Download 3. The Parthian Empire (176 BCE – 224 CE) By 200 BCE, the

3. The Parthian Empire (176 BCE – 224 CE)
By 200 BCE, the Seleucid Empire had begun to fray
around the edges. Bactria had broken away by 255 BCE
and Parthia in 247 BCE. Arsaces led the Parni tribe to
invade Parthia shortly after. The Selucids intervened and
re-took nominal control, but by the time of Phraates I in
176 BCE Parthia was entirely independent and had begun
its own conquests. Parthians and the Parni spoke different
Iranian languages, but Parthian was chosen as the official
language of the Empire. Parthian was very similar to
Middle Persian, as spoken in the Persian homeland in
southwestern Iran. It was written with an Aramaic script for
ceremonial purposes, but more generally using the Greek
script.
1 Phraates’ brother and successor Mithridates I (r. c. 171–
138 BCE) greatly expanded the Parthian domains both to
the east (Bactria), south and west (Seleucid Empire),
founding the Parthian Empire. The Seleucids were
weakened during this period by succession disputes and
for example the Maccabean revolt in Judea from 167 to
160 BCE. Continuing struggles with the Parthians is one
reason why the Seleucids allowed Judean autonomy after
the revolt.
The original Parthian capital was at Nisa. By the time of
Mithridates, the capital was at Hecatompylos. He used the
old Selucid capital Seleucia on the Tigris and established
a new capital at Ctesiphon across the river. Ecbatana
became the summer capital, and Nisa was rebuilt as
Mithradatkert ("fortress of Mithradates"), where the tombs
of the Arsacid kings were.
2 The Parthian empire was much less centralized than that
of either the Acheminds or Selucids, being developed from
the structure of a confederation of tribes. There were a
number of subordinate kingdoms with considerable
autonomy, in particular Pars, the source of the succeeding
empire.
War with the Seleucids continued off and on up until the
first Century BCE, and with the Romans from then until the
early second century CE, when the Parthians were
overthrown by revolt of the Persians led by Ardashir I,
establishing the Sasanian Empire, but of course the wars
continued.
Mesopotamia and Armenia were the scene of repeated
conquest and re-conquest during these centuries.
The Selucid kings Demetrius II Nicator was captured by
the Parthians in 140 BCE, and his brother and successor
Antiochus VII Euergetes, nicknamed Sidetes, was killed in
139 BCE. This last defeat put the Seleucids on the ropes,
and they were finished by the Armenians, allies of Rome,
in the first third of the first century BCE. In 63 BCE,
Pompey made the remaining Selucid territory the Roman
province of Syria.
3 4 Around this time Mithridates II (the Great) came to the
throne of Parthia, reorganized the Empire, regained the
eastern and western satrapies which had been lost by his
predecessor, then in the early first Century BCE
conquered Adiabene, Gordyene and Osrhoene, vassal
states of the Armenian Empire.
Rome had been advancing in Asia Minor, so the Parthians
first encountered them about 96 BCE, negotiating a
boundary at the Euphrates between their respective
spheres of influence.
Later, having consolidated their holdings in Western Asia,
the Romans took on the Parthians. The Roman Triumvir
Marcus Licinius Crassus invaded with a large army which
was defeated and he killed in 53 BCE. This severe defeat
upset the balance of power in Rome, which had kept
Crassus, Caesar and Pompey together, ultimately leading
to Caesar’s assumption of autocratic power.
Although the Romans continued to expand in Anatolia and
the Levant, a Parthian invasion in 40 BCE conquered most
of the Levant except Tyre, including Judea, putting an end
to then Roman client Hasmonean rule over Judea. The
Parthians were expelled in 37 BCE. Herod the Great was
made the Roman subordinate king, establishing the
Herodian dynasty. Rome regained the whole area later in
the decade, under the ultimate command of Marc Antony.
5 Part of the reason why the centuries-long conflict between
Rome and Parthia was inconclusive was that the two
empires were similar in size and resources, and also that
they had very different military tactics.
The Romans relied on heavy infantry and siege engines,
while the Parthians used horse-mounted bowmen. The
Parthian bowmen were superior to the Roman infantry on
the plains of Mesopotamia, while the Roman infantry was
superior to the Parthian cavalry in the hilly country towards
the Mediterranean.
Also, the Romans had a state-supported standing army
which could be put in the field for long periods, while the
Parthian army was a temporary alliance of armies of
subordinate kings and other local rulers, which limited their
ability to pursue long foreign campaigns.
6 7 8 The Parthian Empire had been largely carved out of the
Seleucid Empire, so there was a strong Greek cultural
presence and many largely Greek cities, including
Seleucis.
Rather than suppress the Greeks, the Parthians left them
largely to themselves, in conformance to their generally
tolerant policies. In particular, the silk trade, largely in
Greek hands, was an important source of wealth for the
Empire.
The Parthian Language was written in Greek script until
the middle of the first Century CE, and Greek script
continued to be used off and on until the end of the
dynasty.
9 Coin of Mithirades I (171 – 138 BCE)
Coin of Mithridates II (123 – 88 BCE)
Coin of Vologases IV (147 – 191 CE)
Note that all the coins are inscribed using Greek script,
and in fact the inscriptions are in Greek.
