PREFACE
IN 1873 George Rawlinson published his Sixth Great Oriental Monarchy. Since that time no other extensive study devoted to Parthia has been written, although Rawlinson's admirable work did not include all of the classical references and obviously does not include the new source material which has since appeared. Because of these facts it was felt advisable to insert in this volume extensive references, both old and new, to the source material for the political history. The large amount of evidence for the cultural history of Parthia from Dura-Europus and Seleucia on the Tigris now in press and in preparation makes discussion of the cultural aspects inadvisable at present. This must be reserved for some future work on Parthia where the necessity of less documentation will allow of fuller interpretation of the political side of Parthia and the presentation of the new cultural material.
The present study was begun in 1927 as a dissertation at the University of Illinois under the direction of Professor A. T. Olmstead, now Oriental Institute Professor of Oriental History in the University of Chicago. It has been rewritten more than once since the writer came to the University of Chicago in 1929—a task which has been interrupted at intervals by
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