lacking in energy. Whenever it made an effort to enforce its claims, it retreated so soon as it was confronted by a resolute foe.
Thus the wars between Parthia and Rome proceeded, not from the Parthians—deeply injured though they were by the encroachments of Pompey—but from Rome herself. Rome had been obliged, reluctantly enough, to enter upon the inheritance of Alexander the Great; and, since the time of Pompey, had definitely subjected to her Wars with Crassus and Antonius. dominion the Hellenistic countries as far as the Euphrates. Thus the task now faced them of annexing the remainder of the Macedonian Empire, the whole East from the Euphrates to the Indus, and of thereby saving Greek civilization (cf. Plut. Comp. Nic. et Crass. 4). The aristocratic republic quailed before such an enterprise, though Lucullus, at the height of his successes, entertained the thought (Plut. Luc. 30). But the ambitious men, whose goal was to erect their own sovereignty on the ruins of the republic, took up the project. With this objective M. Licinius Crassus, the triumvir, in 54 B.C., took the aggressive against Parthia, the occasion being favourable owing to the dynastic troubles between Orodes I., the son of Phraates III., and his brother Mithradates III. Crassus fell on the field of Carrhae (June 9, 53 B.C.). With this Mesopotamia was regained by the Parthians, and King Artavasdes of Armenia now entered their alliance. But, apart from the ravaging of Syria (51 B.C.) by Pacorus the son of Orodes, the threatened attack on the Roman Empire was carried into effect neither then nor during the civil wars of Caesar and Pompey. At the time of his assassination Caesar was intent on resuming the expedition of Crassus. The Parthians formed a league with Brutus and Cassius, as previously with Pompey, but gave them no support, until in 40 B.C. a Parthian army, led by Pacorus and the republican general Labienus, harried Syria and Asia Minor. But it was easily repulsed by Ventidius Bassus, the lieutenant of Mark Antony. Pacorus himself fell on the 9th of June 38 B.C. at Gindarus in northern Syria. Antony then attacked the Parthians in 36 B.C., and penetrated through Armenia into Atropatene, but was defeated by Phraates IV.—who in 37 B.C. had murdered his father Orodes I.—and compelled to retreat with heavy losses. The continuation of the war was frustrated by the conflict with Octavian. Armenia alone was again subdued in 34 B.C. by Antony, who treacherously captured and executed King Artavasdes.
Roman opinion universally expected that Augustus would take up the work of his predecessors, annihilate the Parthian dominion, and subdue the East as far as the Indians, Scythians and Seres (cf. Horace and the other Augustan poets). But Augustus disappointed these expectations. His whole policy and the needs of the newly Policy of Augustus. organized Roman Empire demanded peace. His efforts were devoted to reaching a modus vivendi, by which the authority of Rome and her most vital claims might be peacefully vindicated. This the weakness of Parthia enabled him to effect without much difficulty. His endeavours were seconded by the revolt of Tiridates II., before whom Phraates IV. was compelled to flee (32 B.C.), till restored by the Scythians. Augustus lent no support to Tiridates in his second march on Ctesiphon (26 B.C.), but Phraates was all the more inclined on that account to stand on good terms with him. Consequently in 20 B.C., he restored the standards captured in the victories over Crassus and Antony, and recognized the Roman suzerainty over Osroene and Armenia. In return, the Parthian dominion in Babylonia and the other vassal states was left undisputed.
Thus it was due not to the successes and strength of the Parthians but entirely to the principles of Roman policy as defined by Augustus that their empire appears as a second great independent power, side by side with Rome. The precedence of the Caesars, indeed, was always admitted by the Arsacids; and Phraates IV. soon entered into a state of dependency on Rome by sending (9 B.C.) four of his sons as hostages to Augustus—a convenient method of obviating the danger threatened in their person, without the necessity of killing them. In 4 B.C., however, Phraates was assassinated by his favourite wife Musa and her son Phraates V. In the subsequent broils a Parthian faction obtained the release of one of the princes interned in Rome as Vonones I. (A.D. 8). He failed, however, to maintain his position for long. He was a stranger to the Parthian customs, and the feeling of shame at dependency on the foreigner was too strong. So the rival faction brought out another Arsacid, resident among the Scythian nomads, Artabanus II., who easily expelled Vonones—only to create a host of enemies by his brutal cruelty, and to call forth fresh disorders.
