The satrap ruled a province in Ancient Persia
The Avestan ẖšathrapāvan , translatable as “protector of the domain,” came into Greek as satrápēs , which in turn came into Latin as satrăpa . This is the etymological journey of satrap , a term whose first meaning in the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy ( RAE ) refers to someone who governed a province in Ancient Persia .
a persian governor
A Persian satrap, therefore, was a governor. He came to office by direct election of the king and was in charge of controlling public order, collecting taxes and organizing the army, among other tasks. The exercise of administrative power and judicial power fell to the satrap.
In addition to the Persian Empire, the Median governors were also called satraps. Another name by which this empire is known is Media , which was located in Asia, in the region inhabited by the Medes enclosed between the rivers of Mesopotamia and the Caspian Sea . We must include the Achaemenid dynasty , whose reign began with the founding of the Persian Empire in the hands of Cyrus II the Great around 550 BC. C., and some of its heirs, such as the Hellenistic and Sassanid empires.
In the aforementioned Achaemenid dynasty, which extended between 521 and 486 BC. C., the third king was called Darius I , and he stands out among the others for having inherited the Persian Empire at its peak. In relation to the satraps, he was responsible for controlling and supervising their performance to ensure that they did not go beyond the limits of their power.
The Medo-Persian satrap
Before continuing we must define the term satrapy , which in this context serves to designate the territory governed by a satrap, which can also be indicated as a province . Although its first use dates back to the middle of the 5th century BC. C., its origin is almost a century older.
Before Cyrus the Great conquered Media, its emperors treated their territories as if they were provinces, through vassal governors and kings. Because the Persians understood royal dignity and divinity as two indivisible concepts , the two dozen satraps appointed by Cyrus did not become kings, but rather achieved the role of viceroys , and their government was subordinate to that of a king. This did not prevent several of them from committing excesses of power.
Darius I offered an organization for the satrapies that was more convenient. Firstly, he added three to the twenty established by Cyrus. The characteristics of his election and the scope of his power were the same as those expressed in the previous section. Cambyses I , who had ruled before Darius, did not trust the integrity of some of the satraps, so he appointed a secretary to each one to supervise them.
figuratively
For this reason, in today's colloquial language , anyone who holds power and who governs or directs arbitrarily is called a satrap.
A satrap can be mentioned, therefore, as someone who carries out some type of administration or government with despotism . Satraps are authoritarian and make decisions according to their personal interests and ideas, without listening to the majority or seeking consensus.
Nowadays, someone who holds his power in a despotic manner is called a "satrap."
To the original meaning of the concept in Ancient Persia and its symbolic use to refer to tyrant or despot rulers, another meaning must be added: the individual who has no scruples or who acts without ethics is called satrap.
For example: “The owner of the hotel is a satrap, he wants to charge me for a lot of services that I did not use or ask for” , “I would never do business with my cousin's satrap” , “In the world of journalism there are many satraps who only want make money.”