create a great and united dominion, such as existed under the Achaemenids and was afterwards restored by the Sassanids. This fact is the clearest symptom of the inner weakness of their empire and of the small power wielded by the Character of the Parthian Empire. “king of kings.” In contrast alike with its predecessors and its successors, the Arsacid dominion was peculiarly a chance formation—a state which had come into existence through fortuitous external circumstances, and had no firm foundation within itself, or any intrinsic raison d’être.
Three elements, of widely different kinds, contributed to its origin and defined its character. It was sprung from a predatory nomad tribe (the Parnian Dahae, Scythians) which had established itself in Khorasan (Parthia), on the borders of civilization, and thence gradually annexed further districts as the political situation or the weakness of its neighbours allowed. Consequently, these nomads were the main pillar of the empire, and from them were obviously derived the great magnates, with their huge estates and hosts of serfs, who composed the imperial council, led the armies, governed the provinces and made and unmade the kings (Strabo xi. 515; Justin xli. 2; the former terming them συγγενεῖς, “kinsmen” of the king, the latter, probuli). Of these great families that of Surenas held the privilege of setting the diadem on the head of the new king (Plut. Crass. 21; Tac. Ann. vi. 42).
The military organization, moreover, was wholly nomadic in character. The nucleus of the army was formed of armoured horsemen, excellently practised for long-distance fighting with bow and javelin, but totally unable to venture on a hand-to-hand conflict, their tactics being rather to swarm round the enemy’s squadrons and overwhelm them under a hail of missiles. When attacked they broke up, as it seemed, in hasty and complete flight, and having thus led the hostile army to break its formation, they themselves rapidly reformed and renewed the assault. How difficult it was for infantry to hold their own against these mounted squadrons was demonstrated by the Roman campaigns, especially in broad plains like those of Mesopotamia. In winter, however, the Parthians were powerless to wage war, as the moisture of the atmosphere relaxed their bows. The infantry, in contrast with its earlier status under the Persians, was wholly neglected. On the other hand, every magnate put into the field as many mounted warriors as possible, chiefly servants and bought slaves, who, like the Janissaries and Mamelukes, were trained exclusively for war. Thus Surenas, in 53 B.C., is said to have put at the king’s disposal 1000 mailed horsemen and, in all, 10,000 men, including the train, which also comprised his attendants and harem (Plut. Crass. 21; description of the military organization; Dio Cass. 40, 15; Justin xli. 2). In the army of 50,000 mounted men which took the field against Mark Antony there were, says Justin, only 400 freemen.
How vital was the nomadic element in the Parthian Empire is obvious from the fact that, in civil wars, the deposed kings consistently took refuge among the Dahae or Scythians and were restored by them. But, in Parthia, these nomads were amalgamated with the native peasantry, and, with their religion, had adopted their dress and manners. The Iranian Population. Even the kings, after the first two or three, wear their hair and beard long, in the Iranian fashion, whereas their predecessors are beardless. Although the Arsacids are strangers to any deep religious interest (in contrast to the Achaemenids and Sassanids), they acknowledge the Persian gods and the leading tenets of Zoroastrianism. They erect fire-altars, and even obey the command to abandon all corpses to the dogs and fowls (Justin xli. 3). The union, moreover, recommended by that creed, between brother and sister—and even son and mother—occurs among them. Consequently, beside the council of the nobility, there is a second council of “Magians and wise men” (Strabo xi. 515).
Again, they perpetuate the traditions of the Achaemenid Empire. The Arsacids assume the title “king of kings” and derive their line from Artaxerxes II. Further, the royal apotheosis, so common among them and recurring under the Sassanids, is probably not so much of Greek origin as a development of Iranian views. For at the side of the great god Ahuramazda there stands a host of subordinate divine beings who execute his will—among these the deified heroes of legend, to whose circle the king is now admitted, since on him Ahuramazda has bestowed victory and might.
This gradual Iranianization of the Parthian Empire is shown by the fact that the subsequent Iranian traditions, and Firdousi in particular, apply the name of the “Parthian” magnates (Pahlavan) to the glorious heroes of the legendary epoch. Consequently, also, the language and writing of the Parthian period, which are retained under the Sassanids, received the name Pahlavi, i.e. “Parthian.” The script was derived from the Aramaic.