Similar proceedings were frequently repeated in the period
following. In the intervals the Parthians made several attempts
to reassert their dominion over Armenia and there
install an Arsacid prince; but on each occasion
they retreated without giving battle so soon as the
Romans prepared for war. Only the dynasty of Atropatene
Reign of
Votogaeses I.
was finally deposed and the country placed under an Arsacid
ruler. Actual war with Rome broke out under Vologaeses I.
(51–77), who made his brother Tiridates king of Armenia.
After protracted hostilities, in which the Roman army was
commanded by Cn. Domitius Corbulo, a peace was concluded
in A.D. 63, confirming the Roman suzerainty over Armenia but
recognizing Tiridates as king (see Corbulo). Tiridates himself
visited Rome and was there invested with the diadem by
Nero (A.D. 66). After that Armenia continued under the rule
of an Arsacid dynasty.
These successes of Vologaeses were counterbalanced by serious losses in the East. He was hampered in an energetic campaign against Rome by attacks of the Dahae and Sacae. Hyrcania, also, revolted and asserted its independence under a separate line of kings. A little later, the Alans, a great Iranian tribe in the south of Russia—the ancestors of the present-day Ossets—broke for the first time through the Caucasian passes, and ravaged Media and Armenia—an incursion which they often repeated in the following centuries.
On the other side, the reign of Vologaeses I. is characterized by a great advance in the Oriental reaction against Hellenism. The line of Arsacids which came to the throne in the person of Artabanus II. (A.D. 10) stands in open opposition to the old kings with their leanings to Rome and, at least external, tinge of Hellenism. The new régime obviously laid much more stress on the Oriental character of their state, though Philostratus, in his life of Apollonius of Tyana (who visited the Parthian court), states that Vardanes I. (A.D. 40–45), the rival king to the brutal Gotarzes (A.D. 40–51), was a cultivated man (Vit. Ap. i. 22, 28, 31 sqq.); and Vologaeses I. is distinguished by the excellent relations which subsisted all his life between himself and his brothers Pacorus and Tiridates, the kings of Media and Armenia. But the coins of Vologaeses I. are quite barbarous, and for the first time on some of them appear the initials of the name of the king in Aramaic letters by the side of the Greek legend. The Hellenism of Seleucia was now attacked with greater determination. For seven years (A.D. 37–43) the city maintained itself in open rebellion (Tac. Ann. xi. 8 seq.), till at last it surrendered to Vardanes, who in consequence enlarged Ctesiphon, which was afterwards fortified by Pacorus (A.D. 78–105: v. Ammian. 23, 6, 23). In the neighbourhood of the same town Vologaeses I. founded a city Vologesocerta (Balashkert), to which he attempted to transplant the population to Seleucia (Plin. vi. 122: cf. Th. Nöldeke in Zeitschr. d. deutsch. morgenl. Gesellschaft, xxviii., 100). Another of his foundations was Vologesias (the Arabian Ullaish), situated near Hira on the Euphrates, south of Babylon, which did appreciable damage to the commerce of Seleucia and is often mentioned in inscriptions as the destination of the Palmyrene caravans.
After Vologaeses I. follows a period of great disturbances. The literary tradition, indeed, deserts us almost entirely, but the coins and isolated literary references prove that during the years A.D. 77 to 147, two kings, and sometimes three or more, were often reigning concurrently (Vologaeses II. 77–79, and 111–147; Pacorus 78–c. 105; Osroes 106–129; Mithradates V. 129–147; also Artabanus III. 80–81; Mithradates IV. and his
