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Headword: Seira
Adler number: sigma,274
Translated headword: cord
Vetting Status: high
Translation:
[Meaning] a chain.[1]
"The emperor sent gifts to the Avars, chains decorated with gold and garments made of silk."[2]
*seira/ also [means] a genealogy.
"For following the oracles of the philosopher concerning his own chain ... Somehow the flow of speech seeking out the order of his soul in the chain, not in the pure chorus, but after him, as I have shown, [the chain?] having been put in order invisibly, sent to me, bidding [me] report the most accurate [information]."[3]
Greek Original:
Seira: hê halusis. ho de basileus dôra estelle tois Abarois, seiras chrusôi diapepoikilmenas, esthêtas te sêrikas. Seira kai hê genealogia. tois gar tou philosophou manteumasi peri tês oikeias seiras hepomenos. ouk oid' hopôs hê tou logou rhumê kat' ichnos epizêtousa tên en têi seirai taxin tês autou psuchês ouk en tôi akêratôi chorôi, meta de touton, hôs dedeiktai, tetagmenês aphanous, apesteilen hôs eme, ta saphestata apangeilai prostaxas.
Notes:
[1] Likewise or similarly in other lexica, and cf. the scholia to Homer, Iliad 8.19, where the phrase "golden cord" occurs.
[2] Part of Menander Protector fr. 5.2 Blockley (48-49), Justinian attempts (probably in 558) to induce the Avars into military action against their neighbors, who were encroaching on the Byzantine frontier. See the preceding lines of this fragment at alpha 402 and the following lines at epsilon 493. On Justinian see iota 446 generally. In mid-C6 CE the Avars were a nomadic people of the steppe north of the Black Sea; cf. Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium s.v. Avars. On the territories of the Avars and of their surrounding ethnic groups in the epoch of Justinian, see Louth (110, map). On silk garments, see sigma 337.
[3] Damascius, Life of Isidore fr. 249 + 368 (306 Asmus) Zintzen, 152 Athanassiadi. Photius' version of the passage (Bibliotheca 306) ends differently. Athanassiadi deletes "not". The philosopher is apparently Isidore; the first person is Damascius, whose concern is "to prove that Isidore's soul formed part of the Hermaic chain" (Athanassiadi note 398, page 329).
References:
R.C. Blockley, ed. and trans., The History of Menander the Guardsman, (Cambridge 1985)
A.P. Kazhdan, ed. et al., The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, (Oxford 1991)
A. Louth, "Justinian and His Legacy," in J. Shepard, ed., The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire c. 500-1492, (Cambridge 2008) 99-129.
Damascius, The Philosophical History, text with translation and notes by Polymnia Athanassiadi. Athens 1999
Keywords: biography; clothing; definition; epic; geography; historiography; imagery; military affairs; philosophy; religion; trade and manufacture
Translated by: Catharine Roth on 16 December 2006@15:08:42.
Vetted by:
David Whitehead (augmented notes and keywords; cosmetics) on 17 December 2006@04:28:25.
Catharine Roth (augmented note) on 17 December 2006@23:41:46.
Catharine Roth (tweaked translation) on 18 December 2006@11:54:10.
Catharine Roth (more tweaks) on 18 December 2006@12:04:39.
David Whitehead (updated n.2) on 3 January 2012@07:21:30.
David Whitehead (tweaking) on 23 December 2013@06:37:31.
Catharine Roth (added a keyword) on 28 December 2013@00:17:34.
Catharine Roth (tweaked my translation) on 9 February 2022@00:40:38.
Ronald Allen (expanded n.2; added to bibliography, added cross-references and keyword) on 28 July 2024@12:32:58.
Ronald Allen (corrected dates n.2) on 29 July 2024@14:37:38.

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