Parthian Sentence Examples

The Parthian king Arsaces, who was attacked by Antiochus III.

Artabanus II., like all Parthian princes, was much troubled by the opposition of the grandees.

But that party among the Parthian magnates which was hostile to Artabanus applied to Tiberius for a king of the race of Phraates.

Artabanus Iv., the last Parthian king, younger son of Vologaeses IV., who died A.D.

His father Anak, head of the Parthian clan of Suren, was bribed about the time of his birth (c. 257) by the Sassanid king of Persia to assassinate the Armenian king, Chosroes, who was of the old Arsacid dynasty, and father of Tiridates or Trdat, first Christian king of Armenia.

Vologaeses, however, thought it better to come to terms. It was agreed that both the Roman and Parthian troops should evacuate Armenia, that Tigranes should be dethroned, and the position of Tiridates recognized.

By them the Parthian War was brought to a conclusion in 165, but Verus and his army brought back with them a terrible pestilence, which spread through the whole empire.

In this vicinity was situated, at the time of the Christian era, the Parthian city of Spasini-Charax, which was succeeded by Bahman Ardashir (Bamishir) under the Sassanians, and by Moharzi under the Arabs.

He was the real founder of the Parthian empire, which was of very limited extent until the final decay of the Seleucid empire, occasioned by the Roman intrigues after the death of Antiochus IV.

Tiridates adopted the name of his brother Arsaces, and after him all the other Parthian kings (who by the historians are generally called by their proper names), amounting to the number of about thirty, officially wear only the name Arsaces.

With very few exceptions only the name AP/AKHI (with various epithets) occurs on the coins of the Parthian kings, and the obverse generally shows the seated figure of the founder of the dynasty, holding in his hand a strung bow.

The name Arsaces of Persia is also borne by some kings of Armenia, who were of Parthian origin.

Her efforts were at first successful, but in 36 Antony left for the Parthian War and renewed his intrigue with Cleopatra.

Antiochus was occupied with his Parthian campaign and trusted that the Hellenized Jews would maintain their ascendancy with the aid of the provincial troops.

But Antipater found supplies for the army of Gabinius, who, despite Egyptian and Parthian distractions, restored order according to the will of Antipater.

So he could no more be high priest, and his life was spared only at the intercession of the Parthian Jews, who had a regard for the Asmonean prince.

The Parthian king was apparently granted peace on his submission.

They were archers fighting on horseback, and in their cavalry consisted the strength of the Parthian army; the infantry were mostly slaves, bought and trained for military service, like the janissaries and mamelukes.

Parthian (Pehlevi is the modern form of Parthawa) and the magnates themselves Pehlevans, i.e.

But the Arsacid kingdom never was a truly national state; with the Scythian and Parthian elements were united some elements of Greek civilization.

His son, Arsaces II., was attacked by Antiochus III., the Great, in 209, who conquered the Parthian and Hyrcanian towns but at last granted a peace.

He died early, and was succeeded not by one of his sons but by his brother, Mithradates I., who became the founder of the Parthian empire.

It was the Parthian wars of the 3rd century which brought Palmyra to the front, and for a brief period raised her to an almost.

The East was then agitated by the advance of the Parthian Empire under the Sassanidae, and the Palmyrenes, in spite of their Roman honours and their Roman civilization, which did not really go much below the surface, were by no means prepared to commit themselves altogether to the Roman side.'

But Parthian ambitions made it necessary for the Palmyrenes to choose one side or other, and their choice leaned towards Rome, both because they dreaded interference with their religious freedom and because the Roman emperor was further off than the Persian king.

In 107 Hadrian was legatus praetorius of lower Pannonia, in 108 consul suffectus, in 112 archon at Athens, legatus in the Parthian campaign (113117), in 117 consul designatus for the following year, in 119 consul for the third and last time only for four months.

Babylonia was Parthian from 129.

It afterwards became a province (Margiana) of the Graeco-Syrian, Parthian and Persian kingdoms. On the Margus - the Epardus of Arrian and now the Murghab - stood the capital of the district, Antiochia Margiana, so called after Antiochus Soter, who rebuilt the city founded by Alexander the Great.

He was the first Parthian king who entered into negotiations with Rome, then represented by Sulla, praetor of Cilicia (92 B.C.).

