in the triple Inscriptions of the Persians, &c. ZiGli 
that come near to the requisite age (being, indeed, somewhat older), are the 
latest portions of the original Scriptures of the Old Testament; but, besides 
that they convey scarcely any of the names in the cuneiform inscriptions, and 
these too only in a foreign language, their designations thereof are very defec- 
tively vocalized, even supposing those designations originally written with the 
matres lectionis* they now display, but which were not, as shall be proved in the 
next volume of my Work, inserted in them till above 600 years after. We are, 
therefore, compelled, in the due prosecution of this inquiry, to turn from oriental 
to Grecian vouchers, as far older or better vocalized, and more especially to those 
transmitted to us by Herodotus, who wrote within twenty-five years after the 
death of Dariust (before there was time for any material change arising in the 
pronunciation by the Persians of either the language or the proper names of the 
inscriptions) ; and whose accuracy, besides, not only as to events, but also as to 
names, is attested in the most convincing manner by the very legends, when 
deciphered, which supply the materials of this analysis. The elements of his 
alphabet, I admit, are inadequate to express some few of the old Persian articu- 
lations ; and it must be allowed that he took great liberties with the terminations 
of foreign names to suit them to the genius of his own language,—a latitude of 
style in which he was imitated by all subsequent Greek authors. But, with 
these exceptions, his evidence as to the names in question may be fully and safely 
relied on, particularly with regard to their vowel sounds, the determination of 
which constitutes our only sure means of ascertaining the point at present more 
immediately under consideration, namely, the vocalization employed in the 
cuneiform inscriptions ; and, whatever may be the imperfection of his testimony, 
as that of a foreigner, in reference to this point, still, wherever it can be had, it 
* The ‘ matres lectionis’? are consonants which are occasionally diverted from their proper 
use to denote vowels, and, in consequence of this ambiguity, produce some confusion in un- 
pointed writing, particularly in the expression of foreign names. 
{ The recital by Herodotus of his remarkable historic production at the Olympic games, is 
generally placed at the eighty-fourth celebration of those games, or in the year B.C. 444. But 
if the reader will take the trouble of turning back to the note on this subject in the first volume 
of the second part of my Work, p. 132, he will there find, I think, strong ground for dating this 
event four Olympiads earlier, or in the year B. C. 460, that is, about twenty-five years after the 
death of Darius; according to which computation the history in question must have been written 
less than twenty-five years after that death. 
