Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/362

Rh gave it the name of Medo-Scythic to distinguish it from the Aryan Median of the classical writers.

This very tenable hypothesis he, however, abandoned in its turn, and advanced one much more hazardous. He relies upon a fable of Herodotus to show that the Aryans occupied the country from a much earlier period than has been commonly supposed, and did not, therefore, make their first appearance with Dejoces. Both Aryans and Turanians, he now thinks, were long settled together in the same country, and it is im- possible to say which of the two were the first comers, though he inclines to give precedence to the Aryans. The various tribes were upon an equality, sometimes the Turanian and sometimes the Arvan ^ainin<y the ascendency. He considers the former were known as the Medes, a word essentially Turanian in its origin, while the others retained their proper designation of Aryans. He holds that the Median dynasty of Dejoces was Turanian. He carefully analyses the names of their kings, and he has succeeded in affording a fresh illustration of the ])eculiar power of philology to prove any thesis whatever, when employed by a skilful mani- pulator. Not many yeai's before, he laid it down as self-evident that these same names were pure Aryan. ^ Now it becomes no less api)arent that they are pure Turanian. The dynasty of Dejoces marks the ascen- dency of the Turanian Medes, and the language of the second column is that which was spoken by them. He accordingly drops his previous qualification of Scythic, and gives it simply the name of Median. The rise of the Persian power enabled the Aryan Medes to recover the position they had temporarily lost, and hence all

Aryan — ceux de Dejoces et d'Kcbataiie sont du perse le plus pur.' — 185l\
 * * Nous ne connaissons pa.s un seul nom propre de Mede qui ne soit