A literary history of Persia

'THE HAji-ABAD INSCRIPTION 151of this ; things which reason rejects, and which must be referred tothe category of idle tales and frivolous fables, devoid of actuality.But such of the Persians as possess sense and knowledge, or nobilityand distinguished extraction, alike princes and squires (dihqan), traditionistsand men of culture, neither believe nor affirm nor repeatthese things, and we find them reckoning the Persian Empire onlyfrom [the time of] Ardashir Babakan. ... So we have omitted them[these legends], our method being to reject what is of ill savour."Shapur, the son of Ardashir (the interesting legend of whosebirth and recognition, given in the Kdr-namak, the Shah-ndma^and most of the Arabian historians, I am compelledShapur I. . , .TTto omit for lack of space)is notable in Westernhistory for his successful campaigns against the "Romans"and his capture of the Emperor Valerian, achievements commemoratedin the sculptures of Naqsh-i-RustamShapur's inscrip- , ,.lions and 1and bhapur. 1 he Greek translation attached tomonuments.irii ' -r Lthe short bi-lmgual rahlawi inscription or thisking at Naqsh-i-Rajab (which formed, as we have seen, thestarting-point of the decipherment of both the Sasanian and theAchaemenian inscriptions) was probably cut by some GreekTd^ascr^.titn^prisoner. The longer Haji-abad inscriptionst '^ presents some difficulties, in spite of thelaboursof Thomas (1868), West (1869), Haug(1870), and other scholars, and the excellent reproductions ofit (casts, copies, and photographs)available. Thomas didexcellent service in publishing all the available Pahlawi inscriptions,but he was more successful in decipherment than ininterpretation, where his results were of the most amazingkind, for he explained several of these edicts as professions offaith on the part of the Sasanian kings in the God of the Jewsand Christians, and in consequence the divergence between thetranslations offered by him and the other scholars mentionedis so great that Lord Curzon saysin his work on Persia(vol. ii, pp. 116-117):1Cur?on's Persia, vol. ii, pp. 120 and 211,