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Durham Research Online Deposited in DRO: 29 June 2015 Version of attached le: Accepted Version Peer-review status of attached le: Peer-reviewed Citation for published item: Kaizer, Ted (2009) 'The Parthian and early Sasanian empires, c. 247 BC - AD 300.', in The great empires of the ancient world. London: Thames Hudson, pp. 174-195. Further information on publisher's website: http://www.thamesandhudson.com/9780500051603.html Publisher's copyright statement: The Great Empires of the Ancient World edited by Thomas Harrison. Copyright c 2009 Thames Hudson Ltd, London. 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Durham University Library, Stockton Road, Durham DH1 3LY, United Kingdom Tel : +44 (0)191 334 3042 | Fax : +44 (0)191 334 2971 https://dro.dur.ac.uk PARTHIANS & SASANIANS Ted Kaizer (Durham) Forget about Gauls and Africans, Britons and Germans: from their first encounter in 92 BC – when a tête-à-tête between the Roman general Sulla and the Parthian envoy Orobazus took place – Parthia and its King of Kings swiftly came to be represented by Latin and Greek authors as Rome’s most mighty enemy. Over the next 300 years, the two superpowers of the ancient world would regularly clash, especially over the mountainous region north of Syria known as Armenia, a famous breeding land for horses, and hence a potentially beneficial protectorate for both Parthians and Romans. Unfortunately, there are virtually no indigenous Parthian texts available to us, and we are therefore to a hazardous degree dependable upon Classical sources referring to Rome’s eastern neighbour, so that we have to study the Parthian empire above all through the eyes of its adversaries. Ultimately replacing the residue of the once mighty Seleucids (one of the main successor empires to that of Alexander the Great) in Mesopotamia, the Parthians had their actual origins elsewhere. As the tribe of the Parni, part of a much larger nomadic confederation known as the Daha, they moved from the steppe area east of the Caspian Sea into the lands known as Parthava, in northeastern Iran, which had been known under that name as a satrapy of the Achaemenid empire since at least the later part of the 6th century BC. The original invasion of ‘Parthia’ by the Parni was traditionally set in 247 BC, under the chieftain Arsaces, after whom the Arsacid era and the Arsacid dynasty were later named, although this date is now heavily disputed. The campaigns by the 2nd-century kings, especially Mithridates I (171–139 BC), helped to install Arsacid rule over manifold territories which had their own cultural traditions and their own ruling families, and at its zenith the Parthian realm stretched from the Euphrates to the Indus. In less than a century and a half, the Arsacids had been truly transformed from nomads overrunning large parts of eastern Iran into world rulers, and in 113 BC Mithridates II took over the ancient Persian title ‘King of Kings’, proudly reflecting his domination over a patchwork of minor kings. However, the very presence of these vassal states, and the occasional efforts by their rulers to gain a larger degree of independence, made the Parthian empire vulnerable, especially 1 in times of dynastic conflict, to which the house of the Arsacids seemed particularly prone. A good example of the fluctuations in relations between the central Arsacid residence at Ctesiphon, situated on the Tigris in southern Mesopotamia, and the peripheral kingdoms elsewhere within the Parthian world is Hatra, a stronghold in the north-mesopotamian Jazirah steppe. Hatra gained some notoriety for imposing losses on the Roman emperors Trajan and Septimius Severus, who both failed to take the city on different occasions (Severus even attempted it twice). The material remains of Hatra’s sophisticated culture only appear in our evidence in the late 1st century AD, when the city was ruled by a series of indigenous ‘lords’, some of whom seem to have overlapped. But in the second half of the 2nd century AD, this system of lordship was replaced by the installation of a royal house, and Hatra’s rulers were henceforth known as ‘King’, or more specifically ‘King of Arabia’ and ‘King over the Arabs’, whatever that may have meant. The background to this important change in titulature is unfortunately unknown, but it clearly implies that the Parthian overlords permitted the creation of a notionally new kingdom within the boundaries of their empire, or perhaps they were simply forced to accept it. Our search for Parthian institutions