I. THE PARTHIAN EMPIRE…

I. THE PARTHIAN EMPIRE

[Sidenote: [250 B.C.-228 A.D.]]

The battle of Arbela (331 B.C.) made Alexander the heir of the Persian Empire. In the volumes devoted to Grecian history we have shown how he verified his claims of conquest, subdivided his empire among satraps of his own appointment, and left the enormous heritage, when he died, to “the best man.” It was further shown how no one man among the generals of the Alexandrian school could prove himself the best man, and how, in consequence, the empire fell into a chaos of civil wars until at last certain major divisions assumed a particularly definite form--among them the Ptolemaic Egypt, and the Iran of Seleucus and his family the Seleucidæ, among whom the name Antiochus frequently appears, the city of Antioch in Syria being taken as a capital. The degeneracy of these rulers was the opportunity of the obscure race of Parthians, who, with qualities and customs that in many ways remind one of the American Indian, rose to a power so great that under the first Cæsars the Romans thought of them as dividing the power of the world with Rome.

The only continuous ancient history of this race is that of Justin, which ends with the year 9 B.C. and shows a gap between 94 and 55 B.C. We quote this unique account entire; but the reader is cautioned that it is not to be given full credence everywhere: it is introductory to the more critical modern account that follows.[a]

JUSTIN’S ACCOUNT OF THE PARTHIANS

[Sidenote: [331-9 B.C.]]

The Parthians, who are now in possession of the empire of the East, having, as it were, divided the world with the Romans, came originally from Scythian exiles. This too is evident from their name: for in the Scythian language the word Parthi signifies exiles. This nation, in the times both of the Assyrians and Medes, was the obscurest in the East. Afterwards too, when the empire of the East was transferred from the Medes to the Persians, they were an easy prey to the conquerors, like a vulgar herd without a name. At last, they came under the Macedonian yoke, when they carried their triumphant arms into these parts of the world; so that it is really strange that they should have arrived to such power as to rule over those nations, whose slaves they had formerly been.

Being thrice attacked by the Romans, under the conduct of their greatest generals, in the most flourishing times of the republic, they alone of all nations were not only a match for them, but came off victorious; yet perhaps it was still a greater glory for them to be able to rise, amidst the Assyrian, Median, and Persian kingdoms, so famous of old, and the most opulent empire of Bactria, consisting of a thousand cities, than that they defeated a people that came from so remote a part of the world; especially when at that time they were incessantly alarmed by the Scythians and their other neighbours, and exposed to so many uncertainties of war. They being forced to leave Scythia by seditions at home did, by stealth, possess themselves of the deserts between Hyrcania, the Dahæ, the Arians, the Spartans, and Margians. After which, their neighbours not resisting at first, they at last, in spite of their opposition, when they came too late to hinder them, so far extended their frontiers that they not only took possession of vast plains, but also of craggy hills and steep mountains. And hence it comes that the heat and cold are excessive in several provinces of Parthia; for the snow is troublesome in the mountainous parts, and the heat in the plains.

THEIR CUSTOMS

[Sidenote: [323-250 B.C.]]

This nation was under kingly government, after their revolt from the Macedonian Empire. With them the chiefs of the populace were next in power to the king. Out of them were chosen their generals in war and their governors in peace. Their language is a mixture of the Median and Scythian, borrowing words from both. Their habit was formerly very particular; but after they were increased in power, it was like that of the Medes, full flowing and thin. They are armed like the Scythians, from whom they are descended. Their armies are not, like those of other nations, composed wholly of freemen, but chiefly of slaves; the numbers of which increase prodigiously, none having the power of manumitting. They treat these with as much care as their children, and teach them with great industry both riding and shooting. Everyone furnishes his prince with horsemen, in proportion to his ability. To conclude, when fifty thousand horsemen met Antony, upon his attacking the Parthians, four hundred of them only were freemen. They are ignorant of the art of besieging towns, or of engaging in close fight. They fight on horseback, sometimes advancing, and sometimes turning back upon their enemies. They often counterfeit flight, that they may have an advantage of their pursuers, less upon their guard. The signal for battle is not given by trumpet, but by drum. They do not hold out long in fight; and indeed it would be impossible to stand before them, if their perseverance was equal to the fury of their onset. For the most part, they quit the battle in the very heat of an engagement, and on the sudden renew it with great vehemence; so that one is in greatest danger from them when he thinks he has conquered them. A sort of strong coats, made of little plates, in the fashion of feathers, are used by them, to cover both them and their horses. They use no gold nor silver, but only in their arms.

Each particular man was allowed to have several wives, for the pleasure of variety; and they punish no crime so severely as adultery. To prevent it, they not only exclude their women from their feasts, but forbid them the very sight of men. They eat no flesh, but what they take by hunting. They ride on horseback at all times; on horse they go to feasts; pay civilities, public and private; march out, stand still, traffic, converse. This, in fine, is the difference between slaves and freemen, that the slaves go on foot, the freemen on horseback. Their common way of sepulture is being devoured by dogs or birds, and after that, burying the bare bones in the ground. In their superstition and worship of the gods, the principal veneration is paid to rivers.

The nation is naturally proud, treacherous, seditious, and insolent; for a boisterous rough behaviour they think manly. Gentleness, they think, belongs to women, as their character. They are restless to be engaged in some quarrel, at home or abroad; taciturn by temper, and more ready to act than speak; wherefore they conceal their good or bad fortune by their silence. They are strictly subject to their princes, not out of duty however but through fear. They are much addicted to lust, though very temperate in their diet; and they pay no more regard to their word, than suits with their interest.

SELEUCUS AND ARSACES

[Sidenote: [250-155 B.C.]]

After the death of Alexander the Great, when the kingdoms of the East were divided amongst his successors, because none of the Macedonians would condescend to accept of the kingdom of the Parthians, it was delivered to Stasanor, a foreign ally. And afterwards, when the Macedonians were involved in a civil war, they, with the rest of the nations of upper Asia, followed Eumenes; and when he was defeated, they went over to Antigonus. After him, they were under Nicator Seleucus; and soon after, under Antiochus and his successors; from whose grandson Seleucus they first revolted in the First Punic War, when L. Manlius Vulso and M. Atilius Regulus were consuls. The divisions of the two brothers, Seleucus and Antiochus, procured them an immunity for this revolt, who during their contentions to wrest the sceptre out of one another’s hands, neglected to pursue the revolters. At the same time Theodotus too, the governor of the thousand cities of Bactria, revolted, and commanded himself to be called king; which example all the Eastern nations soon followed, and shook off the Macedonian yoke.

There was, at this time, one Arsaces, a man of tried valour, though of uncertain extraction. He, being accustomed to live by robbery and plunder, having heard that Seleucus had been overthrown by the Gauls in Asia, fearing the king no longer, entered the country of the Parthians with a band of robbers, defeated and killed Andragoras his lieutenant, and seized the government of the whole country. Not long after, he likewise made himself master of Hyrcania; and being now in possession of two kingdoms, he raised a great army, for fear of Seleucus and Theodotus king of the Bactrians. But being soon delivered from his fears by the death of Theodotus, he made peace and entered into an alliance with his son, who was likewise named Theodotus: and not long after, engaging with King Seleucus, who came to punish the revolters, he had a victory; and this day the Parthians observe ever since with great solemnity, as the commencement of their liberty.

