[ 597 1 
or O BASIAET 2 O MEfAS, THE GREAT 
KING; which would aniwer with accuracy enough 
to the words BAXIAEgjX (7) METAAOT, exhibited 
by the reveries of fever a 1 Parthian coins, with com- 
plete Greek legends upon them. Should the fir ft letter 
be taken for an Aleph , the term to which it belongs 
would feem to be rather of the Arabic (8) than 
either the Hebrew, Chaldee, or Syriac form. Nor 
can it be conceived ftrange, if we fuppofe the piece to 
have been ftruck at Vologefia, though the Chaldee 
or Babylonian dialedl rttuft have chiefly (9) pre- 
vailed there, that this word fhould favour fomc- 
thing of the Arabic form ; as this city, accord- 
ing to (10) Stephanus, as well as Ptolemy, was 
feated near the Euphrates, at no great diftance from 
(7) De Num. auibufd . Sam. ct Phcen. &c. Dijfert. p.53. 
Oxon. 1750. J. Foy Vaill. ubi Tup. p. 145, 241. & al,b. 
(8) Val. Schind. Lex. Pentaglot. p. i, 75. 
(9) That the inhabitants of Vologefia enjoyed a flourifliing and 
extenfive commerce, when this piece was coined, Teems to appear, 
not only from the fituauon of that city, which flood at no 
great diftance from the confines of Perfia, Arabia, and Mefopotamia, 
a country limited by the Euphrates on the fide of Syria, but like- 
wife from the tenth of Mr. Dawkins’s Greek Palmyrene infcrip- 
tions. It may therefore be prefumed, that Jews, Perfians, or Pa r -t 
thians, Arabs, Syrians, and people of other nations, reforted thi- 
ther, in confiderable numbers, on account of trade. From whence 
we may conclude, that the vernacular tongue of the Vologeiian? 
was not improbably a mixture of Hebrew, Perftan., or. Parthian, A- 
rabic, Chaldee, and Syriac. Hence it might come to pafs, that the 
two firfl words of this legend were neither pure Hebrew, Arabic, 
Chaldee, nor Syriac ; but received a tinSlure from moft, if not 
every one, of thofe languages, or dialects. Dawk. Infcript. Grecc. 
Palmyren. Infcript. x. Chi ift. Cellar. Geograph. Ant'tq. Lib. iib 
c. xvi. PhiloJoph. TranJ'uR. Vol. xlviii. Tab. xxvii. 
(10) Stephanus Byzant. De Urbib. Ptol. Geogr, Lib, v. c. 20. 
Vol. 49. 4 G • the 