and for typically ‘Parthian’ elements in their society and culture is often frustrated by the lack of sufficient evidence. This is well illustrated by the example from Dura-Europos, a small-town on the Euphrates known amongst scholars as ‘the Pompeii of the Syrian desert’, due to its exquisite and important archaeological discoveries. [SEE FEATURE BOX ON DURA- EUROPOS] The documentary evidence from Dura clearly shows that the Parthians did not make major changes to the administrative and societal structures that they had taken over from the previous regimes. They did have their own language (Pahlavi), but Aramaic, the official language of the Achaemenid Persian chancellery, and Greek, the lingua franca of the Hellenistic world and later of the Roman East, remained more popular amongst the population of their empire. The impression gained is one of an increase in decentralization and of opportunism on the part of the Parthian overlords. Their empire flourished through trade, and both Parthian and local merchants acted as intermediaries between the Roman world and the Far East. From China and India they carried a rich assortment of colourful textiles and fragrant spices overseas to the vassal kingdom of Characene at the Persian Gulf, from where they travelled up the Euphrates, disembarked at Hit (from where the river was no longer navigable 2 upstream) and finally set out for the dangerous desert crossing to the famous caravan centre of Palmyra in the middle of the Syrian steppe –still described by Pliny as an independent city in the 1st century AD, ‘as it were isolated by Nature from the world, having a destiny of its own between the two mighty empires of Roma and Parthia, and at the first moment of a quarrel between them always attracting the attention of both sides’. In the 1st century AD, Isidore of Charax produced, typically in Greek, a list of fortresses and strongholds situated in the Parthian realm, including Dura-Europos. Although his Parthian Stations has sometimes been viewed as an itinerary following the Parthian trade route, it is in fact a description of the ancient royal road which was maintained in the first place for administrative and military purposes, and the itinerary ends where Arsacid control ends, hence excluding the Far East. Although opportunists themselves, the Romans would never truly appreciate the Parthian ability to adapt to more or less convenient circumstances and situations. Whereas Rome ultimately wanted to occupy as much territory as was feasible, the Parthians seem to have viewed their empire more in terms of a collection of peoples answerable to the King of Kings, regardless of their level of independence. To what degree the Parthians understood their realm as an ‘empire’ in the way Romans did remains therefore unclear. Some scholars have argued that Parthia was, in essence, similar to the Hellenistic kingdoms, while others prefer to follow the attitude of the Roman poet Horace, whose phrase ‘Phraates has been restored to the throne of Cyrus’ explicitly presents the Arsacids as rightful heirs to the Achaemenid Persians. In the end, perhaps the most lasting – and in any case the most visible – Parthian legacy was the peculiar dress code, which stood in sharp contrast to Rome’s toga and tunic. The typically Parthian costume that became the mode over most of the Levant consisted of the famous baggy trousers that are often depicted on sculptures and frescoes, and local notables at cities such as Palmyra could appear on one and the same monument both in western and in eastern dress. FROM SULLA TO SEVERUS The story of Rome vs Parthia gets under way in 92 BC, when Sulla met with the Parthian envoy Orobazus in the presence of the Cappadocian nobleman Ariobarzanes, for whom the Roman commander acted as a patron. Three chairs were prepared, and Sulla is said to have given audience while seated in the middle, between his client Ariobarzanes and the Parthian. For this apparent act of complacency - openly 3 acknowledging Roman superiority - Orobazus was put to death on his return to Parthia by the King of Kings. The next important episode is the invasion by Sulla’s Comment [TA1]: Could you explain a bit more the significance of this? It is not former lieutenant Licinius Lucullus of some of the lands across the Euphrates in 69 clear why the sitting in particular chairs was so bad, nor how this is connected to the next sentence about Licinis Lucullus’ BC, the first time ever Roman troops had crossed the river. This event, taking place in invasion, so the significance of the story is lost.