SHAPOUE. 
385 
replied that the comet was not ominous to him, but regarded rather 
the King of the Persians, 44 cui capillus efFusior."* * * § 
The diadem of Persia was distinct from the tiara, and was itself 
44 quod omnibus notum non est,” said Brissonius, p. 68, 44 nihil aliud 
44 quam Candida fascia, qua Regum frons precingebatur." This he 
proves from Lucian; but more decisively by the story of Favorinus, 
who, when Pompey bound his leg up with a fillet, said, 44 it mattered 
44 not on which part of the body he bore the diadem." Many of the 
royal customs of ancient Persia are still observed in Abyssinia, as 
Bruce has collected them; and the fillet is still worn as the diadem. 
The ring then to which the text alludes, and which is described as such 
by Niebuhr,J is certainly as De Sacy observed,§ the diadem of 
the disputed empire. In the coins of the Arsacides, this diadem 
with flowing redimicula, recurs frequently as presented to the 
sovereign by the genius of a city, || a P alias,% or a Victoriola ;** 
and in the Greek coins which the two first Princes of the Sassanides 
struck for their Mesopotamian provinces, the same diadem is offered 
to them.-f-f* It is probable therefore that the object extended over 
Sapor, by the figure in the air, is the same wreath or diadem, which in 
his coins he is receiving; a Grecian image, which was perhaps 
adopted by the Parthian monarchs from the Seleucidae, whom 
they succeeded, and descended through the Arsacidae to Art ax- 
erxes and his son. 
This image is therefore not sufficient to assign the work to Grecian 
hands: the classical merit however of the whole sculptures renders it 
* Suetonius, in Brissonius, p. 82. 
t Bruce, vol. iii. p. 267, 276. 
$ Niebuhr, tom. ii. p. 98-134. Persepolis and Nalcshi Rustam , <&c« 
§ Be Sacy, p. 67. 
| Vaillant, “ Arsacidarum Imperium,” p. 364, p. 366. 
f Pallas u Peculiaris dea Macedonian Pallas,” p. 8. to Arsaces I. again, p. 16* 
** Victoriola to Artabanus I. p. 31. 
ft To Artaxerxes, p.391„ to Sapor, p.394. 
3 D 