But to these Oriental elements must be added that of Hellenism, the dominant world-culture which had penetrated into Parthia and Media. It was indispensable to every state which hoped to play some part in the world and was not so utterly secluded as Persis and Atropatene; and the Arsacids entertained the less thought of opposition as Relation towards Hellenism. they were destitute of an independent national basis. All their external institutions were borrowed from the Seleucid Empire: their coinage with its Greek inscriptions and nomenclature; their Attic standard of currency; and, doubtless, a great part of their administration also. In the towns Greek merchants were everywhere settled. Mithradates I. even followed the precedent of the Seleucids in building a new city, Arsacia, which replaced the ancient Rhagae (Rai, Europus) in Media. The further the Arsacids expanded the deeper they penetrated into the province of Hellenism; the first Mithradates himself assumed, after his great conquests, the title of Philhellen, “the protector of Hellenism,” which was retained by almost all his successors. Then follow the surnames Epiphanes “the revealed god,” Dicaeus “the just,” Euergetes “the benefactor,” all of them essentially Greek in their reference, and also regularly borne by all the kings. After the conquest of the Euphrates and Tigris provinces it was imperative that the royal residence should be fixed there. But as no one ventured to transfer the royal household and the army, with its hordes of wild horsemen, to the Greek town of Seleucia, and thus disorganize its commerce, the Arsacids set up their abode in the great village of Ctesiphon, on the left bank of the Tigris, opposite to Seleucia, which accordingly retained its free Hellenic constitution (see Ctesiphon and Seleucia). So, also, Orodes I. spoke good Greek, and Greek tragedies were staged at his court (Plut. Crass. 33).
In spite of this, however, the rise of the Arsacid Empire marks the beginning of a reaction against Hellenism—not, indeed, a conscious or official reaction, but a reaction which was all the more effective because it depended on the impetus of circumstances working with all the power of a natural force. The essential point is that the East is completely Reaction against Hellenism. divorced from the Mediterranean and the Hellenic world, that it can derive no fresh powers from that quarter, and that, consequently, the influence of the Oriental elements must steadily increase. This process can be most clearly traced on the coins—almost the sole memorials that the Parthian Empire has left. From reign to reign the portraits grow poorer and more stereotyped, and the inscriptions more neglected, till it becomes obvious that the engraver himself no longer understood Greek but copied mechanically the signs before his eyes, as is the case with the contemporary Indo-Scythian coinage, and also in Mesene. Indeed, after Vologaeses I. (51–77), the Aramaic script is occasionally employed. The political opposition to the western empires, the Seleucids first, then the Romans, precipitated this development. Naturally enough the Greek cities beheld a liberator in every army that marched from the West, and were ever ready to cast in their lot with such—disposition for which the subsequent penalty was not lacking. The Parthian magnates, on the other hand, with the army, would have little to do with Greek culture and Greek modes of life, which they contemptuously regarded as effeminate and unmanly. Moreover, they required of their rulers that they should live in the fashion of their country, practise arms and the chase, and appear as Oriental sultans, not as Grecian kings.
These tendencies taken together explain the radical weakness of the Parthian Empire. It was easy enough to collect a great army and achieve a great victory; it was absolutely impossible to hold the army together for any longer period, or to conduct a regular campaign. The Parthians prove incapable of creating a firm, united organization, such as the Achaemenids before them, and the Sassanids after them gave to their empire. The kings themselves were toys in the hands of the magnates and the army who, tenaciously as they clung to the anointed dynasty of the Arsacids, were utterly indifferent to the person of the individual Arsacid. Every moment they were ready to overthrow the reigning monarch and to seat another on his throne. The kings, for their part, sought protection in craft, treachery and cruelty, and only succeeded in aggravating the situation. More especia ly they saw an enemy in every prince, and the worst of enemies in their own sons. Sanguinary crimes were thus of everyday occurrence in the royal household; and frequently it was merely a matter of chance whether the father anticipated the son, or the son the father. The conditions were the same as obtained subsequently under the Mahommedan Caliphate (q.v.) and the empire of the Ottomans. The internal history of the Parthian dominion is an unbroken sequence of civil war and dynastic strife.
For the literature dealing with the Parthian Empire and numismatics, see Parthia, under which heading will be found a complete list of the kings, so far as we are able to reconstitute them.
These conditions elucidate the fact that the Parthian Empire, though founded on annexation and perpetually menaced by hostile arms in both the East and the West, yet never took a strong offensive after the days of Mithradates II. It was bound to protect itself against Scythian aggression in the East and Later History of the Arsacid Empire. Roman aggression in the West. To maintain, or regain, the suzerainty over Mesopotamia and the vassal states of that region, as also over Atropatene and Armenia, was its most imperative task. Yet it always remained on the defensive and even so was
