Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/630

 602 PERSIA [PARTHIAN 15-75 A.P. always accompanied by deeds of violence, and that the oppressed subjects are simply the utterly unruly Parthian nobles who had lost all discipline in the long civil wars, and could only be controlled by force. Gotarzes. After another period of dispute we now find Gotarzes again on the throne and coining regularly from September 46 onwards. But his qualities had not improved, and in 47 a secret embassy of malcontents was at Rome asking Claudius to send them as king Meherdates, son of Vonones. In 49 the legate, Gains Cassius, did in fact conduct Meher dates (Mithra dates V.) as far as Zeugma, where he was met by divers Parthian magnates, and ultimately, after a detour through the snows of Armenia, got as far as Nineveh and Arbela. But his only real strength lay in Carenes, satrap of Mesopotamia ; Abgar V. and Izates, the kings of Orrhoene and Adiabene, pretended to be with him, but were in private understanding with Gotarzes, and deserted before the decisive battle in which Carenes was surrounded and Meherdates taken (50 A.D.). Gotarzes cut off his rival s ears, but spared his life an act of leniency most unusual in the East, which proves how much the national feeling of the Iranians despised the pretenders foisted on them by Home. Gotarzes died of a sickness, not before June 51, and was followed by Vonones II., who had been king in Atro- patene, and was probably a brother of Artabanus III. According to the coins his short reign began before Sep tember 51 and did not end before October 54. 1 He was Vola- succeeded by his eldest son, Volagases I., the brothers gases I. acquiescing in his advancement, although his mother was only a concubine from Miletus (comp. Tac., Ann., xii. 44, with Plut., Crassus, 32), and receiving their compensation by being nominated to kingdoms which gave them the second and third places after the &quot; king of kings,&quot; Pacorus to Media or Atropatene and Tiridates to Armenia, 2 which the Parthians invaded (in 52 1) to expel the usurper Rada- mistus, murderer of King Mithradates. Radamistus was not finally disposed of till 54, when his own people rose against him. The Armenians now offered no resistance to the Parthians, but the Romans were not content to lose their influence in the land, and their plans were favoured by the rising of a new pretendant, the son of Vardanes, against Volagases. The latter had marched to chastise Izates of Adiabene, whose conduct had been very ambiguous in previous embroilments with Rome, when a great army of Dahae and Sacae entered Parthia. Of the son of Vardanes :3 we have coins from December 55 to July 58, and as the series of coins of Volagases begins only in 6 1 it was prob ably not till then that he had quite mastered his more powerful rival and consolidated his own authority. At first he had to evacuate Armenia, and in 55 he even gave up the chief Arsacids as hostages to Domitius Corbulo, Nero s commissioner on the frontier. In 58, however, Volagases was again able to commence great operations in Armenia, though direct war between Parthia and Rome was still avoided, both sides accepting the fiction that what was done in Armenia was the private affair of Tiridates. The Parthians, indeed, were still in no condition for a great war ; the intestine discords continued, and in 58 Hyrcania, 1 Gardner (p. 51) is wrong in ascribing this coin to Volagases I. Tacitus makes Volagases come to the throne in 52 or 53, hut if this is right he must have been associated in the empire under Vonones. 2 Tac., Ann., xv. 2. There was at this time a fourth monarchy under a Parthian king in east Iran and on the Indus, and a fifth among the Scythians (or rather the Maskhuth) on the northern slopes of the Caucasus, where an Arsacid reigned in 19 A.D. (Tac., Ann., ii. 68). As the Median kingdom was subsequently united to the chief empire, the later Armenian historians, Agathangelus (Langlois, i. 109) and Sebeus (ibid., p. 199), are right in speaking of four Arsacid kingdoms. 3 His name was probably Nanes, for BXANO on a copper coin (Gardner, p. 51) must be read B[ctcriXeu&amp;gt;s] Xdvofi ]. one of the oldest Parthian lands, revolted and sent an embassy to seek alliance with Rome. In the same year, and in that which followed, Corbulo was able with little resistance to destroy Artaxata, occupy Tigranocerta, and set on the Armenian throne, supported by Roman troops, Tigranes V., a prince of that branch line of the Herods which had been established in Cappadocia. At length, in 61, Volagases made peace with the Hyrcanians, ac knowledging their independence ; then, solemnly crowning Tiridates as king of Armenia, he directed his whole forces against Tigranes. Open war with Rome, however, was still delayed by negotiations with Corbulo, who proposed a peace with a secret condition that the Roman troops should be withdrawn from Armenia. He felt, no doubt, that Tigranes, who had inherited the servility but not the vigour of his ancestor Herod, was not strong enough to secure the obedience of a population which greatly pre ferred the rule of the Parthians as their brethren in faith, manners, and descent. But Rome refused to confirm the treaty, and war was declared. 4 The first year of the war (62) was unfortunate for the Romans, and ended with the capitulation of Caesennius Psetus (who now commanded in Armenia) at Randea, on the southern bank of the Arsanias (i.e., Aradzani, the Armenian name for the upper Euphrates), near Arsamosata. The Romans evacuated Armenia and had also to build the Parthians a bridge over the Arsanias. Corbulo meantime was in Syria, and had purposely left Paetus in the lurch, contenting himself with securing the passages of the Euphrates and guarding them by castles on Parthian soil. He now came to an agreement with the Parthian general, Monseses, to raze the castles in return for the evacuation of Armenia by the Parthians till Rome should be again consulted. Next year the war was re sumed, and Corbulo, crossing the Euphrates at Melitene, had penetrated into Sophene when the Parthians earnestly sought peace. It was agreed that Tiridates should lay down his diadem and go to Rome in person to receive it again from the emperor, which was done accordingly in 66. The real advantage of the war lay more with Parthia than with Rome, for, if the Roman suzerainty over Armenia was admitted, the Parthians had succeeded, after a contest which had lasted a generation, in placing an Arsacid on the Armenian throne. After Nero s death Volagases formed very friendly relations with Vespasian, which endured till 75. Meantime all Iran was sorely troubled by the Alans, Alan who had spread themselves a little before over the plains inroad, on the north-west slopes of the Caucasus as far as the Don and the Sea of Azoff. In 72 the king of Hyrcania opened the pass of Derbend to these barbarians, who ravaged Media and drove King Pacorus into the recesses of his mountains, even capturing his harem. Armenia was also plundered, and the bandits retired laden with booty. In 75 the Alans entered Parthia itself and pressed Vola gases so hard that he made an ineffectual application for help to Vespasian. 5 Vespasian s refusal very nearly led to war, and Trajan, who was now governor of Syria, was pre pared for a Parthian invasion, 6 but Vespasian s pacific firmness ultimately averted an outbreak. 7 We have the evidence of Tacitus (Ann., xi. 8) and Josephus (Ant., xx. 4, 2) that Bactria was the eastern limit of the Parthian empire 4 Tacitus and Dio in this part of the history are both dependent on the very mendacious memoirs of Corbulo. Tacitus, as appears from Ann., xv. 16, distrusted his source and followed it with more discrimi nation than Dio, but is still more favourable to Corbulo than a criticism strictly proceeding on the known facts can admit to be right. 5 It must have been against the Alans that Vespasian in this year, according to a Greek inscription of Metskheta (Journ. As., ser. 6, xiii. 93), fortified the castles of the Iberian Mithradates and of the Jamasdaites. 6 This is all that is meant by &quot; Parthica laurus,&quot; Plin., Paneg., 14. 7 In Victor, Ctes., 9, 10, read &quot;ab illo &quot; for &quot;ac bello,&quot; comparing the epitome.