The Persian Empire

by Kia, Mehrdad;

  However, the Romans had some comfort to think that when they had spent all their arrows, they would either give over or come to blows; but when they presently understood that there were numerous camels loaded with arrows, and that when the first ranks had discharged those they had, they wheeled off and took more, Crassus seeing no end of it, was out of all heart, and sent to his son that he should endeavor to fall in upon them before he was quite surrounded; for the enemy advanced most upon that quarter, and seemed to be trying to ride around and come upon the rear. Therefore the young man, taking with him thirteen hundred horse, one thousand of which he had from Caesar, five hundred archers, and eight cohorts of the full-armed soldiers that stood next him, led them up with design to charge the Parthians. Whether it was that they found themselves in a piece of marshy ground, as some think, or else designing to entice young Crassus as far as they could from his father, they turned and began to fly; whereupon he crying out that they durst not stand, pursued them, and with him Censorinus and Megabacchus, both famous, the latter for his courage and prowess, the other for being of a senator’s family, and an excellent orator, both intimates of Crassus, and of about the same age. The horse thus pushing on, the infantry stayed little behind, being exalted with hopes and joy, for they supposed they had already conquered, and now were only pursuing; till when they were gone too far, they perceived the deceit, for they that seemed to fly, now turned again, and a great many fresh ones came on. Upon this they made a halt, for they doubted not but now the enemy would attack them, because they were so few. But they merely placed their cuirassiers to face the Romans, and with the rest of their horse rode about scouring the field, and thus stirring up the sand, they raised such a dust that the Romans could neither see nor speak to one another, and being driven in upon one another in one close body, they were thus hit and killed, dying, not by a quick and easy death, but with miserable pains and convulsions; for writhing upon the darts in their bodies, they broke them in their wounds, and when they would by force pluck out the barbed points, they caught the nerves and veins, so that they tore and tortured themselves. Many of them died thus, and those that survived were disabled for any service, and when Publius exhorted them to charge the cuirassiers, they showed him their hands nailed to their shields, and their feet stuck to the ground, so that they could neither fly nor fight. He charged in himself boldly, however, with his horse, and came to close quarters with them, but was very unequal, whether as to the offensive or defensive part; for with his weak and little javelins, he struck against targets that were of tough raw hides and iron, whereas the lightly clad bodies of his Gaulish horsemen were exposed to the strong spears of the enemy. For upon these he mostly depended, and with them he wrought wonders; for they would catch hold of the great spears, and close upon the enemy, and so pull them off from their horses, where they could scarce stir by reason of the heaviness of their armor, and many of the Gauls quitting their own horses, would creep under those of the enemy, and stick them in the belly; which, growing unruly with the pain, trampled upon their riders and upon the enemies promiscuously. The Gauls were chiefly tormented by the heat and drought being not accustomed to either, and most of their horses were slain by being spurred on against the spears, so that they were forced to retire among the foot, bearing off Publius grievously wounded. Observing a sandy hillock not far off, they made to it, and tying their horses to one another, and placing them in the midst, and joining all their shields together before them, they thought they might make some defense against the barbarians. But it fell out quite contrary, for when they were drawn up in a plain, the front in some measure secured those that were behind; but when they were upon the hill, one being of necessity higher up than another, none were in shelter, but all alike stood equally exposed, bewailing their inglorious and useless fate. There were with Publius two Greeks that lived near there at Carrhae, Hieronymus and Nicomachus; these men urged him to retire with them and fly to Ichnae, a town not far from thence, and friendly to the Romans. “No,” said he, “there is no death so terrible, for the fear of which Publius would leave his friends that die upon his account;” and bidding them to take care of themselves, he embraced them and sent them away, and, because he could not use his arm, for he was run through with a dart, he opened his side to his armor-bearer, and commanded him to run him through. It is said that Censorinus fell in the same manner. Megabacchus slew himself, as did also the rest of best note. The Parthians coming upon the rest with their lances, killed them fighting, nor were there above five hundred taken prisoners. Cutting off the head of Publius, they rode off directly towards Crassus. …

  Source: Arthur Hugh Clough, ed., Plutarch’s Lives, translated by John Dryden (London: J. M. Dent, 1912), http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/674/pg674.html.

