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Parthian   Listen
adjective
Parthian  adj.  Of or pertaining to ancient Parthia, in Asia.
Parthian arrow, an arrow discharged at an enemy when retreating from him, as was the custom of the ancient Parthians; hence, a parting shot.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Parthian" Quotes from Famous Books



... advance five years. Before proceeding thence with our story, however, let us take a Parthian glance at the overstepped interval. Philip Ballister had left New York with the triple vow that he would enslave every faculty of his mind and body to business, that he would not return till he had made a fortune, and that such interstices as might occur in the building up of this chateau for ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson

... possible, as in this way the site of some ancient settlement adjoining the monument may be identified. The open ruin-fields, or Khurbas, characteristic of Palestine are not usual, except in the case of Parthian or Sassanian palace ruins such as Ctesiphon, Hatra, or Ukheidhir, which were often abandoned almost as soon as they were built, so that no later population could pile up rubbish-heaps or ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various

... Antony was aroused by the Parthian invasion of Syria, and the report of an outbreak between Fulvia, his wife, and Lucius, his brother, on the one hand, and Octavius on the other. On arriving in Italy he found that the war was over, and Octavius ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various

... a part of the population appear to have returned to their former seats, for, in the early part of the second century of the Christian era, we find the Parthian king, Evemerus, sending numerous families from Babylon into Media to be sold as slaves, and burning many great and beautiful edifices ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... overtook him, he was unable to escape from one destitute of hand or foot."—When the life-plundering foe comes up behind, fate arrests the speed of the swift-going warrior. At the moment when the enemy might approach step by step it were useless to bend the kayani, or Parthian bow. ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... to the halls of Belshazzar. Oh, merciful, merciful angels! That prompt sweet tears to men, hang veils, hang drapery darkest,— If any may hide or may pall this night's tempestuous horror. Like a deluge the army poured in on their snorting Bactrian horses, Rattled the Parthian quivers, rang the Parthian harness of iron, High upon spears rode the torches, and from them in showery blazes Rained splendour lurid and fierce on the dreamlike ruinous uproar, Such as delusions often from fever's fierce ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... profoundly wounded in their most sacred sympathies: love for the fatherland, the church, and the czar, and they are rising to a man to save them. Sire, this war which your majesty is about to commence is no ordinary war: the enemy will not oppose you in the open field; like the Parthian, he will seemingly flee from his pursuer; he will decoy you forward, but in the thicket or ravine he will conceal himself, and when you pass by will have you at an advantage. He will never allow you to fight him in a pitched battle, but every village ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach

... "Great prose, of equal elevation, commands our respect more than great verse," says he, "since it implies a more permanent and level height, a life more pervaded with the grandeur of the thought. The poet often only makes an irruption, like the Parthian, and is off again, shooting while he retreats; but the prose writer has conquered like a Roman and settled colonies." We may ask ourselves, almost with dismay, whether such works exist at all but in the imagination of the student. ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the trumpet's sound, the cavalry should mount and form; but that none, under pain of death, should abandon themselves to a desultory and dangerous pursuit. This wise injunction was first disobeyed by the count of Blois, who involved the emperor in his rashness and ruin. The Comans, of the Parthian or Tartar school, fled before their first charge; but after a career of two leagues, when the knights and their horses were almost breathless, they suddenly turned, rallied, and encompassed the heavy squadrons of the Franks. The count was slain on the field; the emperor was made prisoner; and if ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... for pomegranate in China is "the Parthian fruit," showing that it was introduced from Parthia, the Chinese equivalent for Parthia being [an][xi] Ansik, which is an easy corruption of the Greek Arsakes, the first ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles

... which Egyptians call after their mincing fashion "Irminiyeh" hence "Ermine" (Mus Ponticus). Armaniyah was much more extensive than our Armenia, now degraded to a mere province of Turkey, and the term is understood to include the whole of the old Parthian Empire. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton

... determined to hold back any possibility of a charge, or any return to the protection of the giant flying-ship. Bullets whimpered overhead, spudded into the sand, or pinged against metal on the liner. Parthian fighters though these Beni Harb were, they surely were well stocked with munitions ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... Italy went to see the spectacle, and doubtless Vergil too; for here it was, if we mistake not, that he first resolved to write an epic of Rome. The year 45 saw the defeat of the Pompeian remnants in Spain, and the first preparations for the great Parthian expedition which, as all knew, was to inaugurate the new Monarchy. Then came the sudden blow that struck Caesar down, the civil war that elevated Antony and Octavian and brought Cicero to his death, and finally the victory ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank

... industry, under a despotism which crushed out all local independence. And with decay within came danger from without. For centuries past the Roman frontier had held back the barbaric world beyond it, the Parthian of the Euphrates, the Numidian of the African desert, the German of the Danube or the Rhine. In Britain a wall drawn from Newcastle to Carlisle bridled the British tribes, the Picts as they were called, who had been sheltered from Roman conquest by the fastnesses of the ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green

... Bartholomew, St. Jude, St. Matthew, and St. Thomas. The inhabitants of this region were of different races: Greek colonists; many Jews, the residue of the Babylonish Captivity; Arabs, and ancient Persians. Till the fourth century the Parthian Church appears to have flourished in peace. It was beyond the jurisdiction of the persecuting emperors of Rome, and the Parthian monarchs, though not Christians themselves, protected or tolerated their ...
— A Key to the Knowledge of Church History (Ancient) • John Henry Blunt

... his exit majestically, and left Brigitte with the arrow of his comparison, discharged after the manner of the Parthian "in extremis," sticking in her mind, and she herself in a temper all the more savage because already, the evening before, Madame Thuillier, after the guests were gone, had the incredible audacity to say something in favor of Felix. Needless to relate that the poor helot was roughly ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... kept fairly well within it, in spite of some trouble; but his cousin the younger Quintus, coming to see his uncle in December 45, showed him a gloomy countenance, and on being asked the meaning of it, said that he was going with Caesar to the Parthian war in order to avoid his creditors, and presumably to make money to pay them with.[145] He had not even enough money for the journey out. His uncle did not offer to give him any, but he does not seem to have thought very seriously of the young ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler

... Crassus, but adds that Sulla was even richer.[15] Plutarch gives us fuller details and also explains the origin of the colossal fortune of Crassus. According to him Crassus had 300 talents ($345,000), with which to commence. Upon his departure for the Parthian war in which he lost his life, he made an inventory of his property and found that he was possessed of 7,100 talents, $8,165,000, double what Cicero attributes to him. How did Crassus increase his fortune so enormously? Plutarch says that he bought the property confiscated by Sulla at a ...
— Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic • Andrew Stephenson

... entrenched behind a desk, sat a cynical-looking youth. A smaller boy in the background talked into a telephone. Both were giggling. On seeing me the slightly larger of the two advanced with a half-hearted attempt at solemnity, though unable to resist a Parthian shaft at his companion, who was seized on the instant with a paroxysm of ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse

... the old Parthian, as he stepped into his traveling-carriage, "my friend Talboys will miss me; pray be kind to him while I am away. He is a particular friend of mine. I may be wrong, but I do like men of ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... of men came to the Assyrians through the ingenuity of Semiramis; for these wanton wretches with high timbered voices could not have produced themselves, those smooth cheeks could not reproduce themselves; she gathered their like about her: or, Parthian luxury forbade with its knife, the shadow of down to appear, and fostered long that boyish bloom, compelling art-retarded youth to sink to Venus' calling," Claudianus, Eutrop. ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... BROADSWORD COMBAT! between two young and promising amateurs and a celebrated Parthian gladiator who has just arrived a prisoner from the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... was at a loss which to admire more, the silence of their feet or the loudness of their voices. Aware that lads of that age are no respecters of persons, I was not surprised to see two or three of them rush on to the bridge before us, and even continue their Parthian warfare under the feet of the horses. The result, however, was that the latter took fright at that part of the bridge where the houses encroach most on the roadway; and but for the care of the running footman, who hastened ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman

... for two centuries the single Greek city of Syracuse had contended on equal terms; it was not the Sepoy armies of the Carthaginian plutocracy, but the towering genius of the House of Barca, which rendered the struggle for ever memorable. It was the distance and the desert, rather than the Parthian horse-bowmen, that set bounds to Rome in the east; and on the north her advance was curbed by the vast reaches of marshy woodland, rather than by the tall barbarians who dwelt therein. During the long generations of her greatness, ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt

