Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/626

 598 PERSIA [PARTHIAN 38-27 B.C. utterly routed and Pacorus himself slain. His head was sent round to the cities of Syria which were still in revolt to prove to them that their hopes had failed. There was no further resistance save from Aradus and Jerusalem. Orodes, now an old man and sorely afflicted by the death of his favourite son, nominated his next son, Phraates, as his colleague, and the latter began his reign by making away with brothers of whom he was jealous as the sons of a princely mother, daughter of Antiochus of Commagene, and then strangling his father, who had not concealed his anger at the crime (37). The reign of Orodes was the culminating point of Parthian greatness, and all his successors adopted his title of &quot;king of kings, Arsaces Euergetes&quot; (taken from Phraates II.) &quot;Dicaios&quot; (first borne by the pretendant spoken of at p. 595, who was perhaps father of Sinatruces, and so ancestor of the suc ceeding princes) &quot;Epiphanes&quot; (like Mithradates I.) &quot; Philhellen &quot; l (like Phriapatius). It was he who moved the capital westward to Seleucia, or rather to Ctesiphon (Taisefiin), its eastern suburb. 2 Phraates Phraates IV. continued his reign in a series of crimes, IVl murdering every prominent man among his brothers, and even his own adult son, that the nobles might find no Arsacid to lead their discontent. Many of the nobles fled to foreign parts, and Antony felt encouraged to plan a war of vengeance against Parthia. 3 Antony had no hope of forcing the well-guarded Euphrates frontier, but since the death of Pacorus Armenia had again been brought under Roman patronage, and he hoped to strike a blow at the heart of Parthia through Atropatene. Keeping the Parthians in play by feigned proposals of peace while he matured his preparations, he appeared in Atropatene in 36 with 60,000 legionaries and 40,000 cavalry and auxiliary troops, and at once formed the siege of the capital Phraaspa (Takht-i-Suleiniean). The Median king Artavasdes, son of Ariobarzanes, 4 had marched to join Phraates, who looked for the attack in another quarter. Phraates had only 40,000 Parthians, including but 400 freemen who never left the king, and probably 10,000 Median cavalry; 5 but these forces were well handled, and the two kings had reached the scene of war before Antony was joined by his baggage and heavy siege-train, and opened the campaign by capturing the train and cutting to pieces its escort of 7500 men under the legate Oppius Statianus. Antony was still able to repel a demonstration to relieve Phraaspa, but his provisions ran short, and the foraging parties were so harassed that the siege made no progress ; and, as it was now October, he was at length forced to open negotia tions with Phraates. The Parthian promised peace if the Romans withdrew, but, when Antony took him at his word, abandoning the siege-engines, he began a vigorous pursuit, and kept the Romans constantly on the defensive, chastis ing one officer who hazarded an engagement by a defeat which cost the Romans 3000 killed and 5000 wounded. Still 1 Orodes indeed knew Greek and cared for Greek literature. The Baxchae was performed at his son s betrothal. 2 Ctesiphon was capital at the time of Crassus s invasion, and Ammianus (xxiii. 6, 23) calls Paconis the second founder of the city, the first Vardan.es being perhaps a mythical person. A coin of Orodes with the title KrLirr^ (Gardner, 39) may refer to this. 3 Of this war we have three accounts, all based on one source, prob ably a monograph by Dellius. The best is Plutarch s (Ant., 37 sq., favourable to Antony). The later minor historians (who drew from Livy) and Dio (xlix. 23 sq.) are hostile to Antony (Octavianist) ; but the former, while sharing Dio s general point of view, approach Plutarch in many points of detail. Plutarch drew from the original source, indirectly perhaps through Nic. Darn. ; Dio used Livy, but not exclu sively. The point in the story where the mutual relations of the several narratives come out most clearly is in what is said of the adviser who saved the Romans from utter destruction. 4 Mon. Ancyr., col. vi. 1. 12. 5 Pint., Ant., 44 ; Justin, xli. 2, 6. The number 10,000 is given by Apollonides in Strabo, xi. p. 523. greater were the losses by famine and thirst and dysentery ; and the whole force was utterly demoralized and had lost a fourth part of its fighting men, a third of the camp- followers, and all the baggage when, after a retreat of twenty-seven days from Phraaspa to the Araxes by way of Mianeh (276 miles), they reached the Armenian frontier. Eight thousand more perished of cold and from snow storms in the Armenian mountains ; the mortality among the wounded was terrible ; the Romans would have been undone had not Artavasdes of Armenia allowed them to winter in his land. The failure of the expedition was due partly to the usual Roman ignorance of the geo graphical and climatic conditions, partly to a rash haste in the earlier operations, but very largely also (as in the case of Napoleon s Russian campaign) to the lack of dis cipline in the soldiers of the Civil War, which called for very stern chastisement even during the siege of Phraaspa, and culminated at length in frequent desertions and in open mutiny, driving Antony to think of suicide. The Romans laid the whole blame on Artavasdes, but without any adequate reason. At the same time the disaster of Antony following that of Crassus seemed to show that within their own country the Parthians could not safely be attacked on any side, and for a century and a half Roman cupidity left them alone. The Median Artavasdes, whose little country had borne the whole brunt of the war, fell out with the Parthians about the division of booty, and made overtures to Antony for alliance with Rome; and in 33, when the Romans had treacherously seized the person of the Armenian Arta vasdes and occupied his land, a treaty was actually con cluded by which Symbace, which had once been Median, was again detached from Armenia, and Roman troops were sent to co-operate with the Median king in repelling the efforts of the Parthians to reseat on the throne of his fathers Artaxes, son of the deposed king of Armenia. These troops, however, Avere recalled before the battle of Actium, and then Media and Armenia fall before the Parthians ; the Romans who were still in the country were slain, and Artaxes II. was raised to the Armenian throne (30). In the very next year, however, the course of Par thian affairs led Artaxes to make his peace with Rome. 6 Phraates s tyranny had only been aggravated by his successes, and open rebellion broke out in 33. We have coins of an anonymous pretender dating March to June 32. 7 To him succeeded Tiridates II., whose rebellion was at aTirida) climax during the war of Actium. Towards the end of 11 - 30 Tiridates succumbed and fled to Syria, where Octa- vian, who was wintering in the province, allowed him to remain. A fresh attempt made from this side, with the help perhaps of the Arabs of the desert, and by crossing the Euphrates at the island now called Koha, had better success. The order of events here given is that deduced by Vaillant and Longuerue, combining the Roman history of Dio with the Parthian of Trogus, Lachmann, who makes Tiridates be expelled only once and supposes a mistake on the part of Trogus as to place and date of his meeting with Augustus, assigning 1st March 29 as the date of Horace, Carm., iii. 8 ; but the chronological difficulties of this view are insuperable. Phraates was taken by surprise and fled, slaying his concubines that they might not fall a prey to his victor (Isid. Char., 1). Tiridates seated him self on the throne in June 27, 8 and Phraates wandered for some time in exile till he persuaded the Scythians to undertake his cause. 6 See coins in Eckhel, vi. 82, compared with Dio, li. 16, and the reference in Horace, Carm., ii. 9, 20-22. 7 Ascribed to Tiridates II. by Gardner, p. 44 sq. 8 D;esius, 285 Sel. In this month there are coins of Phraates and also of an Arsaces Euergetes Autocrator Epiphanes Philhellen, who must be Tiridates II.