TO CAFFA. 
Vaillant 3 ; the dissertation of Souciel 4 5 ; and, 
above all, in the second volume of Eckhel' ; > 
writings, if not compensating, yet in some 
degree diminishing the loss which Literature 
has sustained in the total annihilation of those 
records of Trogus Pompeius, which were calcu- 
lated to dispel the obscurity of the Bosporian 
dynasties 6 . 
(3) Achaemenidarum Imperium, sive Regum Ponti, Bospori, &c. 
Histor. ad fid. Numis. accom. Vaillant . 
(4) Hist. Chronol. des Rois du Bosphore Cimmerien, par Souciet. 
■Paris, 1736. 4to. 
(5) Doctrina Numorum Veterum, a Jos. Eckhel , Parsl. vol. II. p. 360. 
Vindobon. 179-1, quarto edit. 
(6) All the medals of the family of Mithradates, whether kings of 
Pontus prior to the subjugation of the Bosporus, or successors of Mi- 
thradates the Great, have their name written MIOPAAaTHX, and not 
MIQPIAATHS. It is therefore extraordinary, that the learned writers, to 
whose works we have so recently referred, with this fact before their eyes, 
continue the corrupted orthography, and write Mithridates, which is 
certainly not only erroneous, but wholly inconsistent with the true 
Oriental etymology of the word, derived, according to Vossius and 
Sealiger, from the Persian . (See Gale's Court of the Gentiles , p. 232. 
(icon. 1669.) Neither arc medals the only documents which afford 
authority for writing it Mithradates : the inscriptions on Greek marbles 
bear the same legend. It is an abuse, however, which began with the 
Romans themselves, and has continued ever since. The same people 
who wrote Massilia for MA22AAIA, and Massanissa for MA2XANA2SA, 
and deduced Agrigentum from A K PAI'AX, would of course write Mithri- 
dates for MIQPAAATHX. With the exception of the portrait of Alexander 
‘he Great, perhaps there is no countenance expressed upon medals which 
"e regard with such lively interest as that of Mithradates, — “ Vir," as 
it is sublimely expressed by Velleius , and eited by Eckhel, “ neque silendus, 
neque dicendus 9 sine curd, hello acerrimus , virtute eximius, ahquando 
.foriund, semper animo maximus, cansiliis dux, miles manu, odio m 
•Romanos Hannibal." With him the line of Bosporian kings begins in 
T cgular order ; that is to say, it is freed from the uncertainty which 
belongs 
107 
CHAP. 
III. 