... Every day the astonished senate received the intelligence of new names and new nations, that acknowledged his sway. They were informed that the kings of Bosphorus, Colchos, Iberia, Albania, Osrhoene, and even the Parthian monarch himself, had accepted their diadems from the hands of the emperor; that the independent tribes of the Median and Carduchian hills had implored his protection; and that the rich countries of Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... scarce one-tenth of the number that had first rushed to the attack,—performed their flight with the same Parthian rapidity that characterised the assault; and escaping both Welch foe and Saxon, though the former broke ground to pursue them, they gained the steeps ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... walked away briskly after delivering this Parthian shaft, Miss Whichello stood looking after him with an expression of nervous worry on her rosy face. She had her own reasons to apprehend trouble in connection with the engagement, and although these were unknown to the chaplain, his chance arrow had hit the mark. The thoughts of the little old lady ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... at thirty-five, and enjoyed impressing the fact on his fellow citizens in The Vision. He may then have lived at Antioch as a rhetorician for some years, of which we have a memorial in The Portrait-study. Lucius Verus, M. Aurelius's colleague, was at Antioch in 162 or 163 A.D. on his way to the Parthian war, and The Portrait-study is a panegyric on Verus's mistress Panthea, ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata

... livelong day; The younger, sprightly, gay, and graceful, too, Leaps, laughs incessant, and in games delights. One evening, as their wont, at father's side, And near a table where their mother sewed, The elder Rollin read. The younger played: Small care had he for Rome's ambitious deeds, Or Parthian prowess; his whole mind was set To build a house of cards, his wit sharp-drawn To fit the corners neatly. He, nor speaks, Nor scarce may breathe, so great his anxious care. But suddenly the reader's ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon

... in Spain, Crassus invaded Asia, where, in a battle with the Parthians, his whole army was cut to pieces. He himself was in danger of being taken prisoner, but he fell by the sword of the enemy. His head was cut off, and carried to Orodes, the Parthian king, who ordered liquid gold to be infused into his mouth, that he, who thirsted for gold, might be glutted with it after his death. Caput ejus recisum ad regem reportatum, ludibrio fuit, neque indigno. Aurum enim liquidum in ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus

... value of money, and took possession of the public funds at Brundusium, captured such remittances from the provinces as he could reach, and sent off to Asia to see how much he could secure of the amount provided for the Parthian expedition, just as though all this had ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman

... Today we saw the ruins of the palace of Khuszew Anushirwan at Ctesiphon. Ctesiphon was formerly the capital of the Parthian, and afterwards of the new Persian empire: it was destroyed by the Arabs in the seventeenth century. Nearly opposite, on the right bank of the Tigris, lay Seleucia, one of the most celebrated towns of Babylon, and ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... unless it be unreasonable. No man can make another man to be his slave, unless that other hath first enslaved himself to life and death, to pleasure or pain, to hope or fear; command these passions, and you are freer than the Parthian Kings. ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... band, all armed, with a drum, beating the charge, appeared, and as they neared the chief entrance of the Hotel de Ville, just one shot, and then a number of shots were fired. Everybody who had a gun then shot it off with an eager but general idea of doing something, as he fled, like a Parthian bowman. The stampede soon became general; numbers of persons threw themselves on the ground. I saw the mother of four children sprawling in the mire, and the bilious taxpayer fall over her, and then I followed the youthful strategist into an open door. Inside were ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... The fact of the above words being italicised suggests the idea that the poet is here firing a Parthian shot ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... to hear you say so," said Charles, rising, "as it was at your expense." With which Parthian ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley

