Hister

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For the beetle genus, see: Clown beetle

Hister (genetive Histri) is the Latin name for the Danube River (especially its lower course), or for the people living along its banks. It also appears as Ister, equivalent to the Ancient Greek ᾽´Ιστρος, which also meant the Danube River or the region around its mouth. A city called Istria still appears near the mouth of the Danube in some modern atlases.

The term may be related to the name of the region Istria in what is now northwestern Croatia, where a tribe called the Histri lived in ancient times. Some once thought that the local freshwater streams in Istria derived from a (non-existent) southward branch of the Danube.

In modern English the term is most commonly encountered in its use by Nostradamus, in a phrase commonly translated "most of the battle (or armies) will be against Hister"^[1], and popularly interpreted to be a prediction of the war against Adolf Hitler's Nazi state in the Twentieth Century. It appears instead to be a prediction of some unknown battle on the banks of the Danube.

[edit] References

• Greek-English Lexicon
• Oxford Latin Dictionary

1. ^ Century II, Quatrain 24, Les Propheties, Nostradamus:

   Beasts ferocious from hunger will swim across rivers:

   The greater part of the region will be against the Hister,

   The great one will cause it to be dragged in an iron cage,

   When the German child will observe nothing.

   In French:

   Bestes farouches de faim fleuves tranner:

   Plus part du champ encontre Hister sera,

   En caige de fer le grand fera treisner,

   Quand rien enfant de Germain observera.