ἀζαβαρίτης <Iranian; Classical period>
👉 ἀζαβαρίτης m. – ‘a Persian high office’ (Ctes., fr. 15.49).
⚠ Ctes., fr. 15.49, implies that this is a key office in the Persian Kingdom, at least under the reign of Sogdianus/Sekyndianus (434–423 BCE), son of Artaxerxes I.
🅔 An Old Iranian word – the title seems to go back to Median *hazārapati- (< *hazāhrapati-) ‘chiliarch’, which consists of the numeral ‘thousand’ (Avestan hazaŋra-, Middle Persian, Parthian and Modern Persian hazār) and a noun with the meaning ‘lord, master’ (Avestan paiti-, as well as Middle Persian -bed in compound words); cf. Sanskrit sahasra-pati- ‘chief of a thousand (villages)’. The title is attested in the Middle Iranian languages: Middle Persian hzʾlwpt and Parthian hzrwpt ‘first minister’, probably pronounced as hazāruft (according to another view: hazārpat); cf. ἀζαραπατεῖς and αζαροπτ(ου). Moreover, there are some Middle Iranian loanwords in other languages: Armenian hazarapet ‘chiliarch, chief of a thousand men, colonel; governor, prefect, lord lieutenant; steward, agent etc.’ and Syriac hazārpaṯ ‘military leader’. The Iranian word occurs in a personal name of a Sassanian general (in different transliterations): Ἀζαρέφθης (Men. Protect., fr. 23.11), Ἀζαρέθης (Proc., De bell. 1.17.1, 1.18.1 etc.) and Ἐξαράθ (Joan. Mal. p. 461.10). As a side note, it is worth mentioning that Greek χιλίαρχος (and χιλιάρχης) m. ‘chiliarch, commandant of a garrison; title of Persian court official’ is commonly treated as a calque of the Persian term. Concerning the phonetics, the Greek ἀζαβαρ- comes from *ἀζαραβ- (or similar) due to a metathesis or corruption. Moreover, the form ἀζαβαρίτης exhibits an irregularity in the penultimate syllable, i.e. ι instead of the expected α (a simple distortion or the influence of Greek agent nouns with -ίτης ?).
📖 Data: GIPP: 24 and 54; NDAE: 367; SED: 1195.3; SL: 339. Ref.: Benveniste 1966: 67-71; Brust 2008: 49-52; EIr: s.v. Chiliarch; ILS: 161f.; Szemerényi 1975: 354-392.