... down diseases, death and deadly care, And terrifies the guilty world with war. One sister plague if these from heav'n he sent, To fright Juturna with a dire portent. The pest comes whirling down: by far more slow Springs the swift arrow from the Parthian bow, Or Cydon yew, when, traversing the skies, And drench'd in pois'nous juice, the sure destruction flies. With such a sudden and unseen a flight Shot thro' the clouds the daughter of the night. Soon as the field inclos'd she had in view, And from afar her destin'd quarry knew, Contracted, ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... cannon ball as easily as a child could throw its ball. He could fling a stone from one bank of the Rhone to the other where it was two hundred yards wide. And lastly, he could throw a knife backwards while running at full speed with such strength and precision of aim that this new kind of Parthian arrow would go whistling through the air to hide two inches of its iron head in a tree trunk no thicker than a man's thigh. When to these accomplishments are added an equal skill with the musket, the pistol, and the quarter-staff, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... and Parthian amongst these; From India and the golden Chersonese, And utmost Indian isle Taprobane * * * * * Dusk faces with white ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... AND POMPEY: CAESAR CROSSES THE RUBICON.—While Caesar was in the midst of his Transalpine wars, Crassus was leading an army against the Parthians, hoping to rival there the brilliant conquests of Caesar in Gaul. But his army was almost annihilated by the Parthian cavalry, and he himself was slain (54 B.C.). His captors, so it is said, poured molten gold down his throat, that he might be sated with the metal which he had so coveted during life. In the death of Crassus, Caesar lost his stanchest friend, one who had never failed ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... buildings of a later epoch, of the periods when Seleucia and Ctesiphon enjoyed the heritage of Babylon, have been more fortunate. In the ruins which are acknowledged to be those of the palaces built by the Parthian and Sassanid monarchs, the upper structures are still in existence, and in a more or less well preserved condition. In these the dome arrangement is universal. Sometimes, as at Firouz-Abad (Fig. 52), we find the segment of a sphere; elsewhere, as at Sarbistan (Fig. ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot

... been so successful it now seemed hard to turn back; the river-banks and rice-fields, so beautiful before, seemed only a vexation now. But the swift current bore us on, and after our Parthian shots had died away, a new discharge of artillery opened upon us, from our first antagonist of the morning, which still kept the other side of the stream. It had taken up a strong position on another bluff, almost out of range of the John Adams, but ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... the conquest of Persia by Alexander to the fall of the Parthian dynasty (a period of over five hundred years) little is known of the history of Mazdaism beyond the fact that it seems to have been adopted by the Parthians in a debased form; but about the time of the Persian revival under the Sassanians (226 A.D.) it passed ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy

... conference of the Triumvirs at Luca, it was arranged to secure the succession of Crassus to the government of Syria, in order to make war on the growing strength of the Parthian Empire beyond the Euphrates. Consul with Pompeius in 55 B.C. he set out for his province even before the expiration of his consulship 'eager to gather in the treasures of the East in addition ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce

... chance is evil to him that is content: and to a man nothing is miserable unless it be unreasonable. No man can make another man to be his slave unless he hath first enslaved himself to life and death, to pleasure or pain, to hope or fear: command these passions, and you are freer than the Parthian kings. ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... swept on. "To all my grievances, I would add those of the world, and devote myself to vengeance. From land to land I would go firing all mankind. No war for freedom but should find me engaged; no battle against Rome in which I would not bear a part. I would turn Parthian, if I could not better. If men failed me, still I would not give over the effort—ha, ha, ha! By the splendor of God! I would herd with wolves, and make friends of lions and tigers, in hope of marshalling them against the common enemy. I ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... Parthian glance at the unconscious PIKE]. I sha'h't stop in the creature's presence—I shall go up to my room for ...
— The Man from Home • Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson

... my comrades, Whether your Catullus attain to farthest Ind, the long shore lash'd by reverberating Surges Eoan; Hyrcan or luxurious horde Arabian, 5 Sacan or grim Parthian arrow-bearer, Fields the rich Nile discolorates, a seven-fold River abounding; Whether o'er high Alps he afoot ascending Track the long records of a mighty Caesar, 10 Rhene, the Gauls' deep river, a lonely Britain Dismal in ocean; This, or aught else haply the gods ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus

... otherwise ill-used, and it is certain that the vast walls and gates were left untouched. This was very different from the way in which the Medes had treated Nineveh, which seems to have been ruined and for a long time absolutely uninhabited, though reoccupied on a reduced scale under the Parthian empire; and very different also from the way in which Babylon itself was treated twenty years afterward by Darius, when ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... Roman, without losing its Greek speech. And under the wide domination of that later Roman Empire—which had subdued and organised the whole known world, save the Parthian descendants of those old Persians, and our old Teutonic forefathers, in their German forests and on their Scandinavian shores—that Divine book was carried far and wide, East and West, and South, from the heart of Abyssinia to the mountains of Armenia, and to the isles of the ocean, beyond ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley

... likewise give way; give chase, with brandished sabre, and in the air make horrid circles. So that poor Brunout has nothing for it but to retreat with accelerated nimbleness, through rank after rank; Parthian-like, fencing as he flies; above all, shouting lustily, "On nous laisse assassiner, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... the procedure was always the same; two elephants were turned into the arena, and Commodus was matched against some archer of superlative reputation, whose prowess had been repeatedly demonstrated before the audiences of the Colosseum, a Parthian, Scythian, or Mauretanian. A prize was offered to him if he won and wagers were laid, mostly of ten to one or more on Commodus; he, of course, betting on himself with at least one senator at any ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... bedchamber, and in the immediate neighbourhood of the folding-doors between that apartment and the parlour. What he had heard had been by no means satisfactory to him; and if a look could annihilate, Miss Paget might have perished beneath the Parthian glance which her father shot at her as he came towards the window, with a stereotyped smile upon his lips and unspeakable anger in ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... Leaving this Parthian shaft to rankle in Anne's stormy bosom, Marilla descended to the kitchen, grievously troubled in mind and vexed in soul. She was as angry with herself as with Anne, because, whenever she recalled Mrs. Rachel's dumbfounded countenance her lips twitched with amusement and she ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... imperative that there should be strong forces in such positions—in Britain carrying out the annexation; on the Rhine and Danube defending against huge-bodied, restless Germans and their congeners; on the Euphrates to keep off the nimble and dashing Parthian horse and foot; in Upper Egypt to guard against the raids of "Fuzzy-Wuzzy "; in the interior of Tunis or Algeria to keep the nomad Berber tribes in hand. In such places were the Roman legions and their ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker

... watches to make sure I exercise my molars grinding them and get my vitamins. I take spit-baths in the little john. Architects don't seem to think actors ever take baths, even when they've browned themselves all over playing Pindarus the Parthian in Julius Caesar. And all my shut-eye is caught on this little cot in the twilight of my ...
— No Great Magic • Fritz Reuter Leiber

... India with the same purpose. At Nineveh, where he arrived with two companions, he was joined by Damis, already mentioned as his journalist.[287] Proceeding thence to Babylon, he had some interviews with the Magi, who rather disappointed his expectations; and was well received by Bardanes the Parthian King, who, after detaining him at his Court for the greater part of two years, dismissed him with marks of peculiar honour.[288] From Babylon he proceeded, by way of the Caucasus and the Indus, to Taxila, the city of Phraotes, King of the Indians, who is ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... After his Parthian shot, the Captain ordered Sylvanus to get out the gig, as he was going home. Leaving Marjorie in the hands of her aunt Carmichael, he saluted his daughter, his niece, and his two sisters in law, and took their ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... I ever met in the world stays in it,' answered Pelagia, as she skipped into the palanquin, taking care to show the most lovely white heel and ankle, and, like the Parthian, send a random arrow as she retreated. But the dart was lost on Philammon, who had been already hustled away by the bevy of laughing attendants, amid baskets, dressing-cases, and bird-cages, and was fain to make his escape ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley

... thongs of hide, prior to leading them away to the place of execution. With one exception they submitted silently and without protest; Sekosini, however, the Witch Doctor, seemed determined not to go without firing a Parthian shot, for, fixing his eyes on Dick, he shouted in a high, ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood

... as big as Massanutten, she was seated in a nondescript trap, drawn by two mules, driven by a negro. One look from the great, tearful eyes made of me an abject coward, and I basely shuffled the refusal to let her pass on to Jackson. The Parthian glance of contempt that reached me through her tears showed that the lady understood and despised my paltering. Nicholls was speedily exchanged, became a general officer, lost a foot at Chancellorsville, and, after leading his people up out of captivity, ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor

... vigor (a reproach by no means to be laid to the speaker's language), Mr. Couch's tenderest feelings were lacerated. With considerable dignity for one in his condition, he bade his guest go farther and fare worse, and in mitigation of the latter's Parthian taunt, "Kid-glove fussing, 'bo," called Heaven and earth and the whole cafe to witness that, abhorrent though self-trumpeting was to him, no man had ever handled more delicately a prickly proposition than he had handled ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... bringing down his fine Oxford acquaintances to Calcombe Pomeroy, and you and your husband go flinging Miss Jemima—her name's Jemima, I think—at the young men's heads, why, then, of course, you must take the consequences—you must take the consequences!' And with this telling Parthian shot discharged carefully from the shadow of the doorway, accompanied by a running comment of shrugs, nods, and facial distortions, old Miss Luttrell successfully shuffled herself out of the shop, her list unfinished, leaving poor ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... of this feast at Persepolis, Darius, the vanquished king of Persia, was still living, although a fugitive. In the following year Alexander pursued him into the Parthian Desert, where he was murdered by the satrap of Bactria. By order of Alexander, the body of the unfortunate king was sent to Persepolis, to be buried in the ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin

