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 successors amounted to no more than twenty years in the aggregate.  Sapor had been engaged in perpetual wars, had spread the terror of the Persian arms on all sides, and ruled more gloriously than any of his predecessors.  The kings who followed him were pacific and unenterprising; they were almost unknown to their neighbors, and are among the least distinguished of the Sassanian monarchs.  More especially does this character attach to the two immediate successors of Sapor II., viz.  Artaxerxes II. and Sapor III.  They reigned respectively four and five years; and their annals during this period are almost a blank.  Artaxerxes II., who is called by some the brother of Sapor II., was more probably his son.  He succeeded his father in A.D. 379, and died at Ctesiphon in A.D. 383.  He left a character for kindness and amiability behind him, and is known to the Persians as Nihoukar, or “the Beneficent,” and to the Arabs as Al