(Sa-pa-ra).[682] It bears the following (cuneiform) inscription in three places: (1) along the whole length of the flat blade, inside edge; (2) along the back; and (3) on the outside edge, where it is divided into two lines:—
E-kal Vul-nirari sar kissati abli Bu-di-il Sar Assuri
Abli Bel-nirari Sar Assuri va—
(The Palace of Vul-nirari, King of Nations, son of Budil,[683] Sar (king) of Assyria, son of Bel-nirari, Sar of Assyria, and—)
Fig. 221.—Bronze Sword bearing the Name of Vul-nirari I., found near Diarbekr.
THE SWORD IN PERSIA.
And now, proceeding east, we may note that the Persepolis sculptures distinctly show, as we might expect, Assyrian and Babylonian derivation. The Persians are, despite their prodigious pretensions, a comparatively modern people,[684] and they were rude enough when armed only with sling, lasso, and knife. The date of Hakhámanish (Achæmenes), the hero eponymus of the ruling family, can hardly be made to precede b.c. 700. This was about the time (b.c. 721–706) when Sargon II. first mentions the Greeks as the Yaha of Yatnan (Yunan = Ionia), who sent him tribute from Cyprus and beyond. The Medes, before the reign of Cyaxares had conducted the Persians from the Caspian regions into Media Magna, were mere barbarians, like the Iliyát or Iranian nomades of the present day, who number from a quarter to a half of the population. But in starting into life Persia succeeded to a rich inheritance—Babylon. To this conquest (b.c. 538) she was led by her hero king, Cyrus the Great, or rather Kurush[685] the elder, son of Cambyses (Xenophon), not father of Cambyses (Herodotus), and a contemporary of Darius the Mede.[686] Their courage and conduct, their loyalty and simplicity, their wise laws, their generosity and their love of truth,[687] now unhappily extinct, raised them in Herodotus’ day to the proud position of ‘Lords of Asia.’
