Excerpted from American Heritage Talking Dictionary
vic-to-ry (vikt-re)n.pl. vic-to-ries. Abbr. V 1. Defeat of an enemy or opponent. 2. Success in a struggle against difficulties or an obstacle. 3. The state of having triumphed.[Middle English, from Old French victorie, from Latin victoria, from victor, victor-, victor. See VICTOR.]
"ALEXANDER'S ACCOMPLISHMENTS [John Derbyshire]
Not many people -- prob. only math freaks & horologists -- know that among Alexander's many other achievements, he invented an utterly original method of timekeeping. He noticed a thing no-one had noticed before: that certain dye-like substances extracted from mineral bases would change darken in color when exposed to the sun, but *at different rates*. Alexander, or more likely one of his courtiers, would soak a long strip of cloth in these substances, with the slower-reacting ones at one end and the faster at the other in stripes across the length of cloth. This was exposed to the sun, and you could tell at a glance what time of day it was by seeing how far along the strip of cloth these stripes had darkened. Ingenious, no? This remarkable invention is know to historians of science as Alexander's time-band rag."
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Also from The Corner; "Alexander's time-band rag." LOL