... which libraries and literature alike owe to the daily and weekly press, it is difficult to characterize with patience the Parthian arrow flung at it from the grave of a querulous millionaire, who will owe to these very newspapers the greater part of his success and his reputation. The father of the respectable testator, Doctor Benjamin Rush, has left on record many learned speculations ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford

... measure by a race of Iranian blood. About 250 B.C. Diodotus (Theodotus), governor of Bactria under the Seleucidae, declared his independence, and commenced the history of the Greco-Bactrian dynasties, which succumbed to Parthian and nomadic movements about 126 B.C. After this came a Buddhist era which has left its traces in the gigantic sculptures at Bamian and the rock-cut topes of Haibak. The district was devastated by Jenghiz Khan, and has never ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... falling back, Parthian-like, with a force of 30,000 or more, has in front of him nothing but Bevern; who, as he issues from the Lausitz, and till he can unite with Schwerin farther southward, is but some 20,000 odd: cannot Konigseck call halt, and bid Bevern return, or do worse? Konigseck, a diligent ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle

... Jehovah. Just as in Judaea—only with a wider range and ampler proportions— the result was a reaction on the part of the native manners and the native religion against Hellenism and the Hellenic gods; the promoters of this movement were the Parthians, and out of it arose the great Parthian empire. The "Parthwa," or Parthians, who are early met with as one of the numerous peoples merged in the great Persian empire, at first in the modern Khorasan to the south-east of the Caspian sea, appear after 500 under the Scythian, i. e. Turanian, princely ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... cavalry. It had already shown itself an imperfect instrument for putting down the guerilla warfare of Spain; it had never been intended for the purposes of desert warfare, or to effect the pacification of nomad tribes extending over a vast and desolate territory. Even as the Parthian war of Trajan required the formation of what was practically a new army developed on unfamiliar lines, so the complete reorganisation of the Republican system would have been essential to the effective conquest of Numidia. ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... considered herself a follower of Epicurus, and later, when Antony had gone to the Parthian war, and she was a long time alone, she once more began to strive for freedom from pain and peace of mind, but the state, her children, the marriage of Antony—who had long been her lover—to Octavia, the yearning of her own heart, Anubis, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... very serious difficulty that at least one satellite does not revolve in the right direction. How Neptune or Uranus could throw their moons backward from its equator is not easily accounted for. It is at least one Parthian arrow at the system, not necessarily ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren

... are others as ought to be warned in time!" was Struthers' Parthian arrow as she flounced off to turn the omelette which she'd left ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer

... natives of India were at all times worshippers of the Sun; and used to call themselves by some of his titles. Porus, with whom Alexander engaged upon the Indus, was named from the chief object of his worship, [Hebrew: AWR], Pi-Or, and P'Or; rendered by the Greeks [Greek: Poros], Porus. Pacorus the Parthian was of the same etymology, being a compound of P'Achorus, the Achor of Egypt: as was also the [436]city Pacoria in Mesopotamia, mentioned by Ptolemy. Even the Grecian [Greek: pur] was of Egyptian or Chaldaic original, and of the same composition (P'Ur) as the words above; ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant

... to fall; but, had it not been for Alexander's invasion of Asia, she would most probably have fallen beneath some other oriental power, as Media and Babylon had formerly fallen before herself, and as, in after-times, the Parthian supremacy gave way to the revived ascendency of Persia in the East, under the sceptres of the Arsacidae. A revolution that merely substituted one Eastern power for another would have been utterly barren and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various

