520 APPENDIX seems to place this event considerably before the overthrow of Phocas. The statement of course is not strictly correct ; Sebaeos himself ]5robably did not dis- tinguish the elder from the younger Heraclius ; but the fact that Egypt was occupied (by Nicetas) at the instance of the elder Heraclius, seems to be preserved in this notice, uncontaminated by the legend of the race for the diadem. 6. PERSIAN KINGS FROM CHOSROES I. TO YEZDEGERD III. (P. 9. 404) (See Noldeke, Tabari, p. 433-5) Chosroes I. Anosharvan succeeds a.d. 531, Sept. 13. Hormizd IV. ,, ,, 579, Febr. Chosroes II. Parvez ,, ,, 590, summer. dies ,, 628, Febr. [Bahram VI. succeeds ,, .590, autumn.] Kobad (Kavadh) II. (Sheroe) ,, ,, 628, Febr. 25.^ Ardashir III. ,, ,, 628, Sept. Shahrbaraz ,, ,, 630, April 27. Borau (queen) ,, ,, 630, summer. Peroz II. M ,, 631. Azarmidocht „ ,,631 (?) Hormizd V. ,, „ 631. Yezdegerd III. ,, „ 632-3. dies ,, 651-2. 7. THE INSCRIPTION OF SI-NGAN-FU— (P. 150) Gibbon showed his critical perspicacity when he accepted as genuine the famous Nestorian inscription of Si-ngan-fu, which was rejected by the scepticism of Voltaire and has been more recently denounced as a forgery by Stanislas Julien, Renan and others. All competent specialists, both European and Chinese, now recognise it as a genuine document of the eighth century ; and indeed it is im- possible to believe that Alvarez Semedo, the Jesuit missionary who first an- nounced the discovery of the stone, or any one else in the seventeenth century, could have composed this remarkable text. The stone was found at Si-ngan-fu, the old capital of the Tang dynasty, in a.d. 1623 or 1625. The Chinese inscription is surmounted by a cross (of the Slaltese shape). Besides tlie Chinese text, there are some lines of Syriac at the side and at the foot ; and t)ie seventy signatures are given in both idioms. The first attempts at translation were those of Athana- sius Kircher in his works entitled: " Prodromus Coptus " (1636) and "China i Uu strata " (1667) ; and of Father Semedo.' There have been several improved translations in the present century. For the following summary, the versions of Hue (Le Christianisme en Chine, en Tartaric et au Thibet, two vols., 1857 ; in vol. i. chap. 2, p. 52 sqq.) ; A. Wylie Hn the Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. v. p. 277 sqq., 1856); J. Legge (in Christianity in China, 1888); and, above all, of MM. Lamy and Gueluy (Le monument chretien de Si-ngan-fou, 1897) have been used. See also Pauthier, L'inscription Syro-Chinoise, and the summaries in Colonel Yule's Cathay, vol. i. p. xcii. sqq. and in Mr. Raymond Beazley's Dawn of Modern Geography, p. 169 sqq. The title at the head of the inscription is : " Stone-tablet touching the propagation of the luminous religion of Ta-tsin in the Middle Empire, with a preface ; composed by King-tsing, a monk of the temple of Ta-tsin ". 1 Gibbon could use Visdelou's translation in D'Herbelot, Bib. Or. iv. 375 sqq.
