"Parthian" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said, "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 of most of us is the crusade against ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... With this 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. ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... 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 ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... 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
... nothing of all the jokes, the tears, quarrels, reconciliations, hymeneal plans, and so forth, of which he was the innocent occasion. A hundred allusions to the Prussians and Persians were shot at him, and those Parthian arrows did not penetrate his hide at all. A Shaw? A Sophy? Very likely he thought a Sophy was a lady, and would have deemed it the height of absurdity that a man with a great black beard should have any such name. We fall into the midst of a quiet family: ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... during his first consulship he dedicated the tenth part of his property to Hercules,[8] and feasted the people, and gave every Roman out of his own means enough to maintain him for three months; yet, before the Parthian expedition, upon making an estimate of his property, he found it amount to seven thousand one hundred talents. The greatest part of this, if one must tell the truth, though it be a scandalous story, he got together out of the fire and the war, making the public misfortunes the source ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... of 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 Syria, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... Asian kings, and Parthian amongst these; From India and the golden Chersonese, And utmost Indian isle Taprobane * * * * * Dusk faces with white silken ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... and Leon Guerin, or even O. Troude. James is always recounting how American ships ran away from British ones, and Guerin tells as many anecdotes of British ships who fled from French foes. James reproaches the Americans for adopting a "Parthian" mode of warfare, instead of "bringing to in a bold and becoming manner." Precisely the same reproaches are used by the French writers, who assert that the English would not fight "fairly," but acquired an advantage by manoeuvring. ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... 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 messages ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... 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, ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles
... place may be. Yet they are barely passable for a wagon, for both sides are sharp and steep as well as very high. The range has different names among various peoples. The Indian calls it Imaus and in another part Paropamisus. The Parthian calls it first Choatras and afterward Niphates; the Syrian and Armenian call it Taurus; the Scythian names it Caucasus and Rhipaeus, and at its end calls it Taurus. Many other tribes have given names to the range. Now that we have devoted a few words to ...
— The Origin and Deeds of the Goths • Jordanes
... thinking how well that scarf would look in the Apollo Gardens, and casts over her shoulder a Parthian glance and bid, "Six!" ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... his 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 ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... for an omen, from the skies he sends, To front Juturna. Down, with sudden spring, To earth, as in a whirlwind, she descends. As when a poisoned arrow from the string Through clouds a Parthian launches on the wing,— Parthian or Cretan—and in darkling flight The shaft, with cureless venom in its sting, Screams through the shadows; so, arrayed in might, Swift to the earth came down the ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... 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 ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of a "Parthian shot" when some one finishes a conversation or an argument with a sharp or witty remark, leaving no chance for an answer. This expression comes from the story of the Parthians, a people who lived on the shores ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... the rearguard could come up, sixteen of the total American force were killed and nineteen badly wounded. This battle of San Pascual, as it was called, is interesting as being the only engagement in which the Californians got the upper hand. Whether their Parthian tactics were the result of a preconceived policy or were merely an expedient of the moment, it is impossible to say. The battle is also notable because the well-known scout, Kit Carson, ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... entirely upon the frontiers. It was, of course, 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 auxiliary ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... 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 ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... more valiant, nor Parthian Candace, nor French Joan. She is the rose of the world, the fairest fair, the valiantest valor. There is no wine in the world that is worthy to pledge her, but we must do our best with what ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Gentlemen, allow us to pass." The crowd opened before them, and they found themselves in the centre of the room. Two couples were walking a minuet; when they were joined by this dazzling third, the ladies bridled, bit their lips, and shot Parthian glances. ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... appear'd the illustrious train. To grace the pomp, came Emily the bright, With cover'd fire, the funeral pile to light. 950 With high devotion was the service made, And all the rites of Pagan honour paid: So lofty was the pile, a Parthian bow, With vigour drawn, must send the shaft below. The bottom was full twenty fathom broad, With crackling straw beneath in due proportion strew'd. The fabric seem'd a wood of rising green, With sulphur and bitumen cast between, To feed the flames: the trees were unctuous fir, And ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... 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 ...
— Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic • Andrew Stephenson
... 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 ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... 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 voice is heard Self-interrupting: "Papa, pray tell me why Some warriors ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... reproachful of the general public; while, on the other hand, if the bride is very young and pretty, it enlists in behalf of the white-haired husband the unwilling sympathies of the spectator to see her the centre of a group of young people, and him only acknowledged from time to time by a Parthian snub. Nothing, however, could have been more satisfactory than the sisterly surrounding of this latter bride. They were of a better class of Irish people; and if it had been any sacrifice for her to marry so old a man, they ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... 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 ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... exterior enemy. He 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 ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... 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. i, ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... the power of Surena, the Parthian general, under the pretence of treating for peace. His head was cut off and sent to Orodes, the king of Parthia, who poured molten gold ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... populace. In 55 B.C. Pompey was consul for the second time with Crassus. He received as his provinces the two Spains, but he governed them by his legates and remained in the neighbourhood of the City. Crassus received the province of Syria, and the appalling disasters of the Parthian war, in which he most miserably lost life and honour, seemed to give Pompey the opportunity for which he had long been waiting. He encouraged the growing civil discord which was tearing the state in pieces, and with such success ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... news,—hath, with his Parthian force, Extended Asia from Euphrates; His conquering banner shook from Syria To Lydia and to ...
— Antony and Cleopatra • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... 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 ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... 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 ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... the capital of America only to abandon it; and these assertors and representatives of the dignity of England, at the tail of a flying army, let fly their Parthian shafts of memorials and remonstrances at random behind them. Their promises and their offers, their flatteries and their menaces, were all despised; and we were saved from the disgrace of their formal ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... eye to the summit of a mountain, whence, pointing eastward, he shows him all the great kingdoms of Asia. Thus, he reveals the glories of Assyria, Babylonia, and Persia,—of whose histories he gives a brief resume,—before pointing out a large Parthian army setting out to war against the Scythians, for he hopes by this martial display to convince Christ that, in order to obtain a kingdom, he will have to resort to military force. Then he adds he can easily enlist the ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... of at least three classes, Hellenistic, Persian or Parthian, and Scythian, if that word can be properly used to include the Sakas ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... you call it, you will have to have both right and might on your side, Bilby. And just now you do not seem to have either," was the Parthian shot the president of the Alectrion Corporation sent ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... against Nuredin Pasha's main defenses which had been constructed near the ruins of Ctesiphon, eighteen miles from Bagdad. Ctesiphon at the present time is a large village on the Tigris, once a suburb of ancient Seleucia, and the winter capital of the Parthian kings. The vicinity is of great historic interest. About thirteen centuries ago Chosroes, the great Persian emperor, erected a vast and splendid palace, said to be the greatest on earth in that period, and of which ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... the crowd unteach Their false mistaken forms of speech; Virtue, to crowds a foe profest, Disdains to number with the blest Phraates, by his slaves ador'd, And to the Parthian crown restor'd. FRANCIS. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... at elephants 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 odds his taker chose. Then the contest began, Commodus ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... birth. My parents then owned me; but still you were my fosterer, my saviour, my more than father. As I grew up, placed under your care, I imbibed my first lessons of war. By your side I fought, and from your example I won glory. Yes, Pausanias, even here, amidst luxuries which revolt me more than the Parthian bow and the Persian sword, even amidst the faces of the stranger, I still feel thy presence my ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... structure of his history, culminating in the grand and stirring scenes of the Persian war. A century and a half later the conquests of Alexander the Great added a still more impressive climax to the story. The struggle was afterward long maintained between Roman and Parthian, but from the fifth century after Christ onward through the Middle Ages, it seemed as if the Oriental world would never rest until it had inflicted the extremities of retaliation upon Europe. Whether it was the heathen of the steppes who were in question, from Attila in the fifth century to Batu ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... 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, ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... aggression until she reached the front door of her newly plastered farmhouse, and then a heavier blast shook the pines above the low-pitched, shingled roof, and sent a shower of arrowy drops after her like a Parthian parting, as she entered. She threw aside the overcoat and hat, and somewhat inconsistently entered the sitting-room, to walk to the window and look back upon the path she had just traversed. The wind and the rain swept down a slope, half meadow, ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... body up, and learns to rise; Now bending thighs and gilded wings it wears Full grown, and all the bee at length appears; From every side the fruitful carcase pours Its swarming brood, as thick as summer showers, Or flights of arrows from the Parthian bows, When twanging strings first shoot them on the foes. Thus have I sung the nature of the bee; While Caesar, towering to divinity, The frighted Indians with his thunder awed, 410 And claimed their ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... said Brown; "but I had quite forgotten it, our conversation has been so very agreeable. Good-morning, sir; and if you are writing to Mrs Hodgett, pray make my compliments." And with this Parthian shaft he quitted ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... commanded the people to sacrifice to them; the eighth month was especially dedicated to the kings, and sacrifices were offered to them at the new moon and on the fifteenth of each month. Again, the Parthian monarchs of the Arsacid house styled themselves brothers of the sun and moon and were worshipped as deities. It was esteemed sacrilege to strike even a private member of the Arsacid family ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... consider the debt 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
... away to let the Colonel's friends crowd up and shake hands with him; but the delighted youth could not withhold a Parthian shaft. As he retreated he said, "Oh, Colonel, don't bother about my support; Sommerton Plantation will be ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... which chased one another along. Think where I sat, and you may easily conjecture the series. When the procession was fleeted by (for I not only thought, but seemed to see warriors moving amongst the cypresses, and consuls returning from Parthian expeditions, loaded with strange spoils, and received with the acclamations of millions upon entering the theatre), I arose, crossed the arena, paced several times round and round, looked up to arcade rising above arcade, and admiring ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... Parthian, famed of old, Who, flying, still their arrows threw, These routed Britons, full as ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... a smile of triumph on her lips; but with the exception of myself the cabinet was empty, though a murmuring crowd filled the rooms without. It was then, and only then, she realised that the victory was not all hers, and felt the sting of the Parthian arrow shot by the Queen. Her cheeks burned red, and I saw the hand that held her fan tremble like a leaf in the wind. Then with an effort she recovered herself, and with another glance at me, full of superb disdain, swept from the room. As for me, my last hope ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... and Pompey 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 rictum oris infusum est, ut cujus animus arserat auri cupiditate, ejus ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... fight society. They have a hopeless advantage, the contemptible advantage of numbers, and they are not 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
... torrent-like, the old man 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
... crouching by the area-rails looking up and down the street. He darted upon me, in a great rage, to know 'what I meant by it?' I drew myself up as tall as I could, hissed 'Blind leader of the blind!' at him, and, with this inappropriate but very effective Parthian shot, ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... epidemics, occurring from time to time, produced a dreadful mortality. Even under the Caesars, after all that had been done, there was no essential amendment. The assertion is true that the Old World never recovered from the great plague in the time of M. Antoninus, brought by the army from the Parthian War. In the reign of Titus ten thousand persons died in one ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... Parthian shaft Miss Cassandra left us to put on her hat for Chenonceaux, for to Chenonceaux we decided to go, of course. Miss Cassandra's arguments were irresistible, as usual, and as Walter added philosophically, "Her choice is generally a wise one, and where everything ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... hall like a professional heading for the wheelchair on a strict order. No one bothered to look out; she reached the locker room and dusted the wheelchair just as if she'd been getting it for a real patient. (The throb in my finger returned for a parthian shot and I remembered that I was a real patient!) She trundled the chair back ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... the nations sway To idols, from the Heaven-directed way, Though he was blameless? Where does he reside Who first the dangerous art of magic tried? O Crassus! much I mourn the baleful star That o'er Euphrates led the storm of war. Thy troops, by Parthian snares encircled round, Mark'd with Hesperia's shame the bloody ground; And Mithridates, Rome's incessant foe, Who fled through burning plains and tracts of snow Their fell pursuit. But now, the parting strain Must pass, with slight survey, the coming train: There ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... 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
... but she pursued him. Mabel was announced, up from the country to dine and sleep. The Parthian shot was delivered actually on the way to Mabel's embrace. "But I'm flattered to see you jealous—please understand that. I should like you to be jealous of the chair I ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... been aware that this Parthian arrow would have been shot at him, he would have been well advised in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... 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 Mrs. Oswald alone and absolutely speechless ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... Median. His house stood close to the outermost of the seven walls which encircled the royal treasury. From his roof he could look over the rising battlements of black and white and crimson and blue and red and silver and gold, to the hill where the summer palace of the Parthian emperors glittered like a jewel in a ...
— The Story of the Other Wise Man • Henry Van Dyke
... 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
... any farther, and as a wind had now sprung up we deemed it time to make a dash for liberty. We therefore quietly slipped our anchor and, heading the ship for the open sea, glided swiftly past the enemy's fleet, whose gaily decked, though sorely bewildered, warriors greeted us with a Parthian flight of arrows as we raced by. In another half-hour we were well out to sea, and able to breathe freely ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... 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 ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his martyrdom about the end of the year 116: for John Malalas of Antioch tells us the great earthquake, in which Dion Cassias mentions that Trajan narrowly escaped at Antioch, happened in that journey of Trajan in which he condemned St. Ignatius. Now Trajan marching to the Parthian war, arrived at Antioch on the 8th of January, in 113, the sixteenth year of his reign: and in his return from the East, above two years later, passed again through Antioch in 116, when this earthquake happened. St. Ignatius suffered at Rome towards the end ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... give me time to say it all. I was going to say he'd stay a doctor and not reform!" With which Parthian shot, delivered with spirit, Miss Theodosia turned her back and Elly Precious' back to the intruder. What was left for him to do but retire, vanquished and diminished? The business of the bath went on, but joyless now. There was no further putting off of the horrid, ...
— Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... since our passions are Govern'd by chance, and not the care, But sport of heaven, which takes delight To look upon this Parthian fight Of love, still flying, or in chase, Never encount'ring face to face; No more to Love we'll sacrifice, But to the best of deities; 30 And let our hearts, which Love disjoin'd, By his kind ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... 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
... and Modern Persian Khosrau ("with a good name"), a very common Persian name, borne by a famous king of the Iranian legend (Kai Khosrau); by a Parthian king, commonly called by the Greeks Osroes (q.v.); and by ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... has a valuable paper on The Connection of St. Thomas the Apostle with India in the Indian Antiquary, XXXII., 1903, pp. 1-15, 145-160; he has come to the following conclusions: "(1) There is good early evidence that St. Thomas was the apostle of the Parthian empire; and also evidence that he was the apostle of 'India' in some limited sense, —probably of an 'India' which included the Indus Valley, but nothing to the east or south of it. (2) According to the Acts, the scene of the martyrdom of St. Thomas was in the territory of a king named, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... between two young and promising amateurs and a celebrated Parthian gladiator who has just arrived a prisoner from the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... their pent-up feelings found vent in a few hysterical tears from the Duchess, some bad language from Mother Shipton, and a Parthian volley of expletives from Uncle Billy. The philosophic Oakhurst alone remained silent. He listened calmly to Mother Shipton's desire to cut somebody's heart out, to the repeated statements of the Duchess that ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... 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
... sufficiently old, and then—for I was at the time quite poor—disposed of her to a dealer at Antioch, who was planning to take a slave caravan to Seleucia. My good friend probably will find his daughter in some Parthian harem, unless—" ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... 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 ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... no occasion to say more about the woman; I am quite satisfied with you, Barbara!" said lady Ann, looking up with an icy smile, her last Parthian arrow. ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... tradition which asserts that during the early part of the second century, St. Thomas went as a missionary to Parthia; that after he had visited the various countries of the Parthian Empire, tarrying for a time at Balkh, the capital of Bactria, and the ancient residence of the Magi, he went to India. Soon after the visit of Thomas to Persia and India, there appeared in Palestine and the adjacent countries a gospel of Thomas, in which were set forth various ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... to Ker Karraje's Parthian shot, for I was stricken dumb. I did not, however, collapse, as the alleged Count d'Artigas perhaps ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... of taxation, under restrictions which fettered 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 Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... the great Jewish insurrection, and the important consequences which followed from it. Trajan was surely fortunate in the moment of his death. Vexed, as he doubtless was, by the frustration of his grand designs for incorporating the Parthian monarchy with the Roman, and fulfilling the idea of universal empire which had flitted through the mind of Pompius or Julius, but had been deliberately rejected by Augustus and Vespasian, his proud spirit ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... 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 about twenty people. The ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... as much as with Indians, and, if he really contributed to the diffusion of Christianity, it is more likely that he laboured in the western part of Parthia than on its extreme eastern frontiers. The fact that there really was an Indo-Parthian king with a name something like Gondophares no more makes the legend of St. Thomas historical than the fact that there was a Bohemian king with a name something like Wenceslas makes the Christmas ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... horsemen. The terrified Americans thought the woods alive with Indians. Officers tried in vain to rally their men, who turned and sought safety in flight, while Tecumseh and his warriors followed in pursuit. A Parthian shot from one of the Americans killed a young chief; this was Tecumseh's only loss. The enemy lost about a hundred in killed, wounded, and missing; and, what was of the greatest importance, a packet, containing official dispatches ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond
... that I 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 to their heads, might have done some harm either ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... purposely in the rear to bring up his party, and a British dragoon was detached to cut him down. He advanced until nearly within his sword's length, and was rising in his stirrups to make sure of his blow, but Witherspoon had eyed him well, and at the instant, Parthian like, he fired the contents of his gun into his breast. The good omen excited much animation, and the British, still advancing, attempted to charge upon the left, but were received on that side with a well directed fire, which caused them to break ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... which you have heahd, and to pwevent the wepetition of this scandalous scene?" He opened the door. "Aw wevoah, gentlemen!" By this time he was in the elevator. From this coign of vantage he sent a Parthian shaft. ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... 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. ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris |
