of Peshawar and Kabul discovered that foreigners would pay good money for Bactrian coins. Thus, an illegal industry developed, providing counterfeits when real ones couldn't be found. Hoards have supplied museums and collectors; some have been partly documented, like Mir Zakah (late 1940’s) and Kunduz (1946), while others were sold separately.
It's perfectly reasonable that the number of borrowed words from the Greek language into the Persian one should vary,depending on the kinds of texts and on the fields of learning.in contrast to Islamic religious scholarship (apart from the Koran’s Greek loanwords, which naturally passed into Persian) the secular or 'ancient sciences' seem to be the domain of Greek terminology; Aristotelian philosophy, medicine and all its related fields,as well as the occult sciences were filled with words of Greek origin. We should also keep in mind that during the Islamic period, Persian learned literature was largely modelled upon Arabic precursors; and that these, whether they were direct or indirect translations from Greek or Arabic originals, tried to minimize the vocabulary which was foreign and sounded unfamiliar. This was contrary to the position often accorded to Arabic in Persian, in which non-Arabic technical terminology was, as a rule, replaced by loan-adaptations or at least by words of common, even if non-technical, currency. A lot of non-Arabic words were not considered foreign, due to their complete assimilation into the language. Trade and administration were other paths through which Greek words entered Persian. In the end, the majority of Greek linguistic elements that remained in Persian were proper names- particularly those of ancient authors- as well as terms of merchandise and units of measure.To provide a balanced description, it should be noted that essentialy any Greek word seen in Arabic could be incorporated into Persian, whether it is considered as purely Arabic or correctly identified as being of Greek origin.
Along with their division into semantic fields, Greek lexical items in Persian can also be distinguished by their route and time period of borrowing;taking into account the historical 'pauses' which defined the periods of potential contact and the fact that, for most of their history, the two linguistic areas of Iranian and Greek were not contiguous. The Muslim conquest and, with it, the fall of the Sasanians, the linguistic shift to Iranian, and the period of literary inactivity of what subsequently emerged as New Persian represented a historical moment in the introduction of Greek into Iranian. There is a fundamental difference between the Greek words that entered Persian before the Muslim conquest and those borrowed after the conquest. The former passed either directly or via Aramaic from Greek into Pahlavi, while the latter inevitably had Arabic as their proximate origin before entering Persian. This is true for most of the Greek terms of Medicine and pharmacy used in Persian (e.g., ṯāfisā < Gk. thapsia, Thapsia granica L., and qarābāḏin, < Gk. graphidion “booklet”).
There are, however, a number of notable exceptions that show traces of an intra-Iranian passage from the Sasanian period into New Persian and are not limited to the medical context; for example, yāra (Gk. hiera “holy”), teryāk (Gk. thēriakē “treacle”), stēr (Gk. statēr “stater,” New Per. sir, a unit of weight), and deram, derham “dram, dirham,” q.v. (Gk. drakhmē). On the other hand, Greek medical and medicinal terms, first borrowed during the Sasanian or early post-Sasanian periods, gradually stopped being used in Persia, at least before the final shift to neo-Persian. These terms, however, were taken by Arabic and were later re-introduced from Arabic into Persian; examples of this trend are qawlanj (< Gk. kōlik “colic”) and the more common variant of the just-mentioned yāra, iyāraj. From the field of astronomy, we see cases of late Middle Iranian Greek loanwords which first passed into Arabic before making their way back into Persian: the names Baṭlamiyus (Gk. Ptolemaios, “Ptolemy”) and Majesṭi (Gk. Megísiē, “Almagest”).We can reasonably deduce that from the same late middle-Iranian period, such Persian medical loanwords in Arabic as bersām and sarsām were derived,loanwords from Greek pleuritis, inflammation of the side, “pleurisy” and phrenitis, inflammation of the brain, “frenzy,” respectively.
As mentioned before, proper names, mostly of authors, are a large group of Greek elements in Persian. The majority of these come from the fields where the Greeks excelled,such as medicine and mathematics; Esmāʿil Jorjāni’s Ḏaḵira-ye ḵᵛārazmšāhi is an excellent medical source for Greek names in Persian. Below there are some words of Greek origin, which are quite common in Persian:
Anthroponyms
(A) Pre-Islamic period: Alaksandar “Alexander,” Baṭlamiyus (see above); (B) Islamic period: Arisṭuṭālis “Aristotle,” Eskandar “Alexander,” Aflāṭun “Plato,” Faluṭin “Plotinus,” Boqrāṭ “Hippocrates,” Ṯāvon “Theo,” Jālinus “Galen,”. There are a lot of names, which belonged to famous Greek writers from the fields of philosophy, science, and medicine, and they were introduced into Persian via Arabic.
Islamic period (through Arabic): Baršāvoš “Perseus,” Dalfin “Delphinus,” Qanṭuris “Centaurus,” Qiṭus “Cetus,” and Qifāvus “Cepheus.”
Biblionyms
Abiḏimiyā, < Epidēmía “the Epidemics of Hippocrates,” Urḡānun < Organon “the Organon of Aristotle,” Isāḡuji < Eisagōgē “the Isagoge of Porphyry,” Bāri Armāniās < Perì Hermēneías “Aristotle’s De interpretatione,” Ṯāwolujiyā “Theología, Pseudo-Aristotle’s Theology,” < Qaṭājānes < Kata genē Galen’s De compositione medicamentorum.”
Administrative terms
Pre-Islamic period: daftar (register, account book) < diphthéra “parchment” Islamic period: barid (the official postal and intelligence service of the Caliphate and early Islamic states) < berēdos “post-horse,” possibly borrowed directly from Greek into Arabic and then passed into Persian.
Units of currency and measure
Pre-Islamic period: deram, derahm < drakhmē; dinār < dēnárion (Lat. denarius); pul < obolos; stēr < statēr; Islamic period (through Arabic): derham (by “retrograde derivation from Ar. quasi-pl. darāhem, see Spitaler), qest < xéstēs, “pint,” qerāṭ < kerátion “carat.”
The works of major Greek authorities in Medicine,such as Galen, had been translated in Arabic, along with Dioscorides' classic book known in Arabic as Fi hayula ʿelaj al-ṭebb and Ketab al adwia al-mofrada. These sources held an abundance of Greek medical terms. The book of Dioscorides was studied in its Arabic translation and it was translated into Persian .The few examples from these translated books on different subjects give us an idea of the amount of words coming from the Greek language. (a) Morbidity, etc.: fanṭāsiya < phantasía, “display; imagination,” ilāvus < eìleos, “intestinal disease,” farāniṭes, qarāniṭes (by misreading of fāʾ) < phrenitis, “frenzy,” māliḵuliā < melancholia; (b) Materia medica: anisu,anisun < anison, anēthon “dill, anise,” qulqās < kolokási- "Egyptian lotus,” qalqand(is) < khálkanthon, khalkánthes “copper sulfate solution”; (c) Pharmacy: eyāraj, qarābāḏin, teryāq.
Philosophical terms
hayulā < hulē, “wood, timber; matter,” faylasuf (perh. by retrograde derivation from Ar. quasi-pl. falāsefa) < philósophos “philosopher.”
