chiliarca

Forms

chiliarca m (plural chiliarchi)^[1] Variants are chiliarco and Old Italian ciliarca, with the plurals ciliarce and ciliarche.^[2][3][4][5]

Etymology

It is a learned word: it is borrowed from Latin chiliarchus and Latin chiliarchēs, from Ancient Greek χιλίαρχος (khilíarkhos) and χιλιάρχης (khiliárkhēs).^{[2][3][6][5][1]} The Greek words are compounds of χίλιοι (khílioi, “thousand”) and the stem of ἄρχω (árkhō, “I command”).^[2][3][6][7]

GRADIT compares Old Persian hazārapati-, “commander of a thousand”, and Wiktionary treats the Greek title as a calque of a reconstructed Old Persian *hazahrapatiš.^[6][1] Isidore already explained the Latin word as a Greek name for the officers the Latins called millenarii.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The oldest Italian record is the Old Sienese Fatti di Cesare of the late 13th century, in the form ciliarce: “Ciliarce erano conestabili di mille”, chiliarchs were commanders of a thousand, said of the Roman army.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

Fazio degli Uberti's Dittamondo lists chiliarche with centurions, masters of horse and decurions among the officers of Rome.^[5][8] Tommaseo glossed the word as a colonel, a leader of a thousand men.^[8]

In modern Italian it is a historical term for a commander of a thousand soldiers among the ancient Greeks, and for the officer in Persia who led the thousand noble horsemen of the Great King's guard.^[2][6][3]

Timeline

• Late 13th century – The Sienese Fatti di Cesare uses ciliarce of Roman officers.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (history) In ancient Greece, a commander of a thousand soldiers.^[6][2][9]
2. (history) In ancient Persia, an officer of the royal guard, commanding the thousand noble horsemen of the king.^[6][2]

Related words

• millenario
• Ancient Greek χιλίαρχος (khilíarkhos)

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
3. ^ a b c d Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
5. ^ a b c d e Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 3, 74
6. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
8. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
9. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli