Origin of the Name "Hsarus"

One of the cooler things about Diablo II is the use of various reference to foreign cultures and languages to make the world feel lived in. For example, the

Ondal's Almighty

Helm from the Heaven's Brethren set is a reference to the crowns of the kings of Silla. And while

Guillaume's Face isn't a specific historical reference it does use a french name.

Anyway, my point is, does anyone know if the word Hsarus has an occurence before this game? And, if it was made up for the game, do we know if it's a reference like Civerb's Vestments is to David Brevik?
In the now-outdated Wade-Giles romanization scheme for Chinese, hs- was used to mark IPA /ɕ/ now spelled x in modern pinyin, which is why I thought maybe "hsarus" could be some kind of latin/chinese hybrid word or something.

Would appreciate any random thoughts lol,

Hsarus' Iron Heel was my first set item!

The origin of Hsarus appears to be Greek, or it could just be a conincindence.



https://archive.org/stream/classicaljou ... g_djvu.txt

Unfortunately it seems like the automatic text scanner has rendered Æsarus as Hsarus It looked like a promising lead though...

My guess is Æsarus and Hsarus are probably the same word/name. Hsarus is translated from Greek to English and Æsarus/Esaru from Latin.

Note that both refer to a body of water?

"We are told that the river Æsarus flowed through the heart of the city at its prime."

Both versions originate from a Greek manuscript. The original language would look more like this.

"N φίλος, εἰ σοφὸς εἶ, λάβε μ᾽ ἐς χέρας" εἰ δέ γε πάμπαν
Νῆϊς ἔφυς Μουσέων, ῥίψον ἃ μὴ νοέεις"


The manuscript was written by the Greek Poet LYCOPHRON. published in 1881, but more research is needed.



None of that of course means that's where Blizzard obtained the word Hsarus.

Edit: I've taken the word Æsarus , changed it to AEsarus and I've gotten some interesting returns though unlikely related to the word Hsarus, but its etymology also appears to be Greek in origin.