in the triple Inscriptions of the Persians, &c. 275 
tually to be preferred by them. ‘Thus the a sound, which, in the language of 
the inscriptions, served to distinguish the genitive from the nominative case of 
the name of Darius, is, in the cuneiform representation of that name, constantly 
expressed by the letter 4. Major Rawlinson, in the supplement to his second 
chapter (p. 182), calls this notation “a clumsy artifice,” in which remark I 
entirely agree with him; but, I must add, it is by precisely the same artifice (and 
in no other way, when vowel-points are excluded from consideration) that a has 
been designated in every species of Shemitic writing to which the Persians could 
have had access, from the age in which Darius lived down to the present day. 
Of the use of the cuneiform y to express 7, we have an example in the very same 
name (group, No. 1),* read by Rawlinson ‘ Darayawush,’ but which, I submit, 
should, in accordance with the pronunciation, Aapetos, transmitted to us by He- 
rodotus, be deciphered ‘ Dariwush ;’ the Greek notation perfectly agreeing with 
my transcription of the cuneiform one, except in the termination of the word, and 
in the omission of a sign for w, which Grecian orthography supplies no means of 
representing before w. Rawlinson, indeed, as well as the decipherers who pre- 
ceded him, appeals to a supposed reading of this name by Strabo, Aapiaouns ; 
but, even granting for a moment that the Grecian geographer had so read it, 
surely the authority of any Persians of his day by whom he could have been 
guided, with respect to the manner in which the word in question was pronounced 
when the cuneiform legends were being insculped, can bear no comparison with 
that of such of their countrymen as Herodotus conversed with on the subject, 
460 years earlier, and within a very few years of the dates of those legends. 
Aapiaovns, however, is not Strabo’s writing, but only a conjectural emendation 
of his text by Casaubon, in direct opposition to the unanimous testimony of, I 
believe, every extant ancient manuscript copy of the work, and recommended by 
him solely on the ground of its agreement with the Masoretic reading of the 
Hebrew designation of this name.f But although the Masorets were first-rate 
* The group above referred to, written in equivalent Roman capitals, according to the latest 
values assigned to the cuneiform characters, and without any supplementary letters to denote the 
unexpressed vowel sounds, would stand thus, DARYWUSh; where the letter modifying the 
power of S is printed in small type, in order to leave the number of capitals the same as that of 
the cuneiform letters of the group. 
+ The note of Casaubon, on the word above referred to, is as follows: ‘‘ Puto scripsisse Stra- 
2m 2 