Some new disturbances obliging Seleucus to return into Asia, some respite was by this means given to Arsaces, who took this opportunity to establish the Parthian government, levy soldiers, fortify castles, and secure the fidelity of his cities. He built a city too, called Dara, upon the mountain Zapaortenon; which was so situated that no city could be stronger or pleasanter. For it was so environed with rough rocks on all sides, that it needed no garrison to defend it; and so fertile was the adjacent soil, that it was abundantly furnished with all necessaries by its own riches. Then there were in such plenty woods and fountains, that there was never any scarcity of water; and it had vast store of game. Thus Arsaces, having at once acquired and established a kingdom, was no less memorable among the Parthians than Cyrus among the Persians, Alexander among the Macedonians, or Romulus among the Romans; and he died in a good old age. To his memory the Parthians paid this honour, that from him they called all their kings by the name of Arsaces. His son and successor in the kingdom, who was Arsaces by name, fought with great bravery against Antiochus the son of Seleucus, who came against him with a hundred thousand foot and twenty thousand horse; and at last made an alliance with him. The third king of the Parthians was Priapatius; but he too was named Arsaces; for, as was said above, they called all their kings by that name, as the Romans do theirs Cæsar and Augustus. He died, after he had reigned fifteen years, leaving two sons, Mithridates and Phraates, the elder of whom, Phraates, being according to the custom of this nation heir of the kingdom, subdued by his arms the Mardians, a strong nation, and died not long after, leaving several sons behind him, whom he passed by, and left his kingdom to his brother Mithridates, a man of uncommon abilities; judging that more was due to the name of king than that of father; and that he ought to prefer the interest of his country to the grandeur of his children.

[Sidenote: [155-54 B.C.]]

Almost at the same time, as Mithridates among the Parthians so Eucratides amongst the Bactrians, both princes of great merit, began to reign. But the uncommon good fortune of the Parthians brought them, under this monarch, to the highest pitch of greatness. The Bactrians, on the other hand, being distressed by several wars, not only lost their sovereignty, but their liberty; for being exhausted by wars with the Sogdians, Drangians, and Indians, were, like a people quite enfeebled and expiring, subdued by the Persians, who had been a little before much weaker than they. However, Eucratides carried on many wars with great vigour; and though his losses had much weakened him, yet being besieged by Demetrius, king of the Indians, with only three hundred soldiers he made continual sallies, and so fatigued the enemy, consisting of forty thousand men, that he obliged them to raise the siege. Wherefore, being delivered from the siege, in the fifth month he reduced India under his power; but in his return from thence, he was assassinated by his son, whom he had made his partner in the kingdom; who was so far from concealing the parricide that, as if he had killed an enemy and not his father, he drove his chariot through his blood, and ordered his body to be thrown out unburied. During these transactions in Bactria, a war broke out between the Parthians and the Medes. After the success of this war had for some time been various, victory at last fell to the Parthians. Mithridates, enforced with this addition to his strength, set Bacasis over Media, and went himself into Hyrcania; from whence returning, he made war upon the king of the Elymæans; and, after the conquest of him, he added this nation likewise to his dominions; and so extended the Parthian Empire from Mount Caucasus as far as the river Euphrates, by reducing many nations under his yoke. After this, being seized with an illness, he died in an honourable old age, not at all inferior in glory to his great-grandfather Arsaces.

After the death of Mithridates, king of Parthia, Phraates his son succeeded to the kingdom; who being resolved to revenge himself upon Antiochus for attacking the kingdom of Parthia, was recalled by disturbances from Scythia, to defend his own country. For the Scythians, being invited by promises to assist the Parthians against Antiochus, king of Syria, having arrived after the war was ended, were frustrated of their promised reward, under the idle pretence of their coming too late; and it made the Scythians so angry that they should have had so long a march for nothing, that they demanded either pay for their trouble or that some other enemy should be allotted them. The haughty reply given to this demand so enraged them, that they began to ravage the country of the Parthians.

Wherefore Phraates, marching against them, left one Hymerus, who had recommended himself to his favour by prostituting the bloom of his youth to his infamous lust, the care of his kingdom in his absence. This governor, forgetting his past life and the trust he was charged with, miserably harassed the Babylonians, and many other cities, by his tyrannical cruelties. But Phraates himself carried along with him to the war an army of Greeks, which he had taken in the war against Antiochus, and treated with great pride and barbarity; not at all considering that their hatred to him was so far from being lessened by their captivity, that they were rather more exasperated against him by the indignity of the outrages they had suffered. Wherefore, when they saw the army of the Parthians give ground, they joined their arms with those of the enemy, and executed their long wished-for revenge for their captivity by the bloody havoc they made on the Parthian army, and by the death of King Phraates himself.

Artabanus his uncle was made king in his room; but the Scythians being content with victory, having laid waste Parthia, returned home. But Artabanus, in a war made upon the Thogarians, received a wound in his arm, of which he died immediately. He was succeeded by his son Mithridates, to whom his exploits gained the surname of Great; for, being fired with a brave emulation of his forefathers, he surpassed their fame by the greatness of his soul. Accordingly, he carried on many wars against his neighbours with signal gallantry, and added many provinces to the Parthian Empire. Not satisfied with this, he often had war with the Scythians; and by the victories he obtained over them revenged the injury his father had received from them. At last, he employed his arms against Ortoadistes, king of the Armenians.

WARS WITH ROME

[Sidenote: [54-36 B.C.]]

After the war of Armenia, Mithridates, king of the Parthians, was banished his kingdom for his cruelty, by the Parthian senate. Orodes his brother, having possessed himself of the vacant throne, besieged Babylon, to which city this fugitive prince had fled; and after a long siege forced the people, by famine, to surrender. Mithridates, relying upon his being so nearly related to Orodes, voluntarily gave himself up to him; but Orodes, considering him rather as an enemy than a brother, commanded him to be killed in his own presence; and after these things carried on a war with the Romans, and cut to pieces their general Crassus, together with his son and all his army. His son Pacorus being sent to pursue the remainder of the Roman war, after he had performed very great actions in Syria was recalled by his father, who was become jealous of him. In his absence, the Parthian army left in Syria was cut off, with its commanders, by Cassius, paymaster to Crassus.

Not long after this, the civil wars between Cæsar and Pompey broke out, in which the Parthians declared for the latter, because of the friendship contracted with him in the Mithridatic War and because of Crassus’ death, whose son they had heard was of Cæsar’s party, who they made no doubt would revenge his father, if Cæsar proved conqueror. Wherefore Pompey’s party having lost the day, they both sent assistance to Cassius and Brutus against Augustus and Antony; and after the war was over, under their leader Pacorus, making an alliance with Labienus, they laid waste Syria and Asia; and with a mighty force attacked the camp of Ventidius, who, in the absence of Pacorus, had routed the Parthian armies, as Cassius had done before him. But Ventidius, counterfeiting fear, kept himself a long time in his camp, and for some time suffered the Parthians to insult him. At last, he sent out some of his legions against the enemy, now grown secure and off their guard and full of joy, who, not able to resist them, fled several ways. Pacorus imagining that the victorious legions had pursued the fliers too far, attacked Ventidius’ camp, as if there had been none left to defend it. Upon this, the Roman general drew out the rest of his legions, killed Pacorus upon the spot, and put the whole army of the Parthians to the sword, who never received so great a blow in any of their wars.