10 Mithirades II’s extension of the Empire coincided with the
expansion of the Han Empire in China to the boundary of
Bactria. A Chinese delegation visited Parthia in 120 BCE,
and in 119 BCE the Silk Road was officially opened. (The
Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE) was contemporaneous
with the Parthian Empire.)
One of the cultural products of the Parthian empire is
Rabbinic Judaism. The Roman genocide in Judea in 132
CE and the effects of the Kitos war (115 – 117CE) meant
that the Jewish settlements in Babylonia became the main
centres of Jewish scholarship. The loss of the Temple in
Jerusalem required the re-formulation of the religion,
resulting in the Babylonian Talmud, begun under the
Parthians and completed under their successors, the
Sasanians.
The tolerant policy of the Parthians allowed Christianity
to become established. The tradition is that St. Thaddeus
the Disciple (as distinguished from Thaddeus the Apostle)
established a community in Edessa, at that time in Roman
Syria, which spread through Mesopotamia and ultimately
as far as Bactria. Several of the Eastern Rite Churches
consider Thaddeus (Addai) as their founder.
11 St. Thaddeus (Addai) 10th
Century Icon from St
Catherine’s Monastery,
Sinai.
12 They also allowed the Mandaeans to settle in what is now
southern Iraq. The Mandaeans are an ethnic group with a
distinctive religion related to Judaism. They appear to
have originated in the southern Levant, possibly as one of
the peoples conquered by the Hasmoneans around
Judea, and moved to Parthian territory possibly under
pressure from Jewish Zealots in the First Century CE.
Their religion is Gnostic, in that only the priests and a few
lay persons have full knowledge.
The Mandaeans revere Adam, Abel, Seth, Enosh, Noah,
Shem, Aram and especially John the Baptist, but reject
Abraham, Moses and Jesus of Nazareth. The group has
persisted to the present, with 50,000 or so adherents, who
were uprooted during the 2003 Iraq War.
Vologases IV (147 – 191 CE) is thought to be the king who
began the process of collecting, codifying and
standardizing the texts of the Zoroastrian religion, which
process, continued under the Sasanids, resulted in
modern Zoroastrianism.
13 Mithraism was a mystery religion widespread in the
Roman Empire, especially in the army, from the first to the
fourth century CE. Mithras is a form of “Mithra” the name
of an old Persian god. It is related to Zoroastrianism,
though the religion seems to be an adaptation by a Roman
of a surviving pre-Zoroastrian cult encountered in Parthia.
Mithras is associated with Sol Invictus (Invincible Sun), an
ancient Roman god.
There are many surviving mithraeums found all over the
Roman Empire. They are always underground, often in
cellars. Some were converted into churches.
Reconstruction of a mithraeum with a mosaic depicting the
grades of initiation.
14 Mithras Killing a Bull, the central image of Mithrasm
15 Parthian Architecture
The single trait most characteristic of Parthian architecture
is the use of an ayvān as a rectangular, vaulted hall with
one end open where it faces a courtyard. It is thought that
the nomadic origins of the Parthians is the reason for this
distinctive architectural feature, and the Iranian origin of
the term. The most important fact in the debate is that at
Seleucia-on-Tigris in the late first century A.D. it can be
demonstrated that house plans changed from having a
hall with a pair of columns set in the opening on the side of
the court (distyle in antis) to that of a barrel-vaulted ayvān
as the building’s most important roofed structure,
indicating the practical application of a previously wellknown constructional technique—the barrel vault of
brick—to a portion of the building where Greek style was
no longer an important aspect.
Barrel vaults of brick had been built as much as a
millennium and a half earlier (at Susa, for example), but it
was the application of the vaulted ayvān to the main units
of a building in the late Parthian period which gave Iranian
architecture such a regal reception hall through emphasis
16 on the height of the room and the longitudinal axis. The
ground-plan change was negligible, but the visual aspect
as vaults replaced columns and beams was revolutionary.
http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/architecture-ii
Hatra
Hatra, near Mosul, founded during Selucid times, became
the capital of an Arab kingdom subordinate (most of the
time) to Parthia. It is considered to be the best surviving
example of Parthian architecture, but is claimed to having
been recently destroyed by ISIS.
17 Wall surfaces also include architectural members reduced
to decorative features to break up flat surfaces. The
component parts are often derived from western
architectural vocabularies—columns, capitals, cornices,
etc.—but the combination of the different elements into
façade compositions, particularly “blind arcades,” is a
distinctive feature of Parthian architecture. Blind
arcading—the treatment of a façade without any
connection to the building layout behind—is yet again a
feature that was transferred via Sasanian architecture to
the Islamic architecture of Iran.
http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/architecture-ii
Ctesiphon Ruin (Actually Late Sasanian)
18 Parthian Art
For the period from the 3rd century B.C.E. to about the
middle of the 3rd century C.E., the region extending from
the Syrian desert through Iran and into Central Asia forms
an artistic unit with certain definable characteristics:
frontality, rigidity, great interest in representing details,
especially the elaborately decorated “Parthian dress” and
jewelry worn throughout the region, and conceptually, an
intellectual rather than a visual approach to the depiction
of figures and costumes.
http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/art-in-iran-iv-parthian
Parthian Warriors (their trousers indicate that they were
horsemen)
19 Compare the portrait of Darius
20 21