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.