When this news came to Parthia, Orodes, the father of Pacorus, who a little before had heard that his troops had ravaged Syria, and conquered Asia, and had boasted of his son as conqueror of the Romans, hearing on a sudden of his son’s death and entire defeat of his army, was struck with grief that threw him into a frenzy. For during several days he would speak to nobody; so that he seemed to be dumb; nor would he take any refreshment. And when his grief, at last, had found a vent, he called incessantly upon Pacorus; Pacorus he fancied to appear to him, to speak to him, to stand with him, and be heard by him. Sometimes he mournfully bewailed himself as lost; then, after long mourning, another care seized this miserable old man, and that was, whom of his thirty sons he should declare his successor in the room of Pacorus. His many concubines, by whom he had so many sons, being each concerned for her own, laid all of them very close siege to the king, each in favour of her own; but the fate of Parthia, in which country it is now become customary to have princes stained with the blood of their fathers and brothers, would so have it that the choice fell upon the wickedest of them all, Phraates too by name.

[Sidenote: [36-9 B.C.]]

Wherefore he immediately killed his father, thinking he would never die. He likewise killed all his thirty brothers. Neither did his cruelty stop there: for finding he was hated by the nobility for his daily barbarities, he ordered his son, who was almost grown up to the years of maturity, to be slain; that there might none be left to be proclaimed king. Antony made war upon him with sixteen very able legions, because he had furnished assistance against him and Cæsar; but being sadly mauled in several battles, he fled from Parthia. This victory making Phraates insupportably insolent and cruel, he was forced by his people into banishment. After he had for a long time wearied the neighbouring states, and at last the Scythians too, with his importunity, he was restored to his kingdom by a powerful assistance from the Scythians. In his absence, the Parthians had made one Tiridates their king, who hearing of the approach of the Scythians, fled with a great body of his friends to Cæsar, at that time waging war with Spain, bringing the youngest son of Phraates as hostage to Cæsar, whom being negligently guarded he had stolen away. Upon this news, Phraates immediately sent ambassadors to Cæsar, and demanded that his son, together with his vassal Tiridates, should be sent back to him.

Cæsar, having given audience to the ambassadors of Phraates and heard the reasons of Tiridates, who desired to be restored to his crown, declaring that the kingdom of Parthia would be in a manner subject to the Romans if he held it from them, said that he would neither surrender Tiridates to the Parthians, nor give assistance to Tiridates against the Parthians. However, that he might not seem to refuse them everything they demanded, he sent Phraates his son to him, without any ransom, and ordered a handsome maintenance for Tiridates, so long as he had a mind to continue amongst the Romans. After this, the Spanish War being ended, when he came into Syria to settle the state of the East, Phraates was afraid that he might have some designs upon Parthia. Wherefore the prisoners who had been taken at the defeat of Crassus and Antony were gathered together, and they, together with the military standards either of them had lost, were sent back to Augustus. Nor was this all, but the sons and grandsons of Phraates were likewise delivered as hostages to Augustus. And thus Augustus did more by the terror of his name than any other general could have done by his arms.[b]

MODERN ACCOUNTS OF PARTHIA

This is the history of the Parthians as given by Justin in his abridgement of the lost work of Trogus Pompeius. Later investigations and criticism have thrown a little light on various portions of the history, and from the point where Justin grows briefest other Roman historians took up the chronicles of the Parthians with avid interest. The study of coins has also been of invaluable aid. It has seemed better to give Justin’s account in its original fluency without interpolating criticisms here and there. Now, however, we must make a brief presentation of Parthian history from the start in a modern view.[a]

THE PARTHIAN EMPIRE

[Sidenote: [261-241 B.C.]]

Hellenism made no deep impression on Iran as on the West, nor did the loose-jointed empire attain to anything higher than a Hellenistic reproduction of the kingdom of the Achæmenians. Even in the fragmentary records that we possess we hear from the first of rebellions little favourable to consolidation of the realm; Seleucus, like Alexander, still had an army of Macedonians and Persians together, while the later Seleucids, at least in their western wars, used natives sparingly and only as bowmen, slingers, or the like, and preferred for these services the wild desert and mountain tribes of Iran.

Under the weak Antiochus II northeastern Iran was lost to the empire. While the Seleucids were busy elsewhere, probably in the long war with Ptolemy Philadelphus, which occupied Antiochus’ later years, Diodotus, viceroy of Bactria, took the title of king. The new kingdom included Sogdiana and Margiana from the first, while the rest of the East, with a single exception scarcely noticed at the time, adhered to the Seleucids. Now the formation of a strong local kingdom, heartily supported by the Greek colonies and likely to control the neighbouring nomads and strictly to protect its own frontiers, was by no means agreeable to the chief of the desert tribes who, like the modern Turkomans, had been wont to pillage the settled lands and raise blackmail with little hindrance from the weak and distant central authority at Antioch. Accordingly two brothers, Arsaces and Tiridates--whose tribe, the Parnians, a subdivision of the Dahæ, had hitherto pastured their flocks in Bactria on the banks of the Ochus--moved west into Seleucid territory near Parthia. An insult offered to the younger brother by the satrap Pherecles moved them to revolt; Pherecles was slain, and Parthia freed from the Macedonians.

ARSACES AND THE ARSACIDS

Arsaces was then proclaimed first king of Parthia (250 B.C.). Such is the later official tradition, and we possess no other account of the beginnings of the Arsacid dynasty. But when the official account transforms Arsaces, who according to genuine tradition was the leader of a robber horde and of uncertain descent, into a Bactrian, the descendant of Phriapites son of Artaxerxes II (who was called Arsaces before his accession), and makes him conspire with his brother and five others, like the seven who slew the false Smerdis, we detect the invention of a period when the Arsacids had entered on the inheritance of the Achæmenians, and imitated the order of their court. The seven conspirators are the heads of the seven noble houses to whom, beyond doubt, the Karen, the Suren, and the Aspahapet belonged. And further, genuine tradition does not know the first Arsaces as king of Parthia at all, and as late as 105 B.C. the Parthians themselves reckoned the year (autumn) 248-247 B.C. as the first of their empire. But 248 B.C. is the year in which Arsaces I is said to have been killed, after a reign of two years, and succeeded by his brother; who, like all subsequent kings of the line, took the throne name of Arsaces.

The first Arsaces must have existed, for he appears as deified on the reverse of his brother’s drachmæ, but he was not king of Parthia. Nay, we have authentic record that even in the epoch-year 248-247 B.C., the year of the accession of Tiridates, Parthia was still under the Seleucids. These contradictions are solved by a notice of Isidore of Charax, which names a city Asaak, not in Parthia but northwest of it, in the neighbouring Astauene, where Arsaces was proclaimed king and where an everlasting fire was kept burning. This, therefore, was the first seat of the monarchy, and Pherecles was presumably satrap of Astauene, not eparch of Parthia.

[Sidenote: [241-238 B.C.]]

The times were not favourable for the reduction of the rebels. When Antiochus II died, the horrors that accompanied the succession of his son Seleucus (II) Callinicus (246-226 B.C.) gave the king of Egypt the pretext for a war, in which he overran almost the whole lands of the Seleucids as far as Bactria. Meantime a civil war was raging between Seleucus and his brother Antiochus Hierax, whom the Galatians supported, and at the great battle of Ancyra in 242 or 241 B.C. Seleucus was totally defeated and thought to be slain. At this news Arsaces Tiridates, whom the genuine tradition still represents as a brave robber-chief, broke into Parthia at the head of the Parnians, slew the Macedonian eparch Andragoras, and took possession of the province. These Parnian Dahæ, in consequence of eternal dissensions, had migrated at a remote date to Hyrcania and the desert adjoining the Caspian. Here, and in great measure even after they conquered Parthia, they retained the peculiarities of Scythian nomads.

PARTHIAN CUSTOMS

The common tradition connects the migration with the conquests of the Scythian king Iandysus, a contemporary of Sesostris [Ramses II]. It adds that Parthian means “fugitive” or “exile” (Zend, peretu). But the name Parthava is found on the inscriptions of Darius long before the immigration of the Parnians. The Parthian language is described as a sort of compound between Median and Scythian; and, since the name of the Dahæ and those of their tribes show that they belong to the nomads of Iranian kin, who in antiquity were widely spread from the Jaxartes as far as the steppes of south Russia, we must conclude that the mixed language arose by the action and reaction of two Iranian dialects, that of the Parthians and that of their masters. Their nomad costume the Parnians in Parthia gradually gave up for the Median dress, but they kept their old war-dress, the characteristic scale-armour completely covering man and horse. The founder of the empire appears on coins in this dress, with the addition of a short mantle; and so again does Mithridates II. The hands and feet alone are unprotected by mail; shoes with laces, and a conical helmet with flaps to protect the neck and ears, complete the costume.

The conquerors of Parthia continued to be a nation of cavalry; to walk on foot was a shame for a free man; the national weapon was the bow, and their way of fighting was to make a series of attacks, separated by a simulated flight, in which the rider discharged his shafts backwards. Many habits of the life they had led in the desert were retained, and the Parthian rulers never lost connection with the nomad tribes on their frontiers, among whom several Arsacids found temporary refuge. Gradually, of course, the rulers were assimilated to their subjects; the habitual faithlessness and other qualities ascribed to the Parthians by the Romans are such as are common to all Iranians. The origin of the Parthian power naturally produced a rigid aristocratic system: a few freemen governed a vast population of bondsmen; manumission was forbidden, or rather was impossible, since social condition was fixed by descent; the ten thousand horsemen who followed Surenas into battle were all his serfs or slaves, and of the fifty thousand cavalry who fought against Antony only four hundred were freemen.

BACTRIA AND PARTHIA CONSOLIDATE

[Sidenote: [238-206 B.C.]]

Arsaces Tiridates soon added Hyrcania to his realm and raised a great host to maintain himself against Seleucus, but still more against a nearer enemy, Diodotus of Bactria. On the death of the latter, the common interests of Parthians and Bactrians as against the Seleucids brought about an alliance between Arsaces Tiridates and Diodotus II. With much ado, Seleucus had got the better of his foreign and intestine foes and kept his kingdom together; and in 238 B.C., or a little later, having made peace with Egypt and silenced his brother, he marched from Babylon into the upper satrapies. Tiridates at first retired and took shelter with the nomadic Apasiacæ, but he advanced again and gained a victory, which the Parthians continued to commemorate as the birthday of their independence. Seleucus was unable to avenge his defeat, being presently called back by the rebellion stirred up by his aunt Stratonice at Antioch. This gave the great Hellenic kingdom in Bactria and the small native state in Parthia time to consolidate themselves. Tiridates used the respite to strengthen his army, to fortify town and castles, and to found the city of Dara or Dareium in the smiling landscape of Abévard. Tiridates, who on his coins appears first merely as Arsaces, then as King Arsaces, and finally as “great king,” reigned thirty-seven years, dying in 211 or 210 B.C. His nation ever held his memory in almost divine honour.

Seleucus III Soter (226-223 B.C.) died early, and was followed by Antiochus (III) Magnus (223-137 B.C.), who in his brother’s life-time had ruled from Babylon over the upper satrapies. Molon, governor of Media, supported by his brother Alexander in Persis,[29] rose against him in 222 B.C. and assumed the diadem. The great resources of his province, which followed him devotedly, enabled Molon to take the offensive and even to occupy Seleucia, after a decisive battle with the royal general Xenœtas. Babylonia, the Erythræan district, all Susiana except the fortress of Susa, Parapotamia as far as Europus, and Mesopotamia as far as Dura were successively reduced. But the young king soon turned the fortunes of the war. Crossing the Tigris in person, he cut off Molon’s retreat. Molon was forced to accept battle near Apollonia: his left wing passed over to the enemy, and, after a crushing defeat, he and all his kinsmen and chief followers died by their own hands (220 B.C.). Antiochus now marched to Seleucia to regulate the affairs of the East. He used his victory with moderation, mitigating the severities of his minister Hermias; but he had effectually prevented the rise of a new kingdom in the most important province of Iran.

[Sidenote: [206-155 B.C.]]

In 209 B.C., with one hundred thousand foot and twenty thousand horse, he marched against the new Parthian king, Arsaces II, son and successor of Tiridates. The war ended in a treaty which left Arsaces his kingdom, but beyond question reduced him to a vassal. In 208 B.C. began the much more serious war with Bactria. At length, in 206 B.C., a peace was arranged, and Antiochus was visited in his camp by Demetrius, the youthful son of Euthydemus, who pleased the king so well that he betrothed to him his daughter; Euthydemus was left on his throne, and the two powers swore an alliance offensive and defensive, which cost Bactria no more than certain payments of money, the victualling of the Macedonian troops, and the surrender of the war-elephants. The Bactrian Greeks were grateful for this moderation; their memorial coins place Antiochus Nicator with Euthydemus Theos, Diodotus Soter, and Alexander Philippi among the founders of their political existence.

The kings of Parthia had long remained quiet after the war with Antiochus the Great. Priapatius, successor of Arsaces II (191-176 B.C.), calls himself on his coins “Arsaces Philadelphus,” perhaps because he had married a sister, and was the first of all Parthian kings to call himself “Philhellen.” By the last title he presents himself, at a time when the Seleucid power was sinking, as the protector of his present and future Greek subjects. His eldest son and successor, Phraates I (Arsaces Theopater of the coins), conquered the brave Mardian highlanders and transplanted them to Charax in the neighbourhood of the Caspian Gates, a proof that the Parthians had already detached Comisene and Choarene from Media, probably just after the death of Antiochus the Great.

CONQUESTS OF MITHRIDATES

About 171 B.C. Phraates died and left the crown not to his sons but to his brother Mithridates, a prince of remarkable capacity, who made Parthia the ruling power in Iran. His first conquests, it would seem, were made at the expense of Bactria.

The kingdom of Bactria had made vast advances under Euthydemus, whose son Demetrius crossed the Indian Caucasus and began the Indian conquests, which soon carried the Greeks far beyond the farthest point of Alexander. The object, it is plain, was to reach the sea and get a share in the trade of the world; and it is possible that the extension of the power of the Bactrian Greeks over Chinese Tatary as far as the Seres and Phaunians had a similar object--to protect the trade-route with China. For the Seres are the Chinese, and the Phauni, according to Pliny, lay west of the Attacori (the mythical people at the sources of the Hwangho). They occupied, therefore, the very region which, according to Chinese sources, was then held by a nomadic pastoral people, the Tibetan No-kiang. Demetrius, having succeeded his father, was displaced in Bactria by the able usurper Eucratides, sometime between 181 and 171 B.C. A thousand cities obeyed Eucratides, and both he and his rival Demetrius sought to extend the Greek settlements. Now Justin tells us that the Bactrians were so exhausted by wars that they at length fell an easy prey to the weaker Parthians; but Eucratides he describes as a valiant prince, who once with three hundred men held out during five months, though besieged by sixty thousand men of Demetrius, king of India; and then, receiving succours, subdued India.

