satrapy

plural satrapys · plural satrapies

1. historicalThe territory governed by a satrap; a province of any of several ancient empires of West Asia (specifically, of the Median or Achaemenid empires or certain of their successors, including the Sasanian Empire and Hellenistic empires).

   Several, which occur as one Satrapy in the system given by Herodotus, are given in the lists as distinct provinces.

   1864, Edward Bouverie Pusey, Daniel the Prophet: Nine Lectures Delivered in the Divinity School of the University of Oxford, John Henry and James Parker, page 413

   3 more examples

   1951, W. W. Tarn, The Greeks in Bactria and India, Cambridge University Press, 2nd Edition, Digital printing 2010, page 1, The Seleucid empire in its turn was still, in outward shape, very much the empire of Persia under different rulers; the great satrapies still remained, their military nature emphasised by the governor of a satrapy being no longer called satrap but strategos, 'general'.

   A satrapy′s borders were generally the same as those of the previously independent kingdom, with the satrap stationed in the old capital.[…]The Great King expected two things from the satrapies: a regular supply of taxes (called "tribute" because it underlined the satrapy′s subordination to the king) and units for the Persian army when needed.

   2013, Michael Burger, The Shaping of Western Civilization, Volume I: From Antiquity to the Mid-Eighteenth Century, University of Toronto Press, page 30

   To put flesh on this concept, Joe McDonagh took himself off to the British Library to learn about Russia and its former Soviet satrapies.

   2026, Sebastian Mallaby, chapter 3, in The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind and the Quest for Superintelligence, Penguin, →ISBN