.D. 217), whereby Rome undertook to pay to Parthia an
indemnity of above a million and a half of our money. It is probable
that the payment was mostly made in aurei. Artaxerxes thus found current
in the countries, which he overran and formed into an empire, two
coinages--a gold and a silver--coming from different sources and
possessing no common measure. It was simpler and easier to retain what
existed, and what had sufficiently adjusted itself through the working
of commercial needs, than to invent something new; and hence the
anomalous character of the New Persian monetary system.

The remarkable bas-relief of Artaxerxes described above and figured
below in the chapter on the Art of the Sassanians, is accompanied by
a bilingual inscription, or perhaps we should say by two bilingual
inscriptions, which possess much antiquarian and some historic interest.
The longer of the two runs as follows:--"Pathkar zani mazdisn bagi
Artahshatr, malkan malka Airan, minuchitri min Ydztan, bari bagi Pap-aki
malka;" while the Greek version of it is--

[Illustration: INSCRIPTION, PAGE 278]

The inscriptions are interesting, first, as proving the continued use
of the Greek character and language by a dynasty that was intensely
national and that wished to drive the Greeks out of Asia. Secondly, they
are interesting as showing the character of the native language, and
letters, employed by the Persians, when they came suddenly into notice
as the ruling people of Western Asia. Thirdly, they have an historic
interest in what they tell us of the relationship of Artaxerxes to Babek
(Papak), of the rank of Babek, and of the religious sympathies of the
Sassanians. In this last respect they do indeed, in themselves, little
but confirm the evidence of the coins and the general voice of antiquity
on the subject. Coupled, however, with the reliefs to which they are
appended, they do more. They prove to us that the Persians of the
earliest Sassanian times were not averse to exhibiting the great
personages of their theology in sculptured forms; nay, they reveal to us
the actual forms then considered appropriate to Ahura-Mazda (Ormazd) and
Angro-Mainyus (Ahriman); for we can scarcely be mistaken in regarding
the prostrate figure under the hoofs of Ahura-Mazda's steed as the
antagonist Spirit of Evil. Finally, the inscriptions show that, from
the commencement of their sovereignty, the Sassanian princes claimed
for themselves a qualified divinity, a