Χιλιοστύς
chiliostys
Translated by Jennifer Benedict29 Mar 2008Vetting: high6 revisions
Translation
[The term for] a thousand [sc. fighting-]men.
"The Indians had battle-standards in each case and other traditional [signifiers] of their clans; and for each chiliostys of the cavalry a serpent was carried stretched out on a pole for each corps of one thousand cavalry. Its head had been made of silver, with grinning teeth and a threatening gaping mouth; the rest of its body was bent over,1 like a real serpent in its width and length and the variegation of its colours. A horseman carries this, and in holding the pole up in the air he drives on the cavalry in a charge. And it falls, as is natural, when driven by the force of the wind; [when it gets wrapped up] in the folds of the whole piece2 of fabric and cannot find a way to get untangled because of its confinement, it billows in the air and, lifting up the whole web in the air, it turns every which way, just like the coiling of a real serpent."
"The Indians had battle-standards in each case and other traditional [signifiers] of their clans; and for each chiliostys of the cavalry a serpent was carried stretched out on a pole for each corps of one thousand cavalry. Its head had been made of silver, with grinning teeth and a threatening gaping mouth; the rest of its body was bent over,1 like a real serpent in its width and length and the variegation of its colours. A horseman carries this, and in holding the pole up in the air he drives on the cavalry in a charge. And it falls, as is natural, when driven by the force of the wind; [when it gets wrapped up] in the folds of the whole piece2 of fabric and cannot find a way to get untangled because of its confinement, it billows in the air and, lifting up the whole web in the air, it turns every which way, just like the coiling of a real serpent."