This implies that besides the kingdom of Bactria and that of Demetrius (the latter now confined to India and probably to the lands east of the Indus) there were independent states in various districts still Seleucid in 206 B.C. Justin’s statement is confirmed by the coins, which also show that Eucratides came forth as victor from a series of wars with the lesser states. Sogdiana, according to Chinese authorities, was occupied by the Scythians in the life-time of Eucratides.

[Sidenote: [155-138 B.C.]]

On his way back from India Eucratides was murdered by his son and co-regent, probably Heliocles [ca. 155 B.C.]. The date of this murder may be fixed by that of Demetrius, who must have been born not later than 224 B.C., and may be taken to have lost his kingdom not later than 159 B.C. Eucratides cannot, according to Justin’s account, have lived many years longer.

In the midst of the civil wars, which became more serious after the death of Eucratides, Mithridates of Parthia began to extend his dominions at the expense of Bactria: even in the life-time of Eucratides he succeeded in annexing two satrapies. Another account makes Mithridates rule as far as India, and declares him to have obtained without war the old kingdom of Porus, or the rule over all nations between the Indus and the Hydaspes. The two accounts are reconciled by Chinese records, which tell that, about 161 B.C., the nomad people Sse broke into the valley of the Cophen and founded a kingdom in the very place of the Parthian conquests in India, which must therefore have been ephemeral. This fact has its importance, as illustrating the way in which the internal wars of the east Iranian Greeks helped to prepare the ground for the Scythian invasion. After this success in the east Mithridates turned his attention to the west, where the chances of success were not less inviting. Demetrius had at length fallen before a coalition of the neighbouring sovereigns, powerfully supported by the Romans through their instrument, the exile Heraclides. A pretender, Alexander, in 145 B.C., was utterly defeated by Ptolemy, and slain in his flight by an Arab chieftain. Demetrius (II) Nicator, however, soon made himself bitterly hated, and five years of fighting drove him out of the greater part of Syria.

MEDIA AND BABYLONIA CONQUERED

Such was the state of the empire when war broke out between Media and Parthia, which was finally decided in favour of the latter. The short-lived independence of Media was soon cut short by Mithridates, who did not lose the opportunity afforded by the civil wars of Syria in 147 B.C. Babylonia followed the fate of Media; and the whole province, with its capital Seleucia, fell into the hands of the Parthians. Thus the East was finally lost to the Macedonians.

The change of rule was not well received by the new subjects of Parthia, least of all by the Greeks and Macedonians of the upper provinces, who sent embassy after embassy to Demetrius. In 140 B.C. he marched into Mesopotamia, and thence by Babylon to the upper provinces. He was well received by the natives, and even the small native states made common cause with him against the proud barbarians, whose neighbourhood they felt to be oppressive. He was joined by the Persians and Elymæans, and the Bactrians helped him by a diversion, appearing now for the first time as an independent people. At first things went well, and the Parthians were defeated in several battles, but in Media in 139 B.C. Demetrius was surprised by the lieutenant of Mithridates during negotiations for peace; his forces were annihilated, and he himself was taken prisoner and dragged in chains through the provinces that had joined his cause. The Parthian king received his captive with favour and assigned him a residence and suitable establishment in Hyrcania. He even gave him his daughter Rhodogune, and promised to restore him to his kingdom, but this plan was interrupted by death.

[Sidenote: [138 B.C.]]

Mithridates’ latest campaign was against the king of Elymais; the rich temples yielding him a booty of ten thousand talents (£2,258,000 or $11,290,000). The country was brought under Parthia, but continued to have its own kings. The coins make it likely that Mithridates simply set up a new dynasty, a branch of his own house. Mithridates died at a good old age in 138 B.C., or a little later. His memory was reverenced almost equally with that of the founder of his house, but his real glory was much greater, for it was he who made Parthia a great power. He is praised as a just and humane ruler, who, having become lord of all the lands from the Indian Caucasus to the Euphrates, introduced among the Parthians the best institutions of each country, and so became the legislator of his nation.

PARTHIAN “KINGDOMS”

The divisions of the empire which he founded can be sketched by the aid of an excerpt from the itinerary of Isidore of Charax (at the beginning of the Christian era) and from Pliny. The empire was divided into the upper and lower kingdoms, separated by the Caspian Gates. The lower kingdoms were seven: (1) Mesopotamia and Babylonia, (2) Apolloniatis, (3) Chalonitis, (4) Carina, (5) Cambadene, (6) Upper Media, (7) Lower or Rhagian Media. The upper kingdoms were eleven: (8) Choarene, (9) Comisene, (10) Hyrcania, (11) Astauene, (12) Parthyene, (13) Apauarcticene, (14) Margiana, a part of Bactria, (15) Aria, (16) the country of the Anauans, (17) Zarangiana, and (18) Arachosia, now called “White India.” The eighteen Parthian kingdoms thus correspond to six old satrapies. The Parthians gave much less attention to the west than did their predecessors, and they still left Mesopotamia as the only great satrapy. We note also that they cared little for reaching the sea, which they can have touched only for a little way at the mouth of the Euphrates; and even here they allowed the petty Characene quite to outstrip them in competing for the great sea trade.

As compared with the older Macedonian Empire, the Parthian realm lacked the east Iranian satrapies, Bactria with Sogdiana, and the Paropanisadæ, and also the three Indian ones, which, with Parætacene, or as it was afterwards called Sacastane, remained under the Bactrian Greeks and their successors. In the north they lacked Lesser Media, which had long been an independent state, and in the south they lacked Susiana, which now belonged to Elymais, and the satrapies of Persis and Carmania, which the Persians held along with the western part of Gedrosia. In the extreme west they lacked Arebelitis proper, which formed a small kingdom under the name of Adiabene, first mentioned in 69 B.C. The kingdom of Mannus of Orrha in northern Mesopotamia, which according to Isidore reached a good way south of Edessa, seems also to have been independent, and, like Adiabene, probably existed before the Parthian time.

From these small kingdoms the Parthians asked only an acknowledgment of vassalship. When Parthia was vigorous the vassalship was real, but when Parthia was torn by factions it became a mere name. The relation was always loose, and the political power of Parthia was therefore never comparable to the later power of the Sassanians. Arsaces Tiridates and his successors called themselves “great king.” Mithridates, as overlord of the minor kingships, first bore the title “great king of kings.” The title seems to have been conferred, not assumed in mere boastfulness.

