on so large a scale to the states of their rivals, and frequently their foes, for such were the kings of Syria? It is known from the history of the successors of Alexander, that among the armies of the chieftains who settled in the interior Asiatic provinces which were more remote from the sea coast, there always were a few native Greeks, and that their troops chiefly consisted of Asiatic barbarians, of whom some corps were taught the Macedonian exercise, and therefore by writers frequently are called Macedonians. They stood in nearly the same relation to the Greeks as the Sepoys in the service of the English East India Company stand to the native English. Under such circumstances, the rapidly increasing population of the sixteen, and some of them very large, cities, founded by Seleucus, mentioned above, would have been impossible, unless the interior of Asia a had furnished the greatest number of the colonists. Syria, in its ancient extent, i. e. Mesopotamia, Babylonia, &c. had from time immemorial, and long before

z Diodor. Sicul. xix. 14. F. Foy-Vaillant Seleucidarum imperium s. historia regum Syriae ad fidem numismatum adumbrata. Hagae Com. 1732, fol. p. 49, 50, and in many other places.

a T. S. Bayeri historia Osrhoena et Edessena ex numis illustrata. Petropol. 1734, 4to, p. 9, sqq.

C

b

the Greeks, contained a vast number of large cities, which partly in the wars had been destroyed, or greatly fallen into decay. What then is more natural to suppose, than that the inhabitants who fled from the devastated towns, again gathered together in those which had been newly founded, or enlarged, by Seleucus; and that they left others, which were in a state of decay in order to settle there? Thus then it happened that great colonies of native Arameans settled in these towns, and that at the very commencement, even Jews came to reside in Antioch and other cities, enjoying the same privileges as the other inhabitants. It is therefore manifest that the number of native Greeks who chose their abode under the sceptre of the Seleucidae in the new cities of Mesopotamia, and other countries subject to their dominions, was much too inconsiderable to expatriate the Aramaic language in the cities, and still more, to effect such a change in the plains of the country, in the possession of which the natives still maintained themselves. Likewise, from the double Aramaic and Greek names which these and other Syrian cities always retained, © a proof of some weight b Josephi Antiq. Jud. xii. 3. 1.

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Ammian. Marcellin. xiv. 8. Seleucus founded cities strong in opulence and power, most of which, although

may be drawn; for how could the Aramaic: names have subsisted, unless a great number of the inhabitants and neighbours had preserved them along with the still current Aramaic language?

2. Among the Palmyrian inscriptions, d many of which are from as early an age as that of Alexander the Great, several have been found composed in the Aramaic language; and the Tyrians had even medals coined in honour of a Syrian prince of Grecian descent, Antiochus the Fourth, surnamed Epiphanes, partly with Greek and Syro-Phoenician, and partly with Syro-Phoenician inscriptions alone; some of which have been preserved even to our time. This surely proves, clearly enough, that in the

called by Greek names, still retain the primeval Assyrian ones, which their ancient founders gave to them, Joseph. Ant. Jud. viii. 6. 1. He (Solomon) founded a city which he called Thadamora, and by that name it is still called by the Syrians, but the Greeks style it Palmyra. 2 Chron. viii. 4.

d Les Ruines de Palmyre, Lond. 1753. Reflexions sur l'Alphabet et sur la langue, dont on se servoit autrefois à Palmyre, par l'Abbé Barthelemy, in the Mem. de l'Acad. des Inscript. Tom. xxvi. p. 577, sq. Relandi Palestina, p. 526.

e

Engravings of them may be seen in the above quoted work of Foy-Vaillant, p. 106 and 109.

age

of the Seleucidæ, the Greek language had not obtained exclusive dominion in the countries over which they ruled. The objection against this proposition, which might be drawn from many Greek coins of the Seleucidæ, needs no confutation, as every one knows that it was no more the custom in ancient than in modern times to provide every coin with inscriptions in the language of the country. Probably the masters of the coinage were Greeks, and found coins with regular Grecian uncial letters more beautiful than the oriental figures to which they were unaccustomed.

3. After the subjugation of the Syrian Monarchy by the Romans, who, as well as the Byzantine emperors, at a subsequent period, maintained for a considerable time, a dominion

f [This hypothesis of Dr. Pfannkuche, is rendered highly probable by historical analogy. In the 10th, 11th, and 12th centuries, the masters of coinage in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, were Englishmen, almost without exception; and all these coin-masters were so patriotic, that they made the inscriptions of the coins generally in the Anglo-Saxon language, and certainly never in the language of the country in which the coin was to have currency. Latin, it seems, was sometimes forced upon them, but then they always expressed even that learned tongue with Anglo-Saxon characters.]

[ Less correctly, but more commonly, these are styled Capital letters.]

over the countries belonging to it; and yet were often compelled to allow the formation of certain independent states, which arose in Mesopotamia and neighbouring provinces; and during a certain time entirely to surrender great tracts of country to the Parthians and other oriental nations-the Aramaic language still continued to be the vulgar tongue in these regions, as is rendered manifest by the necessity of preparing Syriac versions of the Bible, (of which the Peschito being one, certainly existed already at the conclusion of the third century after Christ,) and Syriac Homilies, and commentaries on the Bible. Whenever certain parts of these countries, for a time, made themselves independent of the Romans, as the kingdom of Edessa ;" and subsequently that of Palmyra, the public records and other writ

b Bayer historia Osrhoena, praef. p. 5. The letter too, which Christ is said to have written to Abgar, was originally written in Aramaic, and is from that language translated into Greek. Now the forger of this letter would certainly not have chosen that language for his composition, unless at Abgar's time it had been the prevailing language in Edessa. See the work just quoted, p. 104.

Even the letter of the queen Zenobia, by which she answered the letter of the emperor Aurelian, was written in Syriac. Nikomachus translated it into Greek. Vopiscus in Aureliano, C. 27.