290 Rev. Dr. Watt on the different Kinds of Cuneiform Writing 
the very defective nature of this writing so far back as the times of Xerxes 
and his son, Artaxerxes, it would have been impossible to express the requisite 
meaning, without making the middle symbol of the three under consideration 
different from the other two. In fine, if any one should prefer reading the 
Egyptian title, ‘great king, emperor of kings,’ I do not demur to this version of 
the sentence, as it is in vain to attempt confining such a vague mode of designa- 
tion to any precise form of words. I claim only to have ascertained the general 
bearing of the collection of symbols referred to; and so much, I am in hopes, it 
will be allowed that I have effected. 
What greatly increases the probability of the foregoing analysis being in the 
main correct, is the total failure of the attempts to explain the same title on the 
assumption of its elements being phonetically employed. According to this view 
of the manner in which they are significant, the aggregate of them corresponds 
in meaning, not to the entire cuneiform title, but only to its second group, and, 
therefore, would, through the interpretation of that group at present received, 
merely denote the epithet ‘great.’ But, surely, it is not for a moment to be 
imagined that the Egyptians, who conferred on their Grecian sovereigns such 
a multitude of titles as are displayed in the Rosetta inscription (among which is 
included even that of divinity), would have been sparing of their terms of ful- 
some adulation to a Persian monarch, and have styled him simply ‘ Xerxes the 
great,’ or ‘ Artaxerxes the great,’ without even so much as calling him king ; 
while the subjects of his native dominions, though in a far less degrading posi- 
tion, yet honoured him with the appellation of ‘king of kings.’ Surely, the 
mode here attributed to the Egyptians of styling their sovereigns, which is so 
comparatively devoid of servility, is utterly inconsistent with the character of that 
people while under foreign sway, as well as with the abject state of slavery to 
which they were reduced by their Persian conquerors. Even, then, if the pho- 
netic application of the hieroglyphs, which necessarily leads to the above, or some 
similar construction of their bearing, were advocated with the most imposing 
plausibility, it should still be rejected as quite inadmissible. In point of fact, 
however, not the slightest semblance of an adequate reason has been adduced 
for any such application of those characters; as may, I conceive, be plainly seen 
from the following review of this part of the case. 
Though St. Martin had no warrant beyond mere conjecture for his attempt 
