was perhaps not of the Arsacid line. Tigranes took back the seventy valleys;[1] he invaded Gorduene, besides overrunning the region about Nineveh; and Adiabene, with the important center of Arbela, fell into his hands.[2] Thence he advanced into Media, where he burned the royal palace at Adrapana (Artaman) on the great road to the west of Ecbatana.[3] Atropatene became his vassal state. Eventually Tigranes carried his arms victoriously throughout northern Mesopotamia and as far west as Syria and Phoenicia, flaunting in the very faces of the Parthians their customary title, king of kings,[4] never claimed by Gotarzes.
Gotarzes continued to control Babylonia until 81/80 b.c.[5] But in April, 80, there appears on the tablets an Orodes (I),[6] the use of whose personal
- ↑ This is implied in his subsequent offer (Memnon [FHG, III, 556 f., fr. 58. 2]) to return them.
- ↑ Strabo xi. 14. 15; Plut. Lucullus 21 and 26.
- ↑ Isid. Char. Mans. Parth. 6; cf. Orosius vi. 4. 9. Plut. Lucullus 14 says that Tigranes cut the Parthians off from Asia.
- ↑ Appian Syr. 48; Plut. Lucullus 14; Josephus Ant. xiii. 419–21; Justin xl. 1; Eutrop. Brev. vi. 8.
- ↑ [167] a.e., ⸢2⸣31 s.e., i.e., 81/80 b.c., Reisner, Hymnen, No. 49. The insertion in the Parthian line of an "Artabanus II" to rule from 88 to 77 b.c. has been suggested by Gutschmid, Geschichte Irans, p. 81 and n. 1, followed by Wroth, Parthia, p. xxxi, but this is now generally rejected; see p. 16, n. 66. The coins formerly assigned to him must follow those of Mithradates II, and they should be given to Gotarzes, Orodes, or Sinatruces.
- ↑ Strassmaier in ZA, III (1888), 135, and VIII (1893), 112; Epping in ZA, IV (1889), 78. E. Schrader in SPAW, 1890, p. 1327, n. 1, on the basis of a re-examination by Bezold of the tablet published in ZA, VIII,
