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The Anabasis of Alexander

Note 710 — Chapter XXV

E. J. (Edward James) Chinnock translation

In the Hebrew Bible Javan denotes the Ionian race of Greeks, and then the Greeks in general (Gen. x. 2, 4; Isa. lxvi. 19; Ezek. xxvii. 13; Joel iii. 6; Zech. ix. 13). In Dan. viii. 21, x. 20, xi. 2, Javan stands for the kingdom of Alexander the Great, comprising Macedonia as well as Greece. The form of the name Javan is closely connected with the Greek Ion, which originally had a digamma, Ivon. Pott says that it means the young, in opposition to the Graikoi, the old. According to Aristotle (Meteorologica, i. 14) the Hellenes were originally called Graikoi. Cf. Sanscrit, jewan; Zend, jawan; Latin, juvenis; English, young.

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