PARADI´SUS
PARADI´SUS (
παράδεισος）
was the name given by the Greeks to the parks or pleasuregrounds which
surrounded the country residences of the Persian kings and satraps. They
were generally stocked with animals for the chace, were full of all kinds of
trees, watered by numerous streams, and enclosed with walls. (
Xen. Anab. 1.4, § 10;
ξψρ. 1.3.14, 4.5;
Hell. iv. 1.33;
Oec. 4.13;
Diod. 16.41;
Curt. 8.1, § § 11, 12;
Gel. 2.20.) These paradises were frequently
of great extent; thus Cyrus on one occasion reviewed the Greek army in his
paradise at Celaenae (
Xen. Anab. 1.2,
§ 9), and on another occasion the Greeks were alarmed by a report
that there was a great army in a neighbouring paradise (
Id. 2.4.16). In many respects, except as regards their being
larger and used for hunting, they were like the Latin
vivarium, which was a park, warren, or preserve.
“Vivaria quae nunc vulgus dicit, quos
παραδείσους Graeci appellant, quae leporaria Varro
dicit, hand usquam memini apud vetustiores scripta. . .;” but
Scipio, the writer goes on to say, called them
roboraria, because they were fenced round with wooden palings
(
Gel. 2.20; cf.
AGRICULTURA Vol. I. p. 80). In Greece they were
first borrowed from the East in the time of the Diadochi (Iwan
Müller,
Handbuch, iv. p. 468).
Pollux (9.13) says that
παράδεισος was a
Persian word, and there can be no doubt that the Greeks obtained it from the
Persians, whether its origin etymologically is to be found in Indo-European
or Semitic languages.
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W.S] [
G.E.M]