  29. PARTHIA, ROME, AND ARMENIA: AN EXCERPT FROM TACITUS’S ANNALS OF IMPERIAL ROME

  Vonones I (r. 8/9–12 CE) was a king of the Arsacid (Parthian) dynasty. He was the oldest son of the Arsacid monarch Phraates IV. Vonones’s father had sent him, along with several of his brothers, as a hostage to the Roman emperor Augustus. After the death of Phraates IV, a civil war erupted among the various contenders to the Arsacid throne. To end the bloodshed, the Parthian nobility sent an embassy to Rome and requested that Vonones return to Parthia and assume the reins of power. Once Vonones returned home, however, the Parthian nobles began to doubt their decision when they realized that the prince had been infected with the ways and manners of the Roman enemy. They therefore decided to summon the Arsacid prince Artabanus. In his first attempt to seize the throne, Artabanus and his army were defeated. However, in their second encounter Artabanus defeated Vonones. Artabanus ascended the throne as Artabanus II (Ardavan II) in 10/11 CE at the Arsacid capital of Ctesiphon. The defeated Vonones fled to Armenia, where he proclaimed himself the king of the country. Artabanus II refused to accept Vonones as the new king of Armenia. The Roman emperor Tiberius also dispatched his adopted son, Germanicus, to Armenia. In the end, the Romans and the Parthians avoided another war and reached an agreement. The Romans, who had no more use for Vonones, deported the ill-fated Arsacid prince to Cilicia, where he died in 19 CE as he was planning his escape. The excerpt below from Annals of Imperial Rome, written by the historian Tacitus, describes the roots of the controversy and conflict that erupted among the Parthians after the return of Vonones to Iran.

  In the consulship of Sisenna Statilius Taurus and Lucius Libo there was a commotion in the kingdoms and Roman provinces of the East. It had its origins among the Parthians, who disdained as a foreigner a king whom they had sought and received from Rome, though he was of the family of the Arsacids. This was Vonones, who had been given as a hostage to Augustus by Phraates. For although he had driven before him armies and generals from Rome, Phraates had shown to Augustus every token of reverence and had sent him some of his children, to cement the friendship, not so much from dread of us [Romans] as from distrust of the loyalty of his countrymen.

  After the death of Phraates, and the succeeding kings in the bloodshed of civil wars, there came to Rome envoys from the chief men of Parthia, in quest of Vonones, his eldest son. Caesar thought this a great honor to himself, and loaded Vonones with wealth. The barbarians, too, welcomed him with rejoicing, as is usual with new rulers. Soon they felt shame at Parthians having become degenerate, at their having sought a king from another world, one too infected with the training of the enemy, at the throne of the Arsacids now being possessed and given away among the provinces of Rome. “Where, they asked, was the glory of the men who slew Crassus, who drove out Antonius, if Caesar’s drudge, after an endurance of so many years’ slavery, were to rule over Parthians.”

  Vonones himself, too, further provoked their disdain, by his contrast with their ancestral manners, by his rare indulgence in the chase, by his feeble interest in horses, by the litter in which he was carried whenever he made a progress through their cities, and by his contemptuous dislike of their national festivities. They also ridiculed his Gre
ek attendants and his keeping under seal the commonest household articles. But he was easy of approach; his courtesy was open to all, and thus virtues with which the Parthians were unfamiliar, and vices new to them. And as his ways were quite alien from theirs, they hated alike what was bad and what was good in him.

  Accordingly, they summoned Artabanus, an Arsacid by blood, who had grown to manhood among the Dahae, and who, though routed in the first encounter, rallied his forces and possessed himself of the kingdom. The conquered Vonones found a refuge in Armenia, then a free country, and exposed to the power of Parthia and Rome, without being trusted by either. …

  Source: Tacitus, Annals of Tacitus, Book II, translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb (London: Macmillan, 1876), 41–42.

