The story of Rawlinson's achievement is warrant of the claim. About sixty years ago, being then a lieutenant, he was sent to Persia to drill the army of the Shah. His interest in Oriental history and antiquities was already keen, and he was glad to find himself in regions rich in materials the obscurity of whose meaning quickened inquiry. Among these was a trilingual inscription, dating from the early part of the sixth century B.C., cut on the face of a bare precipitous rock at Behistun, about twenty miles from Kirmanshah, a district abounding in monuments of the past (fig. 39). At the risk of life and limb he climbed the face of the steep cliff to make copies of such portions of the inscriptions as were accessible with the means at his command, and after a series of efforts, continued at intervals through several years, he finally secured a complete transcript of so much of the writing as time had left uninjured. The inscription is in three languages--Babylonian, Mede or Scythian, and Persian--arranged in parallel columns containing above one thousand lines. It commemorates "the life and acts of Darius Hystaspes, his conquests, and the nations under his sway." Bas-reliefs portray that monarch, bow in hand, sitting with his feet on the prostrate usurper, Gaumates, while a train of nine rebel princes, whose names are inscribed above their effigies, stand before the "king of kings," chained together by the neck. Two of the monarch's soldiers are in the rear. Over Gaumates is written: "This is Gaumates, the Magian; he lied; he said, I am Smerdis, son of Cyrus." The same formula occurs over the heads of each of the nine captives. "This is (M); he lied; he said he was king of (N)." The inscription begins with a solemn invocation to Ormuzd, the old Persian god of light and purity, and passes on to detail the claim of Darius to the throne of the Achæmenids and the possessions of the Persian crown. It tells of the defeat of Smerdis, and of the revolt of Susiana, a province lying between Persia and Babylonia. "I sent thither an army, and the rebel Atrina was brought in chains before me; I slew him." The same story is narrated concerning other rebellious subjects. Of one Phraortes, it is told that his nose, ears, and tongue were cut off, and that he was "crucified at Ecbatana, together with his accomplices." Then the inscription proceeds: