[HN Gopher] Cyrus Cylinder Translation
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       Cyrus Cylinder Translation
        
       Author : gumby
       Score  : 14 points
       Date   : 2023-12-17 20:05 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.livius.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.livius.org)
        
       | 082349872349872 wrote:
       | Nice to see that some tropes never go out of style. /s
       | 
       | https://www.gutenberg.org/files/48612/48612-h/48612-h.htm#Pa...
       | 
       | > _The text is interesting because it combines the following
       | techniques, all of them sound: 1) naming the specific enemy; 2)
       | appeal to the "better people"; 3) sympathy for the common people;
       | 4) claim of support for the legitimate government; 5) affirmation
       | of one's own strength and high morale; 6) invocation of unity; 7)
       | appeal to religion._
       | 
       | "The text" in the original refers to something quoted in the
       | _Romance of the Three Kingdoms (San Guo Yan Yi )_ , but we can
       | probably mark Cyrus to market in the affirmative on several of
       | these.
       | 
       | Let's see: 7, 3, 4, 5, 6, 2 for sure, and probably it used to
       | have even 1 in the sections marked "x x x"
       | 
       | Edit: yes, https://www.livius.org/sources/content/cyrus-
       | cylinder/cyrus-... says the expurgated name is "Nabonidus"
        
         | blacksmith_tb wrote:
         | Can't say I knew him personally, but it's also possible that he
         | was self-aggrandizing and still a relatively good leader?
         | Obviously it feels to modern readers like it's kind of a
         | stretch to claim the Cylinder is the birth of the concept of
         | human rights[1] but that doesn't mean that a king setting out
         | in writing his obligations to his subjects wasn't an important
         | milestone.
         | 
         | 1: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-21747567
        
       | Joker_vD wrote:
       | The year -539? Is this the year 540 BC or the year 539 BC?
        
         | bqmjjx0kac wrote:
         | TIL that 1 BC is succeeded by 1 AD. There is no 0 AD.
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_zero
        
           | Joker_vD wrote:
           | Well, yes, it's sign-magnitude, so the options are to either
           | have no zeroth year at all (like we actually do), or have two
           | of them (..., -1 BC, 0 BC, 0 AD, 1 AD, ...).
        
             | eigenket wrote:
             | Why would you not just have 0AD be the same year as 0BC,
             | just like with real number where 0 = -0?
        
       | dang wrote:
       | Url changed from https://braddelong.substack.com/p/reading-cyrus-
       | cylinder, which points to this.
        
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       (page generated 2023-12-18 23:01 UTC)