Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/634

606 PERSIA [PARTHIAN EMPIRE. 219-228. native princes. Camnascires appears as an old man on coins of 82 and 81 B.C., and his ten successors whom we know from the coins carry us down to 36 A.D., the latest date at which the Klymreans are mentioned as independent (Tac., Ann., vi. 44). The older coins have Greek inscriptions and often figures of Greek gods, but under the fifth successor of Camnascires, i.e., about the time of Christ, Pahlavi takes the place of Greek and Mithras of Serapis. The silver class, again, has in all three series Pahlavi legends and the fire-altar on the reverse. The first series has seven princes with the unexplained title "Feritkara," the second has three kings (Malka), the third ten kings ; the names are throughout either Acluenieiiian (Artahshetr, Daryav), pointing perhaps to a claim of Achajmenian descent, or sacred names like those common with the Sasanians (Nerseh, Yezdikert), or are taken from sacred legend (Minuchetr). The second and third series appear to be continuous (against Mordtmann) ; the last king of the second series is Zaturdat (II.), the first of the third Daryav (I.) son of Zaturdat. With Daryav I. the kings assume a Parthian costume, and his son Artahshetr II. is the only king of that name who from the number and various types of his coins can be fairly identified with the Artaxerxes of Isidore of Charax, who reigned " in the time of his fathers " (c. 80-50 B.C.), and was slain at the age of ninety-three by his brother Gosithres. As Daryav I. must also have reigned for a considerable time this datum places him about the commencement of the Parthian supremacy, which naturally explains his Parthian dress. Then the princes of the first silver series will be Seleucid vassals, and the shorter series of kings before Daryav independent princes falling between the Seleucid and Parthian suzerainty. Finally Gosithres, brother of Artahshetr II., has the same name as Gozihr, the last Ba/rangi king before the rise of the Sasanians, so that it was probably one dynasty. The eight kings, in at least six different generations, who appear on coins between Artahshetr II. and Ti rdat II., will carry us roughly to the middle of the second Christian century, leaving a space sufficient for Gozihr, the last Bazrangian, and the anarchy of the first days of the Sasaniaus. The emblems on the coins show that Persis was always loyally Zoroastrian, and at Istakhr stood the famous fire- temple of the goddess Anahedh. Its priest was Sasan, whose marriage with a Bazrangian princess, liambehisht, laid the foundation of the greatness of his house, while priestly influence, which was very strong, doubtless favoured its rise. Pabak, son of Sasan, and Ardashir, son of Pabak, begin the history of the Sasanian dynasty, which occupies the next section of this article. Artabanus did nothing to check the use of the new power till Ardashir had all Persis in his hand (221) and had begun to erect a palace and temple at G6r (Firuzabad). Nir6far, king of Elymais, was then sent against him, but was defeated, and now Ardashir passed beyond Persis and successively reduced Ispahan (Pareeta- cene), Ahwaz (Elymais), and Mesene. 1 After this victory Ardashir sent a challenge to Artabanus himself ; their armies met by appointment in the plain of Hormizdjan, and Artabanus fell (28th April 227). Ctesiphon and Babylonia must have fallen not much later, though Vola- gases V. seems to have re-established himself there on his brother s death, and a tetradrachm of 539 Sel. shows that he held the city till autumn 227. The conquest of Assyria and great part of Media and Parthia is assigned by Dio expressly or by implication to the year 228, and so the Parthian empire was at an end. Indo- The part of Parthia of which Dio speaks can only be Choarene and Iranian Comisene ; it was only in a later expedition that Ardashir reached frontier. Sacastane, Hyrcania, Xishapur, and Merv, and these do not seem to have been Parthian. Indeed, from 58 A.D. Comisene appears to have been the most eastern satrapy of the Arsacid empire. Eastern Iran was in this period very flourishing under the Tochari of the dynasty which Indian sources call Turushka, and which can be traced on inscriptions till 213 and 259 (or 359). Kanishka, the founder of the dynasty, is said to have ruled Cabul and all Hindustan, and in fact his coins extend over all northern India. The empire of which Kashmir was a main province was wider than that of the Greeks had been, and also more consolidated, for strategi took the place of the native kings (Journ. As., ser. 3, viii. 264, and ser. 4, x. 95). So, 1 The flourishing state of Mesene had, as its coins show, been long sinking into barbarism ; the latest date they supply is 167 (Z. f. Num., viii. 212 .<sf/.). A little earlier, in 143, they are associated with coins of Meredates, son of Phobas, king of the Ornanians. The latter, already known to I liny as dwelling in the desert west of Charax, must be the Azd from Oman, a part of whom shared the great migration and finally settled in Anbar and I lira. too, Kanishka banished the native language from his coins, usin<* Greek letters and his own foreign language. His predecessor had supplanted the Greek gods, except Helios, by Oriental divinities, and now Helios too gives way to the Iranian Mupo or Mtopo. The motley pantheon on the coins of Kanishka and his successors gives tin interesting glimpse of the faiths of the Indo-Iranian frontier. We find here the old Iranian popular deities : Mao, the moon-god ; Mupo, the sun-god ; Nava, the goddess of war ; Oado, the wind-god ; Opayvo, i.e., Yerethraghno (see Benfey, Z. D. M. G., viii. 459) ; Avpo, identical with the Zoroastrian Ahura-mazda ; we find also abstrac tions like the Izeds of the heavenly hierarchy in official Zoroastrian- ism, e.g. , Ovip, i.e., Aniran, the eternal self-created lights, and <i>appo (Pers.,/rm - ; synonymous with Zend, hvartnd), the royal majesty, side by side with Indian deities, such as Siva, and a number of un known deities with barbarous names brought from the old homes of the Tochari. Heracles and Helios appear transformed by barbarous pronunciation or epithets, and Zapairo is the cosmopolitan Serapis, probably introduced, as in Elymais, by Alexandrian sailors. Buddha, too, appears (Sallet, Nachf. AL, p. 189 sq.). The Buddhists were the most active religious body in the kingdom, and the king, if not actually a convert, as the legend claims, showed them such favour as gave their faith a wide missionary field and unparalleled success. The kings built many Buddhist meeting-houses, monasteries, and shrines, and it was Kanishka who called together in Kashmir the council of 500 fathers that finally redacted the Tripitaka collection. Ptolemy (vi:. 1, 47) speaks of Tochari as the HaffTnpa.1oi ; the Chinese bear witness to their might in 159 ; and from 220 to 265 their empire retained its old compass (Journ. As., ser. 3, viii. 263, 268). Kashmir was lost in the course of the 3d century, but the western provinces remained. About 100 A.D. Greek ceased to be understood in east Iran, and from this. time we can trace a growing Iranian influence on the coins of the Tochari, especially in the Sasanian period. The latest coins of the Tochari come mostly from Balkh, so that they seem to have been gradually pushed backwards to the point from which they started. Finally, their empire was overthrown by another branch of their own race, for, early in the 5th century, those of the Great Yue-chi who had remained in their old homes, a little west of Badakhshan, were compelled, by the pressure of the Juan- juan of Tartary, to move west to Po-lo or Balkh, and thence, under their warlike king Ki-to-lo (Kidara ; whence they are called Cidaritic Huns by Prisons, in Fr. II. Gr., iv. 102), crossed the Hindu-Knsh and destroyed the old empire of the Tochari, founding in its place the kingdom of the Little Yue-chi. The date of this invasion can, from a variety of data, be fixed as c. 430, jnst about the time when the Sasanians, in 429, destroyed the last of the Arsacids in Armenia ; and with this agrees the Indian statement that eighteen Caka kings reigned 380 years (50-430 A.D. ). Their successors were still powerful in India about 520, and in their old homes their empire fell in 562. Sources. 1. FOE THE MACEDONIAN PERIOD. For Alexander the sources are of two classes. (1) Arrian, and for the most part Plutarch also, drew from ottieial Macedonian sources, especially the works of King Ptolemy anil Aristo- bulus of Cassandrea. (2) An unofficial history, written by a Greek Clitarehus for the Greeks, is faithfully excerpted by Diodorus. Curtins and Justin (or rather Trogus) drew from a later work based on the same source but supplemented by extracts from a book of the first class and another book hostile to Alexander and of very indifferent authority. Droysen follows the writings of the first class exclusively, and indeed for military and historical points they alone are to be trusted. Grote uses also the works of the second class, which, though rhetorical, romantic, and uncritical, have the advantage of telling us many things that the official histories pass over, and, though they show little judg ment themselves, are rich in materials to guide our .judgment. The historian must deal with the material as a philologist would deal with a book preserved in two classes of MSS., one good, the other interpolated but independent. One must first restore as nearly as may be the archetype of the second class and then use it to correct the text or here the history based on the first class. For the immediate successors of Alexander, Diodorus, the excerpts from Arrian in Photius, and Plutarch s lives of Eumenes and Demetrius are our best guides, all three drawing from the excellent Hieronymns of Cardia. Trogus (Justin) makes a defective use of indifferent, sources, and is good for little. Droysen s is the best modern book ; Grote is useful because he does not take so purely Macedonian a standpoint, but he deals mainly with the West. We have no really continuous ancient account for 801-220 B.C., for Justin s narrative is even less worthy of the name of a history than in the preceding period. The scattered material is best collected by Droysen. From 220 onwards we have the excellent work of Polybius, at first complete and then in large excerpts. There are some good modern monographs, but nothing that can be railed even a tolerable general history of the latest period of Macedonian rule in Asia. 2. FOR THE PARTHIAN PERIOD. The only continuous account of Parthian and Bactrian history which has reached us is Justin s abridgment of Trogus Pompcins, ending with 9 B.C., and having also a lacuna, due to Justin s care lessness, between 94 and 55 B.C. Fur the wars with Home in 53 and 30 B.C., Plutarch s Crassus and Antonius give full accounts. Under the early Civsars the Parthians were, in a sense, viewed as sharing the empire of the world with Rome (Strabo, xi. p. 515 ; Just., xli. 1, 1), and Roman historians began briefly to note events in Parthian history which had no direct connexion with Roman affairs. Thus, from 69 B.C. to 72 A.D., Dio, Josephus, and Tacitus give us pretty complete accounts. Between 94 and 09 B.C. and between 72 anil 227 A.n. the history is very much lost. The coins are most valuable, especially after 37 B.C., when they begin to be dated ; for the later period they are our chief aid, the excerpts from Dio not helping us much. Aiih. Foy Vaillant, Arsacidnrvm imperinm (Paris, 1728), and Du Four de Longuerue, A nnales A rsandarum (Strasb., 1732), are still indispensable compila tions, to which G. E. J. Guilhem de Sainte-Croix, "Mem. sur le gouvernement des Parthes," Mem. Ac laser., 1. 48 sr/., 755 S(]., gives a good supplement. The most important modern books are those that explain the coins historically