630 Lassen on the History traced [No. 103. 



works were first composed, it is certainly evident, that the 

 characters of the coins, appearing before the dominion of the 

 Sassanians, were the most ancient of the alphabets of Central 

 Iran. 



The characters on the coins are therefore of special im- 

 portance with regard to their relations to Semitic alphabets, 

 before proposed as a mere conjecture, and if we do consider 

 that it was during the dominion of the Seleucides, and their 

 successors, in use in Bactria and Parthia, we must look for 

 the model upon which they are formed, in the capitals of the 

 Seleucidian power, if their origin from the west be admitted. 

 The comparison must consequently specially include all that 

 may be most likely to afford us an idea of the Syrian alphabet, 

 as it was in use under the Seleucides, such as the inscriptions of 

 Palmyra, though the most ancient of them is nearly a century 

 and a half later than the characters on the coins. 



These conjectures pretend to no more authority than is 

 implied in them as mere suggestions, and they must not hinder 

 us from determining more exactly the alphabet on the coins in 

 a geographical and chronological point of view. 



Its geographical limits are connected with the extent of the 

 Greco-Bactrian and Indo- Scythian power southward from the 

 Indian Caucasus. None of the Greek kings who reigned in 

 Bactria only has made use of this alphabet on his coins, and 

 even of those who have adopted them, Eukratides perhaps alone 

 possessed territories in Bactria, as well as southward from the 

 Caucasus. 



To this we must add the following : the Kanerkis, who, while 

 passing towards India, must have lingered longer in Bactria 

 than other Scythians, because they appropriated to themselves 

 in preference Bactro-Persian gods, have, like the Greek purely 

 Bactrian kings, never adopted this alphabet. 



This being so, we cannot help supposing, that the characters 

 of the coins were not indigenous to Bactria, that is to say, 

 that they existed to the south only, and not to the north of 

 the Caucasus.* 



* A short inscription, a word from Bamian, which Mr. Masson had read 

 according to their alphabet, is quite uncertain, As. T. v. 188. 