This depicts the journey of the soul from heaven to earth, its life in the body, and its final return to the heavenly home, under the figure of a Parthian prince who is sent from the court of his parents to the land of Egypt to fetch the serpent-guarded pearl; after a time of sloth and forgetfulness he fulfils his quest, and returns triumphant and again puts on the heavenly robe.

In Seleucid and Parthian times the astronomical reports were of a thoroughly scientific character; how far the advanced knowledge and method they display may reach back we do not yet know.

It is remarkable that thus far no cemetery older than the Seleucid or Parthian period has been found in Assyria.

It was borne by several dynasts of Persis, when it formed an independent kingdom in the time of the Parthian empire (on their coins they call themselves Artakhshathr; one of them is mentioned by Lucian, Macrobii, 15), and by three kings of the Sassanid dynasty, who are better known under the modern form Ardashir.

When the Parthian War (162-5) broke out, Polyaenus, too old to share in the campaign, dedicated to the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus a work, still extant, called Strategica or Strategemata, a historical collection of stratagems and maxims of strategy written in Greek and strung together in the form of anecdotes.

Polyaenus intended to write a history of the Parthian War, but there is no evidence that he did so.

The never-ending Parthian problem confronted him, and with it were more or less connected a number of minor difficulties.

These changes could not but affect the relations of the Roman with the Parthian Empire, and the affairs of Armenia became in 114 the occasion of a war.

The assertion of Mommsen that the Tigris was a more defensible frontier than the desert line which separated the Parthian from the Roman Empire can hardly be accepted.

In 129 he accompanied Antiochus as a vassal prince on his illfated Parthian expedition; returning, however, to Judaea before winter, he escaped the final disaster.

It was perhaps a Parthian governor of Mesopotamia that was called in to help Strato of Beroea against Demetrius III.; but before long Mesopotamia (especially the district of Nisibis) was attached to the growing dominions of Armenia under its ambitious king Tigranes, perhaps with the consent of Sinatruces (Sanatruces).

Gabinius crossed the' Euphrates (54); but the command was assumed by Crassus, who, though he seized Ichnae, &c., and Raqqa (Rakka), fell near Carrhae (53), and the Parthian dominion was confirmed.

The power of Ardashir, the Sassanian, however, was already rising, and the Parthian Artabanus died in battle in 22 4 (or 227); and Ardashir proposed to prove himself the successor of the Achaemenidae.

The city survived the fall of Assyria, and extensive buildings as well as tombs of the Parthian age have been found upon the site.

The west of Iran slipped from the Seleucids in the course of the 2nd century B.C. to be joined to the Parthian kingdom, or fall under petty native dynasties.

Soon after 130 Babylonia too was conquered by the Parthian, and Mesopotamia before 88.

In Babylonia, also, in Susiana and Mesopotamia, Hellenism had been established in a system of cities for 200 years before the coming of the Parthian.

Apollodorus, Strabo's authority for Parthian history (c. 80 B.C. ?), was from the Greek city of Artemita in Assyria.

How important an element the Greek population of their realm seemed to the Parthian kings we can see by the fact that they claimed to be themselves champions of Hellenism.

The coinage may, of course, give a somewhat one-sided representation of the Parthian kingdom, being specially designed for the commercial class, in which the population of the Greek cities was, we may guess, predominant.

That the Parthian court itself was to some extent Hellenized is shown by the story, often adduced, that a Greek company of actors was performing the Bacchae before the king when the head of Crassus was brought in.

About 250 B.C. Diodotus, the "governor of the thousand cities of Bactria," declared himself king, simultaneously with the revolt of Arsaces which laid the foundation of the Parthian monarchy.

There was also danger of a Parthian inroad.

The fears of Parthian invasion were not realized, but Cicero, after suppressing a revolt in Cappadocia, undertook military operations against the hill-tribes of the Amanus and captured the town of Pindenissus after a siege of forty-six days.

This fortress was occupied and further built upon until the close of the Parthian period, about A.D.

In the autumn of 45, Caesar, who was planning his Parthian campaign, sent his nephew to study quietly at the Greek colony of Apollonia, in Illyria.

It was during his stay in Asia (20 B.C.) that the Parthian king Phraates voluntarily restored the Roman prisoners and standards taken at Carrhae (53 B.C.), a welcome tribute to the respect inspired by Augustus, and a happy augury for the future.

