Hister
2226894
211956933
2008-05-12T21:01:34Z
Bacteria
157943
:''For the '''beetle''' genus, see:'' '''''[[Histeridae|Clown beetle]]'''''
'''Hister''' (genetive '''Histri''') is the [[Latin]] name for the [[Danube River]] (especially its lower course), or for the people living along its banks. It also appears as '''Ister''', equivalent to the [[Ancient Greek]] '''᾽´Ιστρος''', which also meant the Danube River or the region around its mouth. A city called '''Istria''' still appears near the mouth of the Danube in some modern atlases.
The term may be related to the name of the region [[Istria]] in what is now northwestern [[Croatia]], where a tribe called the Histri lived in ancient times. Some once thought that the local freshwater streams in Istria derived from a (non-existent) southward branch of the Danube.
In modern English the term is most commonly encountered in its use by [[Nostradamus]], in a phrase commonly translated "most of the battle (or armies) will be against Hister"<ref name="Nostradamus">[[wikisource:Les Propheties#Century II|Century II, Quatrain 24]], [[Les Propheties]], [[Nostradamus]]:
:Beasts ferocious from hunger will swim across rivers:
:The greater part of the region will be against the Hister,
:The great one will cause it to be dragged in an iron cage,
:When the German child will observe nothing.
[[wikisource:fr:Les Prophéties de M. Nostradamus : Centurie II|In French]]:
:Bestes farouches de faim fleuves tranner:
:Plus part du champ encontre Hister sera,
:En caige de fer le grand fera treisner,
:Quand rien enfant de [[Germain]] observera.</ref>, and popularly interpreted to be a prediction of [[World War II|the war]] against [[Adolf Hitler]]'s [[Nazi]] state in the [[Twentieth Century]]. It appears instead to be a prediction of some unknown battle on the banks of the Danube.
==References==
*[[Greek-English Lexicon]]
*[[Oxford Latin Dictionary]]
<references/>
{{hist-stub}}
[[Category:Alternative names of European places]]
[[Category:Latin names of places]]
[[Category:Roman toponymy]]
[[Category:Nostradamus]]
[[Category:Danube]]