then, I (am) saying, that there is of you who (is) saying, "I of Paul I:' where we see eno first, after the model of qoțelno, subordinated to a participle and half-absorbed into it, in omar'no; and secondly, affected in the same way by the word d'pawlos, as it also is thrice again by the three other proper names which follow in the sentence. Here, therefore, begins the resemblance to the Assyrian in the union of the first person with quasi-substantival bases; but (8) J. xix. 21, we have it carried out to a perfect analogy. Write not that he (is) king (001 Pop, d'malka'w, for malko+hu), etc., but that he said that I (am) king, etc.' (lô d'hu emar

เ

d' malko'no), where not only do we see a substantive combining with itself a pronoun of the third person in malka'w, but between malko'no =(malko+eno) and the Assyrian sarraku =(sarru+anaku) the sole difference is, that in one the former, in the other the latter, element of the original ana+ku is taken as afformative with the noun signifying 'king.' Here, then, we finally arrive at all that we sought.

V.

To revert now to Dr. Hincks's "Permansive." Besides his paglaku, -k, he does not pretend to produce any instances except of third persons; and these I decline to discuss; because the indications of them, if real, are very far from distinct, and their origin, whatever it be, is not explicable on the ground of conscious attachment of a pronominal fragment as an afformative. Of the first plural and the second persons it will be time to speak when any specimens of them put in an appearance; and with respect to Hincks's rashness in venturing on their "restoration," I must concur in the opinion of his foreign critics. But as to the true designation of these forms in -ku, I am not so much concerned to find one for them as to define their true character; and will therefore only suggest that we stamp them with the same name that their Syriac analogues in -no receive whenever one specially appropriate shall be minted for these. Sarraku and malkono of course we strike out of the category of verbal forms, and dabsacu, which we admit among them, we may name just what

1 Oppert's Préf. p. xx.; Schrader, p. 391.

the grammarians would term goțelno. One might rather regard the Syriac formation, at the head of which stands goțelno, as a tense in embryo, than a tense fairly born into the world; yet, I little doubt that dabsacu is to the Hebrew just what the fœtus is to the infant; i.e. they differ only as to stages of form and power, but constitute one identity. Dabsacu is the prime member of that which afterwards became the Semitic perfect; the afformative being preserved without change in Æthiopic alone, while the temporal value the whole tense ultimately acquired was merely conventional and by no means inherent.

Our conclusions are suggestive of thoughts not uninteresting to the student of mind and of language. We are admitted, as it were, to attend upon the genesis of a tense. The recent Aramaïc formation unveils to us the primitive Assyrian process, whereby in the early Semitic period, the form of the perfect was originated, though as yet unendowed with its peculiar powers. Then in later days the newer language, in want of a present, revives the archaic expedient of tensemaking by means of pronominal afformatives consciously affixed. Again, how slowly the distinctions of time were evolved in the Semitic mind we discern in the absence1 of any definite past tense in the oldest Semitic language. And how far inward conceptions may lag behind outward development, we learn from the fact that the Assyrian, with his high proficiency in Science, mechanical and military, and his great attainments in Art, pictorial and scriptorial, left posterity to elaborate the distinction between history and prophecy.

1 Nor does it diminish our surprise at this defect, when we discover that Mesha, whose epoch lies within the Assyrian period, well knew, as early as the ninth century B.C., how to say 'n, Inscript. 1. 2 and 3, 'I reigned;', 21, etc., 'I builded;' 'ny, 23, etc., 'I constructed;' ', 25, 'I digged;' 'D', 29, 'I collected.' (Nöldeke, die Inschrift des Königs Mesa, etc., Kiel, 1870.) Hence Mr. H. Fox Talbot's statement (Records of the Past, vol. i. p. 6) respecting the substantial identity of the inscribed Babylonian language all through the thousand years' interval between Khammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar, raises the suspicion that latterly its forms may have been those rather of an archaic monumental language than of a living and spoken one. Still this does not destroy the fact, that in the earliest inscriptions wherein this defect is observable, Assyrio-Babylonian culture and civilization already stand very high.

ON THE MEDIAN DYNASTY;

ITS NATIONALITY AND ITS CHRONOLOGY.

BY PROFESSOR JULIUS OPPERT.

THE Persian kings wrote their architectural documents in three languages and three distinct kinds of writing, the first of which is the Old Persian, and the third the Assyrian. The second kind had been called formerly by Rawlinson, Westergaard, and De Sauley Median; but, as this language is clearly a Turanian one, and as the known geographical names of Media are almost all Aryan, I proposed, already in 1851, to call that kind of scriptures Scythic, and this name was adopted by Norris and Spiegel. I must confess that this denomination was erroneous, and I am now able to prove that this second kind of writing represented actually the language of the second great dynasty of Asia, called Median by the ancient writers. Herodotus (vii. 62) states that the Medes were called formerly Arioi, and they adopted afterwards the latter name. As Mada is itself the Sumerian word signifying land, this change of name coincided exactly with a Turanian invasion. The Turanian name became a geographical one, in spite of all Aryans inhabiting the soil, and who caused the Aryan name to survive the intruded one; to-day the land has recovered the old name of Iran.

