358 Lassen on the History traced [No. 100. 



rnahato, as it will also have been upon R. R. II. No. 10; 

 and then the name. 



The state of these coins does not much invite inquiry after the 

 name; but it being better preserved, than the rest of the words, 

 we shall venture on the task. 



As. Trans. IV. PL xxi. No. 5, has >^S«I3 



R. R. II. No. 10 «i*lVga> 



„ „ I. „ 20 MM* 



Mr. Grotefend has read it Vonohno ; it will be observed, the 

 two n do not correspond, nor with the more confirmed I, not 

 to mention the illegitimate use of h, perhaps to render the 

 syllable long. Mr. Prinsep, who always adheres to the more 

 cautious principle of reading out of the characters, not into 

 them, takes it for ulalido, which reading, however, cannot be 

 right. 



On examining more closely, we find, that two authorities are 

 against the initial ""h ; as many against the second *P ; the three 

 last characters are identical (in the three legends) ; it would be 

 therefore T>n~M3. The second has the greatest similarity to 

 an 1, and the whole exhibits Valaharo or Valahado. This is 

 indeed very different from Vonones, which must have been ex- 

 pressed by ^i^ i£, if we have arranged the letters properly, and 

 fixed the system of this alphabet. 



I am persuaded, that the name cannot be the same, and as a 

 conjecture is here quite indispensable, I shall propose the fol- 

 lowing. 



The name of a Parthian king which will be first thought of, 

 and which occurs three or four times, is Volagases. Upon coins, 

 attributed to the former, or Arsakes xxni. is the name thus 

 written: B0AAFA20Y. What now if this name be written 

 on the reverse of our coins ? 1, h, rendered by g will not excite 

 any doubt, if an h in the middle of a word is to be expressed by 

 Greek characters. The termination alone does not agree, and 

 here we may suppose, that by the sharp accentuation, the 

 penultimate *r is changed into "l . This being admitted, it would 