Having crossed the Euphrates he hastened to make himself master of Parthia; but he was defeated at Carrhae (53 B.C.) and taken prisoner by Surenas, the Parthian general, who put him to death by pouring molten gold down his throat.

His head was cut off and sent to Orodes, the Parthian king.

The earliest legend as to his later labours, one of Syrian origin, places them in the Parthian kingdom, where it represents him as dying a natural death at Hierapolis (= Mabog on the Euphrates).

The name is, however, also applied to the alphabet on the coins of the Parthian or Arsacid dynasty, which in its beginnings was clearly under Greek influence; while later, when a knowledge of Greek had disappeared, the attempts to imitate the old legends are as grotesque as those in western Europe to copy the inscriptions on Roman coins.

Early, however, in the summer of 66, the Parthian prince Tiridates visited Italy.

As long ago as 54 the news reached Rome that the Parthian king Vologaeses had expelled the king recognized by Rome from Armenia and installed in his place his own brother Tiridates.

At length he was aroused by the Parthian invasion of Syria and the report of an outbreak between Fulvia his wife and Lucius his brother on the one hand and Octavian on the other.

Even the glories of the Achaemenid Empire faded rapidly, and all but completely, from recollection; so also the conquest of Alexander, and the Hellenistic and Parthian eras.

Sidetes, the brother of Demetrius II., on which the Parthian king released the latter.

Entering into an alliance with Antiochus VIL, they assailed the Parthian Empire.

In vain Mithradates of Pontus and Tigranes turned to the Parthian king, the latter Confilets even proffering restitution of the conquered frontier with the provinces.

But after the victory it was manifest that the Roman general did not consider himself bound by the Parthian treaty.

When Tigranes had submitted, Pompey received him into favor and extended the Roman supremacy over the vassal states of Gordyene and Osroene; though he had allured the Parthian king with the prospect of the recovery of his old possessions as far as the Euphrates.

The Parthian Empire, as founded by the conquests of Mithradates I.

In reality, however, the Parthian Empire was totally different from its predecessor, both externally and internally.

Isidore, indeed, enumerates nineteen.; but, of these, Scastene formed no part of the Parthian Empire,, as has been shown by von Gutschmid.

Through it lay the route to Kandahar; and for this reason the district is described by Isidore, though it formed no part of the Parthian Empire.

At the same time the loose organization of the Parthian Empire, afforded them a greater measure of independence than they could hope to enjoy under Roman suzerainty.

Among the kings then following, only known to us from their coins, there appears a dynasty with Iranian and sometimes peculiarly Parthian names which seems to have reigned in the Punjab and Arachosia.

Here, then, it would seem there existed a Parthian dynasty, which probably went back to the conquests of Mithradates I.

Soon, however, the nomads (Dahae) gained their independence, and, as we have seen, repeatedly attacked and devastated the Parthian Empire in conjunction with the Tocharians and other tribes of Sacae and Scythians.

This tact is the clearest symptom of the inner weakness of Character of their empire and of the small power wielded by the the Parthian king of kings.

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 (Pahiavan) 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 Pahksvi, i.e.

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.

These tendencies taken together explain the radical weakness of the Parthian Empire.

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 Later Illsnever took a strong offensive after the days of tory- of the Mithradates II.

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.

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 Policy of Augustus.

In return, the Parthian dominion in Babylonif and the other vassal states was left undisputed.

In the subsequent broils a Parthian faction obtained the release of one of the princes interned in Rome as Vonones I.

He was a stranger to the Parthian.

The new rgime 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.

Simultaneously there arose in the East the powerful Indo-Scythian empire of the Kushana, which doubtless limited still further the Parthian possessions in eastern Iran.

This would show how the national Iranian element in the Parthian Empire was continually gathering strength.

The name Pahlavan, moreover, which denoted the Parthian magnates, passed over into the new empire.

It is even related that, in his zeal for uniformity of creed, Ardashir wished to extinguish the holy fires in the great cities of the empire and the Parthian vassal states, with the exception of that which burned in the residence of the dynasty.

Only towards the end of the Parthian sasty and after the rise of the Sassanians, under whom the national ditions were again cultivated in Persia, do we recover the lost Ces of the Persian language in the Pahlavi inscriptions and rature.

