﻿46 THE SIXTH DISCOURSE: 



ing with the father of European history, described 

 according to their popular traditions by his true name, 

 which the Greek alphabet could not express : nor will 

 a difference of names affect the question, since the 

 Greeks had little regard for truth, which they sacrificed 

 willingly to the graces of their language, and the 

 nicety of their ears ; and, if they could render foreign 

 words melodious, they were never solicitous to make 

 them exact ; hence they probably formed Cambyses 

 from Cambakhsh, or granting desires, a. title rather 

 than a name ; and Xerxes from Shiruyi, a prince and 

 warrior in the Shahnamah, or from Shirshah, which 

 might also have been a title ; for the Asiatic princes 

 have constantly assumed new titles or epithets at dif- 

 ferent periods of their lives, or on different occasions ; 

 custom which we have seen prevalent in our own 

 times both in Iran and Hindustan, and which has 

 been a source of great confusion even in the scriptural 

 accounts of Babylonian occurrences. Both Greeks 

 and Jeivs have in fact accommodated Persian names 

 to their own articulation ; and both seem to have dis- 

 regarded the native literature of Iran, without which 

 they could at most attain a general and imperfect 

 knowledge of the country. As to the Persians them- 

 selves, who were contemporary with the Jews and 

 Greeks, they must have been acquainted with the his- 

 tory of their own times, and with the traditional ac- 

 counts of past ages ; but for a reason, which will pre- 

 sently appear, they chose to consider Cayumers as the 

 founder of their empire ; and, in the numerous dis- 

 tractions which followed the overthrow of Dara, 

 especially in the great revolution on the defeat of 

 Yezdegird, their civil histories were lost, as those of 

 India have unhappily been, from the solicitude of 

 the priests, the only depositaries of their learning, to 

 preserve their books of law and religion at the expence 

 of all others. Hence it has happened, that nothing 

 remains of genuine Persian his:ory before the dynasty 