  30. PARTHIAN IDENTITY AND CUSTOMS: AN EXCERPT FROM TACITUS’S ANNALS OF IMPERIAL ROME

  Scholars of ancient Iran have debated about how much historical knowledge the Arsacid (Parthian) and Sasanian dynasties possessed about their predecessors, particularly the Achaemenids. Did the Parthian and Sasanian kings know about Cyrus II the Great, Darius I, etc.? And if they knew about them, what was or what were the sources of their knowledge? And how accurate was their understanding of the events that had transpired several centuries before they seized the reins of power? The short excerpt below from Tacitus’s Annals of Imperial Rome indicates that the Arsacid monarch Artabanus II was fully aware of the accomplishments of Cyrus II the Great and Alexander the Macedonian conqueror and of the boundaries of their empires.

  He [Artabanus II] was elated by the wars which he had successfully waged against surrounding nations, while he disdained the aged and, as he thought, unwarlike Tiberius, eagerly coveting Armenia, over which, on the death of Artaxias, he placed Arsaces, his eldest son. He further added insult, and sent envoys to reclaim the treasures left by Vonones in Syria and Cilicia. Then too he insisted on the ancient boundaries of Persia and Macedonia, and intimated, with a vainglorious threat, that he meant to seize on the country possessed by Cyrus and afterwards by Alexander.

  Source: Tacitus, Annals of Tacitus, Book VI, translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb (London: Macmillan, 1876), 169.

  31. THE FALL OF THE ARSACID (PARTHIAN) EMPIRE AND THE RISE OF THE SASANIAN DYNASTY IN CASSIUS DIO’S ROMAN HISTORY

  The Arsacid (Parthian) dynasty came to a sudden end in 224 CE. The collapse of the Parthian state resulted not from a military defeat at the hands of a foreign power but instead from a rebellion staged by a Persian vassal based in Fars province in southern Iran. The last Arsacid monarch was Artabanus IV (Ardavan IV), who ruled from 213 to 224 CE. Artabanus IV was the son of the Arsacid king Vologeses V (r. 191/192–207/208 CE). After the death of Vologeses V, his oldest son ascended the Arsacid throne as Vologeses VI (r. 207/208–221/222 CE). Sometime after Vologeses had been proclaimed king, his younger brother, Artabanus, revolted and declared himself the legitimate heir to the Arsacid throne. The war between the two brothers dragged on for several years. The Romans took advantage of the civil war among the Parthian contenders to the throne to invade Mesopotamia.

  Eventually, Artabanus defeated his brother and ascended the Arsacid throne. In 216 CE, the Roman emperor Caracalla (r. 211–217 CE) asked Artabanus IV for the hand of his daughter in marriage. Artabanus turned down Caracalla’s request and refused to allow his daughter to marry the Roman emperor. Caracalla, who was obsessed with military glory, used the rebuff from Artabanus as a convenient pretext to invade Parthian territory. Roman forces marched through northern Mesopotamia and captured the capital of the kingdom of Adiabene, the city of Arbela in present-day northern Iraq. The Romans could not, however, maintain their territorial gains and eventually withdrew without scoring a major military victory over Parthian forces. In response to Caracalla’s invasion of Parthian territory, beginning in the spring of 217 Artabanus IV organized a military campaign aimed at reimposing Arsacid rule over Mesopotamia. Meanwhile, the situation in Rome had dramatically changed. Macrinus, the commander of the imperial guard who had become exasperated with the erratic Caracalla, assassinated him. Artabanus used the arrival of a new emperor in Rome to demand the withdrawal of all Roman forces from Mesopotamia and financial compensation for the destruction the Romans had brought about in their most recent campaign. When Macrinus rejected these demands, the war ensued once again. In 217 CE, Artabanus IV attacked northern Mesopotamia.

