Today I discovered the word κόραννος (koranos) in the Lexicon of Hesychius of Alexandria.
It's defined as: βασιλεύς Μακεδονίας (basileus Μakedonias) "King of Macedonia".
I think this dictionary entry is the only appearance of it we have, making it a ἅπαξ λεγόμενον (hapax legomemon), a word that appears only once in all extant ancient Greek literature.
I'm guessing it's related to κοίρανος (koiranos) which is a well-attested ancient Greek word for "king" or "ruler", cognate with Old Norse Herjann "leader of armies".
If you're outraged that a Hollywood movie does not accurately depict ancient Greek literature ... you are an idiot.
"A modern Greek would be able to converse with Justinian with very little difficulty."
We have to stop LARPing.
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"In the Iliad, the companions of Patroklos, including Achilles himself, cut off their hair over the corpse of their dead friend before consigning him to the pyre."
"They cover the whole body with their hair, as if they were clothing it for its last journey with their own youthful, manly vitality ... with that which most embodies their nature as fierce warriors."
— JP Vernant, "A Beautiful Death" (1991)
The Russians took their coat of arms from the Byzantines.
For centuries, the Byzantine royal symbol was the double-headed eagle.
When Constantinople fell, the last emperor's niece, Princess Sophia Palaiologina, fled to the Pope in Rome.
The Pope married her off to Ivan III, the Grand Prince of Moscow.
Through Sophia, Ivan claimed rights to the Byzantine throne.
He styled himself "Tsar" after the Roman title "Caesar", and adopted the double-headed eagle as his coat of arms.
Sophia gave birth to a son.
But Ivan already had an heir by a different wife.
After some bloody palace intrigues, Sophia's son Vasili became heir to the throne, and ascended.
Vasili's son Ivan IV, aka "Ivan the Terrible", became the first Tsar of all Russia.
The double-headed eagle was handed down through generations of Russian royalty until the Bolsheviks came to power in 1917; they abolished it.
But in 1993, Boris Yeltsin restored the eagle as the Russian coat of arms, where it remains up until this day.
