A literary history of Persia

DECIPHERMENT OF INSCRIPTIONS 61of the Sdsanians, already deciphered by de Sacy, suggested tohim the probabilitythat the first word in the inscription wasthe name of a king of this dynasty, and the second his title.He then observed that that name which stood at the beginningof the second inscription was in the first placed after the title,which (again guided by the analogy of the Sisanian inscriptions)he rightly assumed to " signify King of Kings," with aslightfinal modification, which he correctly conjecturedto be the inflexion of the genitive case, from which hegathered that the two names in the first inscription werethose of father and son. One of these names, which Xychsenhad read Malkeusch, appeared to him to square best withDarius, whose name in the Books of Daniel, Ezra, andNehemiah occurs in the form Dariy&vush (" Darjavesch ") ;another, read by Tychsen as Osch patscha, with Xerxes("Khschhersche). For both these names consisted, in theOld Persian inscriptions, of seven separate characters (thesebeing, as we now know, in the D. first, A. R. Y. V. U. SH,and in the second, K. SH. Y. A. R. SH. A), of which one (A)occurred three times, and three (R, Y, SH) twice, in thetwo names ;and the assumption as to the reading of thesenames was confirmed by the order of the component letters ofeach. Now it was known from the accounts of the Greekhistorians that Darius was the son of Hystaspes, which nameappeared in Anquetil's work in the native forms Gushtasp,Vishtasp, &c. ; and, from the analogy of the inscription ofXerxes, it appeared probable that Darius also in his inscriptionwould mention this, his father's name. And, in effect, thereoccurred in the proper place in this inscription of Darius agroup of ten letters, of which the last three (now known torepresent H. Y. A.) had already been recognisedas the caseendingof the genitive. Of the remaining seven, two thethird (SH) and fifth (A) were already known, while, fromwhat was common to the Greek and Avestic forms of thename, the fourth, sixth, and seventh might fairly be assumed to