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 threat, 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
decades 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.
