or 380, after having reigned seventy years. It is curious
that, although possessing the crown for so long a term, and enjoying a
more brilliant reign than any preceding monarch, he neither left behind
him any inscriptions, nor any sculptured memorials. The only material
evidences that we possess of his reign are his coins, which are
exceedingly numerous. According to Mordtmann, they may be divided into
three classes, corresponding to three periods in his life. The earliest
have on the reverse the fire-altar, with two priests, or guards, looking
towards the altar, and with the flame rising from the altar in the usual
way. The head on the obverse is archaic in type, and very much resembles
that of Sapor I. The crown has attached to it, in many cases, that
"cheek-piece" which is otherwise confined to the first three monarchs of
the line. These coins are the best from an artistic point of view; they
greatly resemble those of the first Sapor, but are distinguishable from
them, first, by the guards looking towards the altar instead of away
from it; and, secondly, by a greater profusion of pearls about the
king's person. The coins of the second period lack the "cheek-piece,"
and have on the reverse the fire-altar without supporters; they are
inferior as works of art to those of the first period, but much superior
to those of the third. These last, which exhibit a marked degeneracy,
are especially distinguished by having a human head in the middle of the
flames that rise from the altar. Otherwise they much resemble in their
emblems the early coins, only differing from them in being artistically
inferior. The ordinary legends upon the coins are in no respect
remarkable; but occasionally we find the monarch taking the new and
expressive epithet of Toham, "the Strong." [PLATE XIX., Fig. 1.]

[Illustration: PLATE 19]

CHAPTER XII.

_Short Reigns of Artaxerxes II. and Sapor III. Obscurity of their
History. Their Relations with Armenia. Monument of Sapor III. at
Tdkht-i-Bostan. Coins of Artaxerxes II. and Sapor III. Reign of Varahran
IV. His Signets. His Dealings with Armenia. His Death._

The glorious reign of Sapor II., which carried the New Persian Empire
to the highest point whereto it had yet attained, is followed by a time
which offers to that remarkable reign a most complete contrast. Sapor
had occupied the Persian throne for a space approaching nearly to
three-quarters of a century; the reigns of his next three