The nobility had great influence in all things, and especially in the nomination of the king, who, however, was always an Arsacid. Next to the king stood the senate of probuli, from whom all generals and lieutenant-governors were chosen. They were called the king’s kin, and were no doubt the old Parnian martial nobility. A second senate was composed of the magians and wise men, and by these two senates the king was nominated. The Parthians were, in fact, very pious, conscientious in observing even the most troublesome precepts in Zoroastrianism as to the disposal of dead bodies, which were exposed to birds of prey and dogs, the bare bones alone being buried. When the Parthian prince Tiridates visited Nero he journeyed overland that he might not be forced to defile the sea when he spat, and his spiritual advisers the magians travelled with him. The magians were not, indeed, so all-powerful as under the Sassanians, but it is quite a mistake to think that the Parthians were but lukewarm Zoroastrians.

SCYTHIAN CONQUEST OF BACTRIA

[Sidenote: [177-130 B.C.]]

The complete annihilation of the Macedonian Empire in Iran was closely followed by the destruction of Greek independence in eastern Iran. The last mention of independent Bactria is in 140 B.C.; no king of Bactria and Sogdiana is known from coins after the parricide Heliocles. Classical writers give only two laconic accounts of the catastrophe. Strabo says that the nomadic peoples of the Asii, Pasiani, Tochari, and Sacaraucæ, dwellers in the land of the Sacæ, beyond the Jaxartes, opposite to the Sacæ and Sogdians, came and took Bactria from the Greeks. Trogus names the Scythian peoples Saraucæ and Asiani. Fortunately the lively interest taken by the Chinese in the movements of the nomads of central Asia enables us to fill up this meagre notice from the report of the Chinese agent in Bactria in 128 B.C., as recorded a little later by the oldest Chinese historian, and from other notices collected by the Chinese after the opening of the regular caravan route with the West, about 115 B.C., and embodied in their second oldest history.

According to these sources the Yue-chi, a nomad people akin to the Tibetans, lived aforetime between Tun-hoang (Sha-cheu) and the Kilien-shan Mountains, and about 177 B.C. were subjugated, like all their neighbours, by the Turkish Hiung-nu. Between 167 and 161 B.C. they renewed the struggle without success; Lao-shang, the great khan of the Hiung-nu, slew their king Chang-lun, and made a drinking-cup of his skull, and the great mass of the vanquished people (the great Yue-chi) left their homes and moved westward, and occupied the land on Lake Issyk-kul, driving before them another nomad race, the Sse. The Sse took the road by Utch and Kashgar, ultimately reaching and subduing the kingdom of Kipin (the Kabul valley), while their old seats were occupied by the great Yue-chi, till they in turn were soon attacked by the Usun, who lived west of the Hiung-nu, and forced to move further west (160 or 159 B.C.). In 159 B.C. they moved straight on Sogdiana, reaching that land just at the time when internal wars were undermining the might of Eucratides. The conquest, however, may have been gradual, since Bactria is still named as independent in 140 B.C.

[Sidenote: [130-128 B.C.]]

Phraates II, who succeeded his father in 138 B.C. and continued his work, wresting Margiana from the Scythians of Bactria in an expedition commemorated on extant coins, had also to meet the last and most formidable attempt to restore the sovereignty of the Seleucids. Antiochus VII, one of the ablest kings of his race, marched eastward at the head of a force of eighty thousand combatants, swollen by camp-followers to a total of three hundred thousand. Many of the small princes, on whom the hand of Parthia lay heavy, joined him as they had joined his brother; the enemy was smitten on the great Zab, and in two other battles; Babylon and then Ecbatana opened their gates to the conqueror; and the subject nations rose against the Parthians, who, when Antiochus took up his winter quarters in Media, were again confined to their ancient limits. When the snows began to melt, an embassy from Phraates appeared to ask for peace; but the terms demanded by Antiochus (the liberation of Demetrius, the surrender of all conquests, and the payment of tribute for the old Parthian country) were such as could not be accepted without another appeal to the fortunes of war. Antiochus was met by the Parthian with a superior force of 120,000 men; he refused the advice of his officers to fall back to the neighbouring mountains, and accepted battle on a field too narrow for the evolution of his troops. The Syriac soldiers, enervated by luxury, were readier to imitate the flight of Athenæus than the valour of his master; the whole host was involved in the rout and annihilated. Antiochus himself escaped wounded from the fray, and cast himself from a rock that he might not be taken alive. This catastrophe (February, 129 B.C.) freed the Parthians forever from danger from Syria.

THE SCYTHIANS RAVAGE PARTHIA

Phraates paid funeral honours to the fallen king, and afterwards sent his body to Syria in a silver coffin. He entertained his captive family royally, married one of the two daughters, and sent the eldest son, Seleucus, to Syria to claim the sovereignty, and to serve future plans of his own; for an attempt to follow and recapture Demetrius, made immediately after the battle, had proved too late. But dangers in the east soon turned the Parthian’s attention away from enterprises in the west. In his distress he had bribed the Scythians to send him help; as they arrived too late he refused to pay them, and they in turn began to ravage the Parthian country. Phraates marched against them, leaving his charge at home to his favourite, the Hyrcanian Euhemerus, who chastised the countries that had sided with Antiochus, made war with Mesene, and treated Babylon and Seleucia with the utmost cruelty. But the Scythian war proved a disastrous one; the enemy overran the whole empire, and for the first time for five hundred years Scythian plunderers again appeared in Mesopotamia; in a decisive battle Phraates was deserted by the old soldiers of Antiochus, whom he had forced into his service and then treated with insolent cruelty; the Parthian host sustained a ruinous defeat, and the king himself was slain in the spring of 128 B.C., or somewhat later.

[Sidenote: [128-64 B.C.]]

Artabanus I (third son of Priapatius), who now became king, was an elderly man. The Scythians, according to the too favourable account by our chief authority, were content with their victory, and moved homewards, ravaging the country. But we know from John of Antioch that the successor of Phraates paid them tribute; and the southern part of Drangiana must now have been permanently occupied by the Scythian tribes. Finally, the coins reveal the existence of Arsacids who were rival kings to Artabanus I and Mithridates II, and perhaps borrow from individual successes against the Scythians the proud titles which so strongly contrast with the really wretched condition of the empire. Meanwhile it would appear that the men from Seleucia, driven to desperation, had seized the tyrant Euhemerus and put him to a cruel death. Artabanus, when they sought his pardon, threatened to put out the eyes of every man of Seleucia, and was prevented only by his death, in battle with the Tochari, after a very short reign.

Mithridates II, the Great, his son and successor, was the restorer of the empire. We are briefly told that he valiantly waged many wars with his neighbours, added many nations to the empire, and had several successes against the Scythians, so avenging the disgrace of his predecessors. His successes, however, must have been practically limited to the recovery of lost ground, and the eastern frontier was not advanced. It has been common to connect with his successes the appearance of Parthian names among the Indo-Scythian princes of the Kabul valley; but this must be false. On the other hand, Mithridates, if not the first to conquer Mesopotamia, was the first to fix the Euphrates as the western boundary of the empire, and towards the end of his reign he was strong enough to interfere with the concerns of Great Armenia and place Tigranes II on the throne in a time of disputed succession (94 B.C.), accepting in return the cession of seventy Armenian valleys.

FIRST CONFLICT WITH ROME

Now, too, the Parthians, as lords of Mesopotamia, came for the first time into contact with Rome, and in 92 B.C., when Sulla came to Cappadocia as proprætor of Cilicia, he met on the Euphrates the ambassador of Mithridates seeking the Roman alliance. This embassy was no doubt connected with the Parthian schemes against Syria. Demetrius III, the Seleucid, who reigned at Damascus, was compelled to surrender with his whole army and ended his life as a captive at the Parthian court. Mithridates the Great seems to have died just after this event; there is no reason to suppose that he lived to see the disasters which followed so close on his great successes.

