Blair Collection > History of the Celtic language

CELTIC LANGUAGE. 81
to call one prs, is a sure signal for an Iliad. It is
the very word, with its Celtic plural termination,
which confounded the Eastern despot, and made his
knees smite together, when the mysterious hand
cyphered it on the wall, "|>o-i2 prsin, literally,
horsemen. This word, by prefixing the copulative
vau, and by supplying the vowel e where the in-
spired penman has it not, is radically destroyed ;
for/>;-5is converted into an animal to be sought but
never to be found, viz., '■'■peres" or ^' upharsin.''
Although the root is vitiated, the idea, however, is
retained; for Daniel renders it "the Persians" —
a descriptive appellation, because, not only of their
skill in horsemanship^ but that they literally deified
the horse. We may quote here, not inaptly, Hero-
dotus, lib. i. cap. 136.
" They," namely, the Persians, " instruct their children
from ihe\r fifth to their twentieth year in three things only ;
namely, in riding on horseback, in shooting with the bow,
and in telling truth."
And, again, lib. iv. p. 216.
" Their excellency in horsemanship they derived from the
wise institution of Cyrus ; for before his time, as Xenophon
informs us, on account both of the difficulty of riding in Persia,
and of feeding horses there, it was very unusual even to see
a horse. But by Cyrus' directions the Persians being become
horsemen, were so accustomed to riding that no person of any
note among them would willingly appear on foot : for Cyrus
had made a law that it should be infamous for any of those
whom he had furnished with horses to appear travelling on
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