60 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [N.S., XIII, 



towards Hellenic culture, and a posthumous son, the famous 

 Shapur II, was elected to occupy the throne even before he 

 was born, the coronation ceremony being performed imme- 

 diately after the Mobed's declaration that the embryo was of the 

 male sex ! This monarch reigned for the extraordinarily long 

 period of seventy years and was a contemporary of no fewer 

 than ten Roman Emperors beginning with Galerius and ending 

 with Valentinian II. 



Shapur dealt a heavy blow to the Romans by conquering 

 the five provinces beyond the Tigris and several other for- 

 tresses in 363 a.c. The Romans were utterly routed and Julian 

 was killed. Thus gloriously for Iran closed the long series of 

 campaigns waged by Shapur, who was deservedly termed 

 the "Great " for having raised Sassanian Persia to a position 

 higher than any it had occupied in the past. 



Shapur the Great, who passed away in 379 a.c, was of 

 superb physique and remarkable valour, and was well served 

 by a devoted people. He possessed not only military talents 

 of a high order, but also tenacity of purpose that was lack- 

 ing in many members of the dynasty. He founded many 

 cities. 



Shapur left Persia at the zenith of her power and glory, 

 in possession of favourable treaty with the great Western 

 Power at whose prestige he had dealt a deadly blow, and with 

 no powerful enemy threatening the eastern boundaries. 



Shapur was surnamed by the Arab authors Dhou'l-aktaf, 

 "Lord of the Shoulders," without doubt on account of his 

 bodily strength. The Pahlavi expression is not known. Ma- 

 saudi says that he gained this appellation from having disloca- 

 ted the shoulders of his captives, the Arab pirates of his 

 maritime borders. Mirkhond says he strung his prisoners to- 

 gether by piercing a hole through their shoulders. Gibbon 

 erroneously spells the title Dhulaknaf or Protector of the Nation- 

 (See also Noeldeke, Tabari, p. 52, and Journal Asiati que, Decem- 

 ber 1841, p. 510.) 



The ancient orthography of the name Shapur was in 

 Persian SJiahpufcra, "son of a king," which we find in the 

 Cuneiform inscriptions under the form Kshathiya puthra. In 

 the inscriptions of Naqshi-Rajab, Haji-abad, Taqi-Bostan and 

 Takht-i- Jamshed the name of SJiapur is found as S_hahpuhri ( witl 

 the final i the nominative sign). The form under which thi 

 name (Sapor) has come down to us is the transcription of Greek 

 contemporanan authors tanwp with the <u for our knowledge that 

 the Persians pronounced the double syllable of the word por or 

 pour with one long vowel. But the form 2o/3« P also occurs 

 among the authors of the Sassanian epoch. Cunningham has 

 published (Num. Chron., 1893, p. 173, pi. IV) the copper eoins 

 of the type of Rhapiir II struck probably in the distant pro- 

 vinces, with a legend in Kushan characters where it is read 



