266 Rev. Dr. Wau on the different Kinds of Cuneiform Writing 
with nations that employed very different alphabets. But the direction of this 
writing proves that the powers of its elements were chiefly borrowed from the 
Grecian alphabet ; as no other set of letters known to have been, at the early 
period referred to, in existence and within reach of Persian observation, was written 
from left to right. In corroboration of this proof of the principal origin of the 
cuneiform alphabet, I have to request attention to the two following considerations : 
First. The passage of Herodotus, respecting the inscriptions on two pillars 
erected on the shores of the Bosphorus,* shows that Darius made use of Greek 
writing (though probably but seldom, and more for the information of foreigners 
than of his countrymen) as early as the time of his invasion of Scythia; so that 
the powers of the Greek letters must have come under the notice of his scribes 
near the commencement of his reign, and, therefore, in all likelihood, before the 
formation of their cuneiform alphabet. Accordingly, it may be observed that 
the writing in the Persian inscription is not described by the historian as of three 
kinds, which, as far as can be known from extant lapidary records, it mvariably 
was after the introduction of that called the first kind. If, indeed, this inserip- 
tion had been triple, it would have occupied at least four times as much space 
as the Greek one; and even had it been made in the first kind alone of cunei- 
form characters, it must have required two pillars for the one of same size appro- 
priated to the corresponding Greek legend. The characters, therefore, employed 
in the Persian inscription here alluded to, would appear to have been such as 
belonged to one of the older, or ideagraphic kinds of cuneiform systems. Nor is it 
any objection to this view of their nature, that Herodotus calls them ‘letters,’ as 
alphabetic writers have always been in the habit of so denominating the elements 
of every sort of writing, without distinction. But the substance of our author’s 
evidence on this subject is entitled to the more weight, from his speaking of the 
two inscriptions as a person who had seen them, or, at any rate, was in possession 
of very precise information regarding them; for he tells us, that ‘afterwards the 
Byzantians, having conveyed those pillars [displaying the inscriptions in question | 
to their city, made use of them near the altar of the Orthosian Diana, excepting 
one stone; and this was left close to the temple of Bacchus in Byzantium, 
, vpak on » r 3 CAG ~ > ; > 
* __ banccmevos 3b meek voy Bacwopov, ormras eornce v0 tor’ avT®, Aibov Agvxov, EvTamay yetumerce, So meey 
thy Accugsa, és 08 thy EAAnvine, Ebvex mavre ocamee nye—lerodotus, lib. iv. cap. 87. 
