Who were the Parthians?

The name of the Parthians often raises questions, and their territory is hard to define. Scholars have established that the tribe of the Parthians may be closely linked to the Scythians who lived southeast of the Caspian Sea. 

The Parthians appeared in history after the death of Alexander the Great, when Seleucos inherited the largest portion of the lands he had conquered in the east, from the eastern Mediterranean to Bactria and India. Seleucos kept the existing Persian governing system of satraps in place, and at an early stage, Parthia became one of its satrapies. 

Seleucos founded the Seleucid Empire and soon discovered that ruling such a vast territory was a nearly impossible task. As the empire weakened, the Parthians revolted and established their independence. 

The first king of Parthia was Arsaces, who came to power in 247 BC. Not for long as the Seleucid King Antiochus III managed to reconquer Parthia in 209 BC from Arsaces’ son, the new king Arsaces II. For some unknown reason, Antiochus did not want to kill his enemy and established him instead as satrap. This did not sit well with the Parthian nobility, and as soon as Antiochus left for Syria, they deposed Arsaces II and proclaimed Phriapatius as their new king in 191 BC. 

Meanwhile, the Romans subdued Antiochus III according to the Treaty of Apamea signed in 188 BC. Now that the Seleucid King was no longer a thread, Phriapatius’ son, Phraates, took heart and conquered the territories between Hyrcania in the east and Media in the southwest. He created a solid base for his brother Mithridates, who succeeded him on the throne in 171 BC. 

At this point, Parthia started a new era. Mithridates conquered the Bactrian kingdom in 168 BC and then turned west. He took Media from Phraates in 151 BC and then focused on Mesopotamia. He captured the capital city of Seleucia, followed by Babylon in 141 BC and Susa three years later. 

Phraates II, Mithridates’ son, continued the fight for power. A worthy successor to his father, but his power was short-lived as he soon died in an attempt to stop a Scythian mutiny. From then onward, Parthia would be torn by successive uprisings and battles. After the death of Phraates II, Parthia was ruled by his uncle, Artabanus I, who crushed several revolts in his short life. 

His son, Mithridates II, in turn, would become Parthia’s greatest ruler (124-91 BC). He strengthened his position in Bactria, Mesopotamia, Characene (on the Iran-Iraq border where Alexander had founded Alexandria-on-the-Tigris, modern Charax Spasinou), and the realm of Babylon. He also annexed the lands of Albania and Armenia, together with the vital Syrian city of Dura-Europos on the Euphrates. Roughly, the Parthian Empire now stretched from the Mediterranean all the way to China! 

No wonder Parthia was very much coveted by the rising Roman Empire and lost several territories, including Armenia. The tables were turned in 53 BC when Crassus invaded Parthia near Carrhae (see: Harran, better known under its Roman name Carrhae) and lost. Rome suffered a severe psychological blow. The situation worsened when Marc Antony was defeated in 32 BC in an effort to keep hold of Armenia. After the decennia of constant fighting, Emperor Augustus secured a peace agreement with King Phraates IV in 20 BC. Instead of fighting each other, both rulers agreed to unite their efforts against enemies outside their borders. 

No treaty lasted forever, and after several skirmishes back and forth, Emperor Trajan invaded Mesopotamia in 115 AD, looting the capital cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon. At about the same time, Parthia was invaded on its eastern border by the Kushans, who established their empire in Bactria. 

However, two years later, Parthia, now ruled by Vologases IV, was invaded by Hadrian, Trajan’s successor. Lucius Verus, the adopted son of Marcus Aurelius, followed suit and sacked Seleucia and Ctesiphon once again. The Parthians managed somehow to expel the Romans, but like a Jack-in-the-Box, they returned in 198 AD. 

This time, Emperor Septimius Severus invaded Mesopotamia and marched down to take the Parthian-held cities of Seleucia, Babylon, and Ctesiphon. It makes one wonder how often cities are destroyed and rebuilt over the centuries. 

I now better understand the significance of the Severan bridge I crossed many years ago on my way to Mount Nemrud. At that time, I wondered what could have been so important in this god-forsaken, steaming hot land to need a bridge! It crossed the Cedere River, a tributary of the Euphrates. It is possibly the second largest still existing Roman bridge with a length of 120 meters and a span of 34 meters. Two Corinthian columns of 9-10 meters guard either side of the bridge. One set is erected in honor of Septimius Severus and his wife Julia Domna, and the other for their two sons, Caracalla and Geta.

 

The weakened Parthian Empire finally collapsed when it was overthrown by King Ardashir, the founder of the Sassanid Empire, in 224 AD. That is another story altogether (see: Sassanid reliefs tell a story of their own in Persia).