Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/778

 PERSIA

714

PERSIA

few records; indeed, we really know very little of the internal history of the Parihians, and would ha~ve known still loss but for the frequent wars between them and the Cireeks and Romans. Numbers of Parthian coins are still found in northern Persia and have been of {treat value to the historian who, thou- sands of years later, has tried to put toRothor the dis- jointofl history of this dynasty. Amid the faint and eonfiiscd outlines whieh alone remain to record the career of the mislity Parthian race which for over four hunched jears ruled in Persia with a rod of iron, and whieh repeatedly hurled back the veteran legions of Home, we are able to discern two or three grand figures and some events that will be remembered while the world lasts.

Of tliese heroes of Parthia the most important was Mithridates the Great, who not only repaired the losses the empire had sustained in its conflicts with the Seleucids, but carried the conquests of Parthia as far as India in one direct ion, and the banks of the Euphrates in the other. Parthians and Romans met for the first time, not for war, but to arrange a treaty of peace between the two great powers of that age. Soon after this event Demetrius III, head of the Seleucian dynasty, was forced to surrender, with his entire army, to Klithridates, and ended his days in captivity. Armenia also fell under the Parthian domination during the reign of Mithridates. The coins of Mithridates are very numerous and clearly cut; the design shows the portrait of that monarch, with a full beard and strongly marked, but pleasing, features. His immediate successors were men of an entirely different stamp, and Tigranes, King of Ar- menia, was alilc, nnl only tu revolt, hut to rob Parthia of some of licr wcsti'in iirdviuces. In time Phraates succeeded to the throne of the .-Vrsaciils and, by calling for aid from the Romans, caused the overthrow of Tigranes; but the haughty republic of the West granted its a.ssistance with such ill grace that years of warfare resulted. Phraates was murdered by his two sons. Orodes, as the Latins culled hun (lluraodha, in the Perso-Parthian tongue) ascended the throne; but to avoid dissension it was agreed that his brother, Mithridates, should rule over Media as an indepen- dent king. It was not long before civil war broke out between the two, and in the end Mithridates was taken and put to death in the presence of his brother. In .54 B. c, the civil wars of Rome having ceased for a while, Crassus, who with Ca!sar and Pompey, shared the authority in the republic, took command of the Roman armies in Asia. He needed but the merest pretext to invade and attack Parthia; the easy vic- tories of Pompey in Armenia led him to imagine that he had but to reach the borders of the Persian Empire and it would fall helpless into his grasp. He was a brave iiuin, and led sixty thousand of the best troops in the world, but his contemjit of the enemy, and the greed of gold for which he was notorious, brought him into a terrible catastrophe. The chief general of Orodes was Surenas, the first nobleman of the empire. On 16 June, .'54 b. c, the Romans and the Parthians met at Carnc, near the sources of the Euphrates. Surenas concealed the mass of his army behind the hills, allowing the Romans to see at first only his heavy cavalry. Little suspecting the actual force of the enemy, Publius Crassus, son of the general, charged with the cavalry. The Parthians, following their usual tactics, broke and fled as if in dismay. When they had drawn the Romans far enough from the main body, the entire army of Surenas re-formed, surrounded them, and cut them to pieces. After this success, the Parthians hovered on the flanks of the Roman infantry, annoying them with missiles. Of the great army which Cra,s.sushad led into Asia not twenty thousand survived, and of these ten thousand were taken captive and settled by Orodes in Margiana. Orodes himself, after a long reign, during which

Parthia attained the climax of her power, was stran- gled in his eightieth year by his son Phraates. He was the first Parthian king to assume the title of "King of Kings".

Phraates, his successor, removed the seat of govern- ment from the north of the eui|)ire (o Taisefoon, or, as the (irccks called il, C'tesijihon, a suhurl) of Seleu- eia, which (•(inliiuicd to be the capital until the Mo- hanmiedaii conquest, more than .six hundred years later. Ilatra, in that vicinity, also acquired impor- tance under I he Parthian kings, who caused a splendid palace to be erected there. Phraates was eminently successful in his military operations, :dl hough steeped in crime. Besides murdering his father, he had caused all his near relations to be put to death, to ensure his own position on the throne. Phraates soon had an- other Roman war on his hands. Before the death of Orodes, that monarch hatl associated with him his son Pacorus, a soldier and statcsnian, who conquered Syria and ruled both there and in Palestine with a mildness which contrasted favourably with the sever- ity of the Roman governors expelled by him. But Pacorus was finally defeated and killed by the Roman consul, Ventidius, and the territories he had captiu-ed on the coast of the Mediterranean were lost to Parthia. In the year 33 B. c. Mark .\ntony began a campaign against the Parthians, whom the Romans never for- gave for the crushing defeat at Carra;. His army numbered one hundred thousand men, including no less than forty thousand cavalry intended to cope with the terrible horsemen of Parthia. To oppose this immense force, Phraates could collect only forty thousand cavalry; but he immediately began opera- tions by surprising the baggage trams of the enemy, and cutting to pieces the escort of seven thousand five hundred men. Antony was at the time engaged in besieging Phraaspa. He was obliged to abandon the siege, but the pursuit of the Parthians was so vigor- ous that the Roman general was hardly able to reach the frontier of Armenia after losing thirty thousand of his best troops. For one hundred years after this, Rome dared not again attack Parthia; and when, in later ages, her legions repeated the attempts to pene- trate into the heart of Persia, they invariably failed.

Phraates was dethroned by a conspiracy of his brother Tiridates. He fled to Touran, or Scythia, of which we hear so often in the legendary history of Persia. There he succeeded in raising an immense army of Tatars, and, hurling the usurper from power, forced him to seek an asylum at Rome, where he en- deavoured to obtain assistance from the Romans, promising important concessions in return. But his offers were declined. A century later, Trajan invaded Parthia, but, in spite of some early successes, was forced to retire to Syria. Vologeses II is memorable for his death, a. d. 148, at the age of ninety-six, after a reign of seventy-one years. During the reign of Vologeses III Western Persia was invaded by Cassius, the Roman consul. Vologeses was defeated in a great battle, and Cassius penetrated as far as Babylonia, the capital of which was Seleucia, a mo.st flourishing city, with a population of over four hun- dred thousand. Cassius sacked and burned Seleucia, completely wiping it out of existence. Parthia never recovered from the effects of this last war with Rome. The dynasty which had founded the greatness of the Parthian empire had become enervated by its suc- cesses. In 216 the war with Rome was renewed. King Artabanus had put down several rivals and re- duced the greater part of the Parthians under his power. Macrinus, the Roman Emperor, suffered two crushing defeats from Artabaiuis, and was obliged to purchase peace bv paving an indemnity of 50,000,- 000 denarii (about $9,000,000) at the very time when the doom of Parthia was impending. With the death of Artabanus, a. d. 216, the Parthian dynasty came to an end.