... ashamed to use it.... But my spirit would not let me lie quiet under injury and insult. I was ever a fighter, born to die with my spurs on. And when I die at last, they will find that I go with a Parthian shot ... and after all ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... forgotten. As they turned the corner which cut off the view of Duchesne's ground, Royston looked back once, longingly. It was well for Cecil's nerves, in their disturbed state, that she did not catch that Parthian glance. Ah, those ungovernable eyes! They were gleaming with the expression that Kirkpatrick's may have worn when he turned into the chapel where the Red Comyn ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... an incompetent general into Asia resulted in a most inglorious Parthian campaign. Nero, however, was more interested first in extravagant rejoicings at the birth of a daughter to Poppaea, and then in equally extravagant mourning over the infant's death. It was well that Corbulo, marching from ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... not reply to Ker Karraje's Parthian shot, for I was stricken dumb. I did not, however, collapse, as the alleged Count ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne

... I could, my worthy sire! but skill And vigour lack, how great soe'er the will. Not every one can paint in epic strain The lances bristling on the embattled plain, Tell how the Gauls by broken javelins bleed, Or sing the Parthian tumbling from his steed. ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace

... tinged more golden by the clinging beams, our shadows lengthened, as if exercise of an afternoon were stimulating to such unreal essences. Finally the blue dells and gorges of a wooded mountain, for two hours our landmark, rose between us and the sun. But the sun's Parthian arrows gave him a splendid triumph, more signal for its evanescence. A storm was inevitable, and sunset ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... father.[Footnote: It was a tradition which circulated at Rome down to the days of the Flavian family, that the indulgence conceded to Judea by the imperial policy from Augustus downwards, arose out of the following little diplomatic secret:—On the rise of the Parthian power, ambassadors had been sent to Antipater, the father of Herod, offering the Parthian alliance and support. At the same moment there happened to be at Jerusalem a Roman agent, having a mission from the Roman Government with exactly the same objects. The question was most ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey

... great length of time by its own kings, the most considerable of whom was Tigranes, who espoused the daughter of the great Mithridates king of Pontus, and was also engaged in a long war with the Romans. This kingdom supported itself many years, between the Roman and Parthian empires, sometimes depending on the one, and sometimes on the other, till at last the ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... Caesar's grand-nephew, Octavius; who had been in camp at Apollonia in Illyricum since he had coolly proposed to his great-uncle that the latter, being Dictator, and about to start on his Parthian campaign, should make him his Master of the Horse. He had been exempted from military service on account of ill-health; and Julius had a sense of humor; so he packed him off to Apollonia to 'finish' a military training that had never begun. There he had made a close friend of a rising young ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... sustained, untried routes, 20 enemies obscurely ascertained, and hardships too vaguely prefigured, which mark the Egyptian expedition of Cambyses—the anabasis of the younger Cyrus, and the subsequent retreat of the ten thousand, the Parthian expeditions of the Romans, especially those of Crassus 25 and Julian—or (as more disastrous than any of them, and, in point of space, as well as in amount of forces, more extensive) the Russian anabasis and katabasis of Napoleon. 3dly, That ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey

... the Appian road, Or on th' Emilian; some from furthest South, Syene, and where the shadow both way falls, Meroe, Nilotic isle, and more to West, The realms of Bocchus to the Blackmoor sea; From th' Asian kings, and Parthian among these; From India and the golden Chersonese, And utmost India's isle, Taprobona, Dusk faces, with white silken turbans wreathed; From Gallia, Gades, and the British West; Germans, and Scythians, and Sarmatians, North Beyond Danubius to the Tauric Pool! ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... to aid kindly rendered him by M. R. Stuart Poole and Mr. Gardiner of the British Museum. The representations of coins in the work have been, with one exception, taken by the Author from the originals in the National Collection. For the illustrations of Parthian architecture and art he is indebted to the published works of Mr. Ainsworth, Mr. Ross, the late Mr. Loftus, and MM. Flandin and Coste. He feels also bound to express his obligations to the late Mr. Lindsay, the numismatic portion of whose work ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson

... "Your Parthian warfare would have justified me in returning your arrow, but I was never an expert in the use of ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... like the Parthian, famed of old, Who, flying, still their arrows threw, These routed Britons, full as bold, Retreated, and ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various

... disappointment in his voice—"what your father has been to me, you would not perhaps be so surprised at my wanting his daughter to sympathize with me in my feelings. I had no idea"—this was intended to be a Parthian shot—"that my admiration ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... Parthian shot my brother left me to some sorry reflections. I cordially liked and respected Laban Swiggart and his family. He had married a Skenk. No name in our county smelled sweeter than Skenk: a synonym, indeed, for piety, deportment, shell-work, and the preserving of fruits. The ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell

... in the introduction; again, perhaps, in a preface; a third time in an analytical form, through means of a table of contents; after all this skirmishing, he brings up his heavy columns in the body of the book; and if he be very skilful, he may let fly a few Parthian arrows from ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... (XIII. 47). Corbulo, though he took "the shortest route," and "sped his march day and night without intermission" (XV. 12), to relieve Poetus when distressed from the approach of Vologeses and the Parthian army, is said, contrary to these statements, to "have made no great haste in order that he might gain more praise from bringing relief when the danger had increased" (XV. 10). Because Flavius, the brother ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross

... were fast becoming the frightful deserts they are to-day. Persia dared not move in the awful presence of a few legions scattered along the Tigris; and, if, later on, the Parthian kings made a successful resistance against Rome, it was only owing to the abominable corruption of Roman society at the time; but, in fact, Iran had fallen to rise no more, save spasmodically under ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... properly to be conceived as reaching from the Persian Gulf to the mountain chains which flank and feed the Indus; and is the true vital power of the East in the days of Marathon: but it has no influence on Christian history except through Arabia; while, of the northern Asiatic tribes, Mede, Bactrian, Parthian, and Scythian, changing into Turk and Tartar, we need take no heed until they invade us in our ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin

... Labienus (this is stiffe-newes) Hath with his Parthian Force Extended Asia: from Euphrates his conquering Banner shooke, from Syria to Lydia, And to Ionia, whil'st- Ant. Anthony thou ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... of egoism cannot be applied to any self-revelation or self-criticism which is so just and so certain. From the opening lines of the first satire, where he notes the faults of his own earlier work, to the last line of the book, with its Parthian shot at Canidia and the jeunesse orageuse that he had so long left behind, there is not a page which is not full of that self-reference which, in its truth and tact, constantly passes beyond itself and holds up the ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail

... And with this Parthian shot she returned to Mistress Thankful, who, with her face pressed against the window, was looking out on the moonlit slope ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte

... was now a fugitive in Media, and thither Alexander went at once in pursuit, giving himself no rest. He established himself at Ecbatana, the capital, without resistance, and made preparations for the invasion of the eastern part of the Persian empire, beyond the Parthian desert, even to the Oxus and the Indus, inhabited by warlike barbarians, from which were chiefly ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... yourselves with collecting coins, why the soil of India teems with coins, Persian, Carian, Thracian, Parthian, Greek, Macedonian, Scythian, Roman,[1] and Mohammedan. When Warren Hastings was Governor-General, an earthen pot was found on the bank of a river in the province of Benares, containing one hundred and seventy-two gold darics.[2] Warren Hastings considered ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller

... "I think that in spite of your Parthian shaft, your definition of a cynic is as complimentary to the school at large as to me in particular. Meanwhile, however," I added, turning to Mr. Ghyrkins, "I am inclined to believe with Lord Steepleton that the subject uppermost in the thoughts ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford

... assembled. Excitement such as this was rare in Laguna. While still in plain sight of the group about the store, and as Montoya plodded slowly along behind the burros, Pete turned and launched his parthian shot—that eloquently expressive gesture of contempt and scorn wherein is employed the thumb, the nose, and the outspread fingers of one hand. He was still very ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... disruption of Alexander's empire. But the Kushans, or Yueh Chis, during the various stages of their slow migration down into Northern India, came into long and close contact with the Indo-Bactrian and Indo-Parthian kingdoms that sprang up after Alexander. The populations were never Hellenised, but their rulers were to some extent the heirs, albeit hybrid heirs, to Greek civilisation. They spoke Greek and worshipped at Greek shrines, and as they were in turn subjugated by the forebears of the ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol

... wond'ring croud; While Fame exulting sounds the happy name To realms remote, and bids the world admire. Oh! 'tis a glorious day:—let none presume T'indulge the tear, or wear the gloom of sorrow; This day shall shine in Ages yet to come, And grace the Parthian story. ...
— The Prince of Parthia - A Tragedy • Thomas Godfrey



Words linked to "Parthian" :   Pahlavi, Parthia, Asian



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