[Sidenote: [64-53 B.C.]]

Artabanus II was the next monarch, but after him the title of king of kings was taken by the Armenian Tigranes, one of the most dangerous foes Parthia ever had. In 86 B.C. it was still a reason for choosing Tigranes, as king of part of Syria, that he was in alliance with Parthia; but very soon the latter state was so ruined by civil and foreign war, that it was no match for Armenia. In 77 B.C. the Arsacid Sinatruces took the throne. Tigranes conquered Media, ravaged the country of Arbela and Nineveh, and compelled the cession of Adiabene and Mesopotamia. Phraates III succeeded his father, Sinatruces, after a period of hesitating neutrality, accepted the overtures of Pompey, and prepared to invade Armenia (66 B.C.), guided by the younger Tigranes, who had quarrelled with his father and taken refuge in Parthia, where he wedded the daughter of the king. Tigranes the elder fled to the mountains; and Phraates turned homeward, leaving young Tigranes with part of the army to continue the war. The latter, who alone was no match for his father, fled after an utter defeat to Pompey, who was just preparing to invade Armenia, and to whom the elder Tigranes presently surrendered at discretion. The Roman, however, gave him very good terms, altogether abandoned his son’s cause, and even put him in chains. Meantime Phraates had occupied the Parthian conquests of Tigranes, which the Romans had promised him, and sent an embassy to Pompey to intercede for his son-in-law. But the Romans had no further occasion for Parthian help; and, instead of granting his request, sent Afranius to clear the country and restore it to Tigranes. Immediately afterwards Pompey’s officer marched into Syria through Mesopotamia, which by treaty had been expressly recognised as Parthian; and it was another grievous insult that Pompey in writing to Phraates had withheld from him the title of king of kings. About 57 B.C. Phraates, the restorer of the empire, was murdered by his two sons, one of whom, Orodes or Hyrodes I, took the throne, while his brother Mithridates III got Media; but the latter ruled so cruelly that he was expelled by the Parthian nobles, and Orodes reigned alone.

ORODES DEFEATS THE ROMANS

A Parthian embassy appeared in Syria in the spring to remonstrate against the faithlessness of Rome, but at the same time the Parthians were ready for war. Surenas, with Silaces, satrap of Mesopotamia, was pressing the Roman garrisons, and prepared to confront Crassus with an army wholly composed of cavalry, while Orodes in person invaded Armenia. In the spring of 53 B.C., Crassus and his son Publius crossed the Euphrates at Zeugma with seven legions and eight thousand cavalry and light troops, making up a total of forty-two or forty-three thousand men, and was persuaded by Abgar of Orrhoene to leave the river and march straight across the plains to Surenas. Surenas kept the mass of his troops concealed by a wooded hill, showing only the not very numerous vanguard of cataphracts till the Romans were committed to do battle. The Roman cavalry charged the enemy to prevent a threatening flank movement, and were drawn away from the mass of the army by the favourite Parthian manœuvre of a simulated flight.[c]

So vivid a picture of the ferocity of this battle is given in Plutarch’s Life of Crassus, that we may well quote it here.[a]

PLUTARCH’S ACCOUNT OF THE BATTLE OF CARRHÆ

[Sidenote: [53 B.C.]]

The enemies seemed not to the Romans at the first to be so great a number, neither so bravely armed as they thought they had been. For, concerning their great number, Surenas had of purpose hid them, with certain troops he sent before; and to hide their bright armours he had cast cloaks and beasts’ skins upon them, but when both the armies approached near the one to the other, and that the sign to give charge was lift up in the air: first they filled the field with a dreadful noise to hear. For the Parthians do not encourage their men to fight with the sound of a horn, neither with trumpets nor hautboys, but with great kettle-drums hollow within, and about them they hang little bells and copper rings, and with them they all make a noise everywhere together, and it is like a dead sound, mingled as it were with the braying or bellowing of a wild beast, and a fearful noise as if it thundered, knowing that hearing is one of the senses that soonest moves the heart and spirit of any man, and makes him soonest beside himself.

The Romans being put in fear with this dead sound, the Parthians straight threw the clothes and coverings from them that hid their armour, and then showed their bright helmets and cuirasses of Margian tempered steel, that glared like fire, and their horses barbed with steel and copper. The bowmen drew a great strength, and had big strong bows, which sent the arrows from them with a wonderful force. The Romans by means of these bows were in hard state. For if they kept their ranks, they were grievously wounded: again if they left them, and sought to run upon the Parthians to fight at hand with them, they saw they could do them but little hurt, and yet were very likely to take the greater harm themselves. For, as fast as the Romans came upon them, so fast did the Parthians fly from them, and yet in flying continued still their shooting: which no nation but the Scythians could better do than they, being a matter indeed most greatly to their advantage. For by their flight they best did save themselves, and fighting still they thereby shunned the shame that their flying would have brought down upon them.

The Romans still defended themselves, and held it out, so long as they had any hope that the Parthians would leave fighting, when they had spent their arrows or would join battle with them. But after they understood that there were a great number of camels laden with quivers full of arrows, where the first that had bestowed their arrows fetched about to take new quivers: then Crassus, seeing no end of their shot, began to faint, and sent to Publius his son, willing him in any case to charge with desperate power upon the enemies, and to give an onset, before they were compassed in on every side.

But they, seeing him coming, turned straight their horse and fled. Publius Crassus seeing them fly, cried out, “These men will not abide us,” and so spurred on for life after them. They thought all had been won, and that there was no more to do, but to follow the chase: till they were gone far from the army, and then they found the deceit. For the horsemen that fled before them suddenly turned again, and a number of others besides came and set upon them. Whereupon the Romans halted, thinking that the enemies, perceiving they were so few, would come and fight with them hand to hand. Howbeit they set out against them their men at arms with their barbed horse, and made their light horsemen wheel round about them, keeping no order at all: who galloping up and down the plain, whirled up the sand hills from the bottom with their horses’ feet, which raised such a wonderful cloud of dust, that the Romans could scarce see or speak one to another.

For they, being shut up into a little room, and standing close one to another, were sore wounded with the Parthians’ arrows, and died of a cruel lingering death, crying out for anguish and pain they felt: and turning and tormenting themselves upon the sand, they brake the arrows sticking in them. Again, striving by force to pluck out the forked arrow heads, that had pierced far into their bodies through their veins and sinews: thereby they opened their wounds wider, and so cast themselves away. Many of them died thus miserably martyred: and such as died not, were not able to defend themselves.

Then when Publius Crassus prayed and besought them to charge the men at arms with their barbed horse, they showed him their hands fast nailed to their targets with arrows, and their feet likewise shot through and nailed to the ground: so as they could neither fly nor yet defend themselves. Thereupon himself encouraging his horsemen, went and gave a charge, and did valiantly set upon the enemies, but it was with too great disadvantage, both for offence and also for defence. For himself and his men with weak and light staves brake upon them that were armed with cuirasses of steel, or stiff leathern jackets. And the Parthians in contrary manner with mighty strong pikes gave charge upon these Gauls, which were either unarmed or else but lightly armed.

