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262 that served to illustrate the decay of the language, though the interval from the classical a^e of Darius was not more than a hundred and ninety years. It is here that the two new signs — or ratlier contractions — for the syllables ' dali ' and ' bunii ' first occur. Of more interest is the evidence this inscription affords of the de<?eneration of the Persian relioion l)v the admittance of Mithra into its worsliip. Artaxerxes the Third traces his t>enealooy through Artaxerxes the Second (Mnemon), Darius the Second (Xothus), Artaxerxes the First (Longimanus), Xerxes, Darius the First, and Hystaspes, to Arsames the Achaemenian ; and neither of the two last are distinguished by the royal title.

The most important publication after Lassen s essay in 1844 was a criticism that appeared upon it by Adolf Holtzmann hi the following year.^ It was written with much personal animosity to Lassen, and this en- livens in an amusino- fashion the extreme ariditv of the subject-matter.

Only two letters now remained to be correctly determined: 19 {^])j the JSh of Tiassen, and this Holtzmann successfully accomplished. The letter occurs in the words Lassen transliterated ' jak'hija ' and ' hak'hi(s).' - Holtzmann substituted d and read the first word ' jadij,' which lie compared with the Sanscrit 'jadi,' Zend 'jedhi' — 'when' — instead of Lassen's ' venerandus,' a meaning that turned out to be correct.*^ Finally, he reviewed all the words in which the letter occurs, and he found that the substitution of d for /: enabled him to assign satisfactory meanings to the whole of them."*

' Holtzmann, Bffitriiye zur Erkliiruny^ Carlsruhe, 1845. ^ I Inscription, line 19 (Second Memoir, p. 176) ; E*» Inscription, line 24 (ib. p. 173).

^ Second Memoir, pp. 65, 68 ; Holtzmann, p. 62.
 * Holtzmann, p. 78.