The Historians' History of the World 08

Phraates V, or as he is usually called Phraataces (diminutive), was thus the third Arsacid in successive generations to reach the throne by parricide. Phraates V, whose first coin is of 2 B.C., tried an energetic policy, expelling Artavasdes III, and the Roman troops that supported him from Armenia, and seating on the throne Tigranes IV, who had been a fugitive under Parthian protection. As Augustus did not wish to extend the empire, and Phraates was not very secure on his throne, neither party cared to fight, and an agreement was patched up after some angry words, Phraates resigning all claim on Armenia and leaving his brothers as hostages in Rome (1 A.D.). Phraates now married his mother, a match probably meant to conciliate the clergy, as he knew that the nobles hated him. In fact he was soon driven by a rebellion (after October, 4 A.D.) to flee to Roman soil, where he died, it seems, not long afterwards.

The Parthians called Orodes II from exile to the throne. Of him we have a coin of autumn, 6 A.D.; but his wild and cruel temper soon made him hated, and he was murdered while out hunting. Anarchy and bloodshed now gaining the upper hand, the Parthians sent to Rome (before 9 A.D.), and received thence as king Vonones, the eldest of the sons of Phraates IV, a well-meaning prince, whose foreign education put him quite out of sympathy with his country. A strong reaction of national feeling took place, and the main line of the Arsacids being now exhausted by death or exile, Artabanus, an Arsacid on the mother’s side, who had grown up among the Dahæ and had afterwards been made king of Media (Atropatene), was set up as pretendant in 10 or 11 A.D. Artabanus was defeated at first, but ultimately gained a great and bloody victory and seated himself in Ctesiphon. Vonones fled to Armenia and was chosen as king of that country (16 A.D.); but Tiberius, who was anxious to avoid war, and did not wish to give Artabanus III any pretext to invade Armenia, persuaded Vonones to retire to Syria. Later he was interned in Cilicia, and in 19 A.D. lost his life in an attempt to escape.

Amidst such constant rebellions Artabanus III, shrewd and energetic, not merely held his own but waged successful foreign wars, set his son Arsaces on the throne of Armenia, and challenged Rome still more directly by raising claims to lordship over the Iranian population of Cappadocia. Through the whole first century of the Roman Empire all relations to Parthia turned on the struggle for influence in Armenia, and, much as he loved peace, Tiberius could not suffer this disturbance of the balance of power to pass unnoticed. Much as Artabanus hated the Romans, his insecure position at home drove him in 37 A.D. to make an accommodation on terms favourable to them and send his son Darius as hostage to Tiberius.

[40-81 A.D.]

In Artabanus’ life-time the second place in the empire had been held by one Gotarzes, who appears to have been his colleague in the upper satrapies, and perhaps his lieutenant in his flight to Adiabene. But there is monumental evidence that he was not, as Josephus says and Tacitus implies, Artabanus’ son (except by adoption), and so we find that the succession first fell to Vardanes, who coined money in September, 40 A.D. But in 41 A.D., Gotarzes gave Vardanes an opportunity to return; in two days he rode 345 miles, and taking his rival by surprise he forced him to flee, and occupied the lower satrapies, where he coined regularly from July, 42 A.D., onwards. The renewal of civil war enabled the emperor Claudius, with the aid of the Iberians, to drive the Parthian satrap Demonax from Armenia and reseat Mithridates on the throne. Meantime Gotarzes and Vardanes were face to face in the plain of western or Parthian Bactria, but an attempt on the life of the latter having been disclosed by his foe they made peace, and Gotarzes withdrew to Hyrcania; while Vardanes, confirmed in his empire, returned to Seleucia and took it in 43 A.D. after a siege of seven years.

That Vardanes was a great king is plain from the high praise of Tacitus and the attention which the greatest of Roman historians bestows on a reign which had no direct relations to Rome. Vardanes, whose last coin is of August, 45 A.D., was murdered while hunting—a victim, we are told, to the hatred produced by his severity to his subjects. But in judging of the charges brought against him and his two predecessors, we must remember that the rise of a new dynasty like that of Artabanus is 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.