Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters. 
. 258 
THE INSCRIPTION OF LONDON. 
The following short inscription can be seen in the British Mnsenm on 
a cylinder which furnishes a fine specimen of gem engraving. A warrior 
in his charriot is represented as attacking at full speed a lion,* the 
symbol of power. This warrier from his crown we can interpret as King 
Darius. He holds his bow ready for action, while the charioteer urges 
on the steeds. This cylinder was carried to England from Egypt. 
I (am) Darius the king. 
* On tlie Persian sculptures, the lion and hull occur often, as emblems of strength. Meta¬ 
phors of this kind are frequent in all oriental literature. In making a list of the epithets of the 
god Indra in the Veda, I was struck with the repeated comparisons of this sort.' However, 
the Vedic poets drew from the stall as the most fertile source of metaphors, and it was the 
later Sanskrit which used the beasts of the forest more extensively for that purpose, 
(e. g, the tiger of men, etc.) In Biblical literature the reader is referred to Ezekiel i. 10. 
“ As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the faces of a man, and the face of a lion 
on the right side.” Daniel vii. 4. “ The first was like a lion and had eagles wings.” The 
familiar national emblems of later date, the Roman eagle, the British lion, etc., all had. 
their origin in this early conception. 