We have the

Many reasons can be given to prove that, geographically, the second kind of the trilingual inscriptions was that of Media. Some scholars believed the language to be the Elamite or Susian. inscriptions of Susiana, for which we are indebted to the British explorer, W. Kenneth Loftus. The name Elamite is badly chosen for these texts, as the term would point out rather a Semitic tongue; on

the contrary, the language of the Susian inscriptions is of the same family as the Median, but by no means identical, and offers a good deal of distinct flexions and words. The Medians call Susiana (the Persian Uvaka, the Assyrian Elamti) Hapirtip or Habirdip; the sagacity of Edwin Norris pointed out the identity of the name with the Amardi of the Greeks, who inhabited the northern part of the Susian land in proximity to Media. The same word is to be found in the Susian inscriptions, but it is quoted as a part of Susiana; the texts of Susa quote Habirdip, accompanied by Huśśi (Uvaža, Khozistan), Kussi (the Kosseans of the Greeks), Nime (the Nimma of the Assyrian texts), all names of parties in Susiana; the Semitic name of Elam is the only one wanting.

In the Susian texts the rivers Tigris and Euphrates are quoted as Tiklat and Purat; as well-known streams, they had their own names in this language. The Medians, dwelling far from these rivers, were obliged to take these denominations from the neighbouring nations, and gave to them the sound of Tigra and Ufrato, as did the Persians. The seat of the people that spoke the second kind of the trilingual idioms inhabited a region distant from Mesopotamia.

But this nation was near to Assyria, the Median name of which is, except that of Persia (Parsan), the only geographical term taking the Median termination an; Assyria is called Assuran. Moreover, the Egyptians had their own Median name, that of Muzzariyap, which is not a transcription of the Persian Mudraya, but denotes that the nation had direct intercourse with the Nile regions, and that these connexions took place by the way of the Semitic Assyria, where Egypt was called Muzur.

The northern Scyths have the name of Sakka, which the Persians borrowed from the Medians, who did not employ the Assyrian denomination of Gimirri or Gomer, the Cimmerians of Herodotus.

The Median metropolis Rhagae is not quoted in the Median text as "a city of Media," as that is the case in the Persian and Assyrian texts; but the Median translation names it merely Raggan (with the characteristic an), without any further indication, as are quoted Babylon, Ecbatana, Arbela, and Pasargada (Paisiyāuvādā in Persian). Because the inhabitants of Media bore formerly the name of Arioi, the true Medians are the only people who distinguish in their texts Ormazd as the "god of the Arians," even with the Aryan

genitive form Arriyanam, in order to show the distinction between the Ariya and the Mada inhabiting the same soil, according to Herodotus.

Media itself is named Mada and Madape, the Medias, the lands. And this name of Mada is the single one which does not take for the derivative terms the syllable rra. A Persian, an Armenian, or Babylonian, are, among others, translated by Parsarra, Armimiyarra, Babilurra; we even read Habirdirra, a Susian; a Median is called Mada, and not Madarra, and this is the single case of this kind. In the idea of the men who wrote the inscription of Behistun, the Medians were a people, and the land had gotten its name from the Turanian conquerors.

Common sense compels us to admit that the language placed between the Persian and the Assyrian, and before the last, must have been the idiom of a great and powerful nation, of some important people and dynasty. In fact, it was the language of the second great empire of Asia, of the kings of the so-called Median dynasty.

The names of these kings have been transmitted to us in two distinct lists, and in each there are quite different names; one is the list of Herodotus, the other that of Ctesias. We are not allowed to eliminate historical statements without examination; unfortunately, modern science is often addicted to this method of criticism; but, in fact, this method is highly uncritical. It is, indeed, easier to reject what we do not understand, than to understand what we ought not to reject. The two lists represent the same individuals, at least for the four latter kings transmitted by Herodotus.

The names given by Herodotus are the Turanian names of the monarchs, aryanized by the Aryan Medes; viz. Dejoces, Phraortes, Cyaxares, Astyages (or Astiÿges). These forms have, in the Aryan language, a meaning quite different from the Median original: the names given by Ctesias, followed by Diodorus, Eusebius, and Moses of Chorene, are the mere translation of the original Median meaning, in Persian or Arian language; viz. Artaeus, Artynes, Astibaras, Astyages. This is the rule for the four latter names. Diodorus gives five former kings, who have been reduced to three by almost all scholars. These five names are Arbaces, Modaces, Sosarmus, Artycas, and Arbianes. The two latter kings are evidently different Turanian names of Dejoces and Phraortes; Arbaces is a Median word signify