  The decisive battle was fought at Nisibis in today’s southeastern Turkey, where the Parthians scored an impressive victory. Shortly after this victory, however, Artabanus IV was challenged by Ardashir, the governor of Istakhr, a vassal kingdom in the province of Fars in present-day southern Iran. Ardashir was the son of Papak (Pabag). An inscription from the reign of Ardashir’s son Shapur I at Naqsh-e Rostam near Persepolis identifies Papak as the father of Ardashir and identifies Sasan as the ancestor of the family. Sasan was the custodian of the temple of Anahid in Istakhr. Ardashir’s grandmother was a member of a prominent noble family called Bazrangi. Using first the civil war between Vologeses VI and his younger brother Artabanus and then the wars between the Arsacids and the Romans, Ardashir expanded his territorial possessions from Fars into present-day southwestern Iran, seizing the province of Khuzestan. He also pushed eastward and seized Kerman in southeastern Iran. These conquests allowed Ardashir to declare himself an independent king. To demonstrate his independence, Ardashir minted his own coins. Artabanus IV seems initially not to have taken this challenge from a vassal very seriously. As Ardashir seized more territory and imposed his rule over neighboring kings, however, Artabanus IV had no choice but to respond.

  In April 224 when the two armies joined battle, Ardashir defeated and killed Artabanus IV. With the death of Artabanus IV, Arsacid rule came to an abrupt end. After seizing the former provinces and vassal kingdoms of the Parthian Empire, Ardashir ascended the throne as the shahanshah (king of kings) and the founder of the new Sasanian dynasty (r. 224–651 CE). The excerpt below from Cassius Dio’s Roman History describes the collapse of the Parthian Empire and why the Romans were alarmed by the rise of Ardashir I, the founder of the Sasanian dynasty.

  But the situation in Mesopotamia became still more alarming and inspired a more genuine fear in all, not merely the people in Rome, but the rest of mankind as well. For Artaxerxes [Ardashir], a Persian, after conquering the Parthians in three battles and killing their king, Artabanus, made a campaign against Hatra, in the endeavour to capture it as a base for attacking the Romans. He actually did make a breach in the wall, but when he lost a good many soldiers through an ambuscade, he moved against Media. Of this country, as also of Parthia, he acquired no small portion, partly by force and partly by intimidation, and then marched against Armenia. … He accordingly became a source of fear to us [the Romans]; for he was encamped with a large army so as to threaten not only Mesopotamia but also Syria, and he boasted that he would win back everything that the ancient Persians had once held as far as the Grecian Sea, claiming that all this was his rightful inheritance from his forefathers [the Persian Achaemenid dynasty].

  Source: Cassius Dio, Dio’s Roman History, translated by Earnest Cary (London: William Heinemann, 1927), LXXX:23.2–4.

  32. RISE OF THE SASANIAN DYNASTY UNDER ARDASHIR I AND THE ONSET OF THE PERSIAN-ROMAN WARS: AN EXCERPT FROM HERODIAN’S HISTORY OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

  After defeating and overthrowing the Arsacid dynasty in 224 CE, Ardashir I, founder of the Sasanian monarchy, ascended the throne as the shahanshah (shah of shahs or king of kings). He quickly imposed his authority over the provinces of the former Parthian Empire. The local kings and governors who submitted voluntarily to his rule were allowed to retain their power, and those who refused were removed and replaced by a Sasanian prince. In 235 CE, Ardashir attacked and conquered the town of Carrhae in present-day southeastern Turkey. In 239/240 CE, he tried to seize the important trade center of Hatra in northern Iraq, which played a vital role in linking the economies of Mesopotamia to Asia Mi
nor and Rome. The Romans responded by organizing a campaign to recapture Mesopotamia, Armenia, and Media in western Iran. Though initially successful, the Roman campaign proved to be disastrous. The excerpt below from Herodian’s History of the Roman Empire describes how the Roman emperor Alexander Severus (r. 222–235 CE) attacked Persian territory from three directions and how Ardashir responded to the invasion of his empire by Roman armies.