The form Osroes is generally used for a Parthian king who from his coins appears to have reigned from about A.D.

This encroachment on the Roman sphere led to the Parthian war of Trajan.

The Parthian king, however, preferred a treaty with Rome to a treaty with Armenia, and desired simply to have the Euphrates recognized as his western boundary.

About 250 B.C. Diodotus (Theodotus), governor of Bactria under the Seleucidae, declared his independence, and commenced the history of the Greco-Bactrian dynasties, which succumbed to Parthian and nomadic movements about 126 B.C. After this came a Buddhist era which has left its traces in the gigantic sculptures at Bamian and the rock-cut topes of Haibak.

After them the district was called Orrhoene (thus in the inscriptions, in Pliny and Dio Cassius), which occasionally has been changed into Osroene, in assimilation to the Parthian name Osroes or Chosroes (Khosrau).

The kings soon became dependants of the Parthians; their names are mostly Arabic (Bekr, Abgar, Ma`nu), but among them occur some Iranian (Parthian) names, as Pacorus and Phratamaspates.

Their names occur in all wars between Romans and Parthians, when they generally inclined to the Parthian side, e.g.

Here he took vengeance for the bitter sarcasms of the inhabitants against himself and his mother by ordering a general massacre of the youths capable of bearing arms. In 216 he ravaged Mesopotamia because Artabanus, the Parthian king, refused to give him his daughter in marriage.

He took part in Antony's Parthian campaigns, and was consul in 32.

Under the Persian kings, Ecbatana, situated at the foot of Mount Elvend, became a summer residence; and was afterwards the capital of the Parthian kings.

When he had conquered a great part of Persis and Carmania, the Parthian king Artabanus IV.

His empire is thus quite different in character from the Parthian kingdom of the Arsacids, which had no national and religious basis but leant towards Hellenism, and whose organization had always been very loose.

The Parthian capital Ctesiphon remained the principal residence of the Sassanian kingdom, by the side of the national metropolis Istakhr, which was too far out of the way to become the centre of administration.

Under the horse of the king lies a defeated enemy, the Parthian king Artaban; under the horse of Ormuzd, the devil Ahriman, with two snakes rising from his head.

Parthian predominance yielded for a time to Armenian (Tigranes, 88-86 B.C.).

In 226 the Parthian empire gave place to the new kingdom of the Sassanidae, whose claim to the ancient Achaemenian empire led to constant struggle with Rome in which Edessa naturally suffered.

By adopting the hat of the famous Parthian ruler, Ardashir is declaring himself as the rightful successor to the kingdom of Iran.

He was raised to the throne by those Parthian grandees who would not acknowledge Vonones I., whom Augustus had sent from Rome (where he lived as hostage) as successor of his father Phraates IV.

The greater part of it remained in force, even through the Persian, Greek and Parthian conquests, which affected private life in Babylonia very little, and it survived to influence Syro-Roman and later Mahommedan law in Mesopotamia.

In 61 Tigranes invaded Adiabene, an integral portion of the Parthian kingdom, and a conflict between Rome and Parthia seemed unavoidable.

From the Parthian frontier he travelled through Asia Minor and the islands of the Aegean to Athens (autumn, 125), where he introduced various political and commercial changes, was initiated at the Eleusinia, and presided at the celebration of the greater Dionysia.

His cruelties and vices, however, caused him to be greatly detested, and during another civil war he was defeated in a battle at Damascus, and killed near Tyre, possibly at the instigation of his wife, a daughter of Ptolemy VII., who was indignant at his subsequent marriage with a daughter of the Parthian king, Mithradates.

Another Sanatruces (Sanatrucius) is mentioned as an ephemeral Parthian king in A.D.

The rule of the marzbans was marked by relentless persecution of the Christians, forced conversions to Magism, frequent insurrections and the rise to importance of the great families founded by men of Assyrian, Parthian, Persian, Syrian and Jewish origin, and in some cases of royal blood, who had been governors of districts, or holders of fiefs under the Arsacids.

After the three Achaemenian kings of this name, it occurs in Armenia, in the shortened form Artaxias (Armenian, Artashes or Artaxes), and among the dynasts of Persia who maintained their independence during the Parthian period (see PERS15).

The name was borne also by four Parthian kings.

But these Scythians soon amalgamated with the Parthian peasants.