completely unrelated question, but it has been nagging at me lately:
what were assassins and assassination -the deliberate murder of prominent or important people for political motives- called in the days before the hashishim of Hassan I Sabbah gave the name of their cult to the actors and action? I would like to know what the Romans and early Byzantines called these people and murders.
In all languages, their name derived from their usage of Hashish. In Arabic, it was "ha ssasin" -- hashish users.
Evidently, they were unique. All cultures had killers, and names for them. But the combination of pleasure seeking in murder was another transcendently inimitable contribution of Muslim culture.
Interesting question, King. Political murder was quite common in Imperial Rome (among other situations), but since it's unlikely that Tacitus or Suetonius was familiar with Arabic (not to mention their predating Islam by many centuries), they must have used a word other than "assassination" for the concept.
Maybe they just used "kill," "murder," or synonyms, and perhaps "regicide" where applicable.