satraps

Updated: May 12, 2025

His wife and daughters, with a train of eunuchs and camels, attended the march of the ambassador: two satraps with golden diadems were numbered among his followers: he was guarded by five hundred horse, the most valiant of the Persians; and the Roman governor of Dara wisely refused to admit more than twenty of this martial and hostile caravan.

Edward Gibbon - History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 4

Even within the sphere of their lawful authority the Governors have now a certain respect for public opinion and occasionally a very wholesome dread of casual newspaper correspondents. Thus the men who were formerly described by the satirists as "little satraps" have sunk to the level of subordinate officials.

Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace - Russia

In their offices, these half-hearted Lieutenants, Captains, and Colonels, are like satraps in their halls, unapproachable, except by passing bayonets that should be turned towards Richmond." "Well, if I don't understand it," resumed the Captain, "it is high time that Uncle Sam understood it.

William H. Armstrong - Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals: As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac

But the transformation during the last five years of the nominal republic into a corrupt oligarchy of satraps or military governors or feudal lords has represented a victory for the north.

John Dewey - China, Japan and the U.S.A. : Present-Day Conditions in the Far East and Their Bearing on the Washington Conference

The authority of Artaxerxes was solemnly acknowledged in a great assembly held at Balch in Khorasan. Two younger branches of the royal house of Arsaces were confounded among the prostrate satraps.

Edward Gibbon - History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 1

There remained only one course open to him: to go to the satraps of the king of Persia, and ask them for money, as Lysander had done.

Plutarch - Plutarch's Lives, Volume II

It consisted of the ecclesiastical hierarchy the bishops and mitred abbots; with the official hierarchy the great nobles, who were also great satraps of provinces, and great military commanders. It was thus mainly made up of practical life-members, appointed by merit. The peers, lay and spiritual, were the men who commended themselves to the sovereign as able administrators.

Grant Allen - Post-Prandial Philosophy

The new city was exempt from the jurisdiction of Persian satraps, and was made directly dependent upon the king, who supplied it with corn gratuitously, and allowed it to become an inviolable asylum for all such Greek slaves as should take shelter in it, and be acknowledged as their kinsmen by any of the inhabitants.

George Rawlinson - The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7: The Sassanian or New Persian Empire : The History, Geography, And Antiquities Of Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, And Sassanian or New Persian Empire; With Maps and Illustrations.

But the tidings of the difficulties he had gone through in his Indian expedition, the danger of his person among the Mallians, the reported loss of a considerable part of his forces, and a general doubt as to his own safety, had begun to give occasion for revolt among many of the conquered nations, and for acts of great injustice, avarice, and insolence on the part of the satraps and commanders in the provinces, so that there seemed to be an universal fluctuation and disposition to change.

Plutarch - Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans

There rise row after row of jewelled scymitars, and vases and salvers of gold, and old saddles studded with diamonds, and with stirrups of gold, presents of frightened Asiatic satraps or fawning European allies. There, too, are the crowns of Muscovy, of Russia, of Kazan, of Astrachan, of Siberia, of the Crimea, and, pity to say it, of Poland.

Various - The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 61, November, 1862