Word: parthian
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...family's net worth, built over years, has been decimated in weeks. From $12,000, their portfolio is down to $4,000 - a loss that totals more than half of Sandeep's annual paycheck from his job with a U.S.-based company. Leaving the room, the father fires a Parthian shot: "It's not good to be greedy," he says...
...etymologist in me prefers “Parthian shot” to “parting shot”: the former version of the phrase retains the allusion to Parthia, that ancient West Asian kingdom whose inhabitants employed the charming tactic of firing arrows backwards while they were fleeing, or pretending to flee, battles. Treat this column as a series of shots from Southeast Asia. I have no advice to give. I’m just telling my (unabashedly enthusiastic) story...
...Alexander Helios is believed to be represented, in a bronze statuette, as the Prince of Armenia. According to Plutarch's writings, Mark Antony gave his sons by Cleopatra the title of kings, bestowing Armenia, Media and the Parthian Empire on Alexander and Phoenicia, Syria and Cilicia on his younger brother Ptolemy Philadelphus. After the deaths of Antony and Cleopatra, their three children were made to live out their lives in obscurity. Half-brother Caesarion was not so fortunate. He was executed by Octavian...
Plutarch relates how, during a 53 B.C. performance of the Bacchae, the victorious Parthian general Sillaces approached the stage, carrying the head of Crassus, and handed it to Jason of Tralles, the actor playing Agave: Jason went on, apparently without missing a beat, and the play ended smoothly, if messily...
Indeed, the treasure seems to abound with unexpected nuggets of history. One of the graves has yielded a coin that totally baffles the archaeologists; it could be evidence of a semi-mythical Indo-Parthian kingdom thought to have existed in the area. Another of the skeletons shows strong Greek religious influence. Stuck between the teeth is a coin, symbolic payment to the boatman who ferries the dead across the River Styx to the Underworld...