Yet those were they in whom Crassus most trusted, having done wonderful feats of war with them. For they received the Parthians’ pikes in their hands, and took them about their middles, and threw them off their horse, where they lay on the ground, and could not stir for the weight of their harness: and there were divers of them also that, lighting from their horse, lay under their enemies’ horses’ bellies, and thrust their swords into them. Their horse flinging and bounding in the air for very pain threw their masters under feet, and the enemies one upon another, and in the end fell dead among them. Moreover, extreme heat and thirst did marvellously cumber the Gauls, who were used to abide neither: and the most part of their horse were slain, charging with all their power upon the men at arms of the Parthians, and so ran themselves in upon the points of their pikes.

At length, they were driven to retire towards their footmen, and Publius Crassus among them, who was very ill by reason of the wounds he had received. And seeing a sand hill by chance not far from them, they went thither, and setting their horse in the midst of it, compassed it round with their targets, thinking by this means to cover and defend themselves the better from the barbarous people: howbeit they found it contrary. For they that were behind, standing higher, could by no means save themselves, but were all hurt alike, as well the one as the other, bewailing their own misery and misfortune, that must needs die without revenge or declaration of their valiancy. There were two Grecians who counselled P. Crassus to steal away with them. But Publius answered them, that there was no death so cruel as could make him forsake them that died for his sake. When he had so said, wishing them to save themselves, he embraced them, and took his leave of them: and being very sore hurt with the shot of an arrow through one of his hands, commanded one of his gentlemen to thrust him through with a sword, and so turned his side to him for the purpose. It is reported Censorinus did the like. But Megabacchus slew himself with his own hands, and so did the most part of the gentlemen that were of that company.

And for those that were left alive, the Parthians got up the sand hill, and fighting with them, thrust them through with their spears and pikes, and took but five hundred prisoners. After that, they struck off Publius Crassus’ head, and thereupon returned straight to set upon his father Crassus, who was then in this state. Crassus the father, after he had willed his son to charge the enemies, retired the best he could by a hill’s side, looking ever that his son would not be long before he returned from the chase. But Publius seeing himself in danger, had sent divers messengers to his father, to advertise him of his distress, whom the Parthians intercepted and slew by the way: and the last messengers he sent, escaping very hardly, brought Crassus news that his son was but cast away, if he did not presently aid him, and that with a great power. These news were grievous to Crassus in two respects: first for the fear he had, seeing himself in danger to lose all; and secondly for the vehement desire he had to go to his son’s help. Thus he saw in reason all would come to nought, and in fine determined to go with all his power to the rescue of his son.

But in the meantime the enemies were returned from his son’s overthrow, with a more dreadful noise and cry of victory than ever before: and thereupon their deadly sounding drums filled the air with their wonderful noise. The Romans then looked straight for a hot alarm. But the Parthians that brought Publius Crassus’ head upon the point of a lance, coming near to the Romans, showed them his head, and asked them in derision if they knew what house he was of, and who were his parents: for it was not likely (said they) that so noble and valiant a young man should be the son of so cowardly a father as Crassus.

The sight of Publius Crassus’ head killed the Romans’ hearts more than any other danger they had been in at any time in all the battle. For it did not set their hearts on fire as it should have done with anger and desire of revenge: but far otherwise, made them quake for fear, and struck them stark dead to behold it. Yet Crassus’ self showed greater courage in this misfortune than he before had done in all the war beside. For riding by every band he cried out aloud: “Our ancestors in old time lost a thousand ships, yea in Italy divers armies and chieftains for the conquest of Sicilia: yet for all the loss of them, at the length they were victorious over them by whom they were before vanquished. For the empire of Rome came not to that greatness it now is at by good fortune only, but by patience and constant suffering of trouble and adversity, never yielding or giving place unto any danger.”

Crassus, using these persuasions to encourage his soldiers for resolution, found that all his words wrought none effect: but contrarily, after he had commanded them to give the shout of battle, he plainly saw their hearts were done, for their shout rose but faint, and not all alike. The Parthians on the other side, their shout was great, and lustily they rang it out. Now when they came to join, the Parthians’ archers on horseback compassing in the Romans upon the wings shot an infinite number of arrows at their sides. But their men at arms, giving charge upon the front of the Romans, battled with their great lances, compelled them to draw into a narrow room, a few excepted, that valiantly and in desperate manner ran in among them, as men rather desiring so to die than to be slain with their arrows, where they could do the Parthians almost no hurt at all. So were they soon despatched, with the great lances that ran them through, head, wood, and all, with such a force that oftentimes they ran through two at once.

Thus when they had fought the whole day, night drew on, and made them retire, saying they would give Crassus that night’s respite, to lament and bewail his son’s death. So the Parthians, camping hard by the Romans, were in very good hope to overthrow him the next morning. The Romans on the other side had a marvellous ill night, making no reckoning to bury their dead, nor to dress their wounded men, that died in miserable pain; but every man bewailed his hard fortune, when they saw not one of them could escape, if they tarried till the morning. But Crassus went aside without light, and laid him down with his head covered, because he would see no man, showing thereby the common sort an example of unstable fortune; and the wise men, a good learning to know the fruits of ill counsel and vain ambition, that had so much blinded him that he could not be content to command so many thousands of men, but thought (as a man would say) himself the meanest of all, and one that possessed nothing, because he was accounted inferior unto two persons only, Pompey and Cæsar.

Notwithstanding, Octavius, one of his chieftains, and Cassius the treasurer, seeing him so overcome with sorrow and out of heart that he had no life nor spirit in him, they themselves called the captains and centurions together, and sat in council for their departure, and so agreed that there was no longer tarrying for them. Thus of their own authority at the first they made the army march away without any sound of trumpet or other noise.

But immediately after, they that were left hurt and sick, and could not follow, seeing the camp remove, fell a-crying out and tormenting themselves in such sort that they filled the whole camp with sorrow, and put them out of all order with the great moan and loud lamentation; so that the foremost rank that first dislodged fell into a marvellous fear, thinking they had been the enemies that had come and set upon them. Then turning oft, and setting themselves in battle array, one while loading their beasts with the wounded men, another while unloading them again, they were left behind.[d]

After getting dangerously entangled in marshy ground, Crassus had almost reached the mountains when he was induced, by the despair of his troops rather than by error of his own judgment, to yield to treacherous proposals of Surenas and descend again into the plain. As he mounted the horse which was to convey him to the meeting with the enemy’s general, the gestures of the Parthians excited suspicions of treachery, a struggle ensued, and Crassus was struck down and slain. Scarcely ten thousand out of the whole host reached Syria by way of Armenia; twenty thousand had fallen and ten thousand captives were settled in Antioch, the capital of Margiana.

[Sidenote: [53-40 B.C.]]

The token of victory, the hand and head of Crassus, reached Orodes in Armenia just as he had made peace with Artavasdes and betrothed his eldest son Pacorus to the daughter of the Armenian king. The Roman disaster was due primarily to the novelty of the Parthian way of assault, which took them wholly by surprise, and partly also to bad generalship; but the Romans always sought a traitor to account for a defeat, and in the present case they threw the blame partly on Andromachus of Carrhæ, who really did mislead Crassus in his retreat, and was rewarded by the Parthians with the tyranny of his native town, but had no great influence on the disaster; and partly on Abgar, whose advice was no doubt bad, but not necessarily treacherous.

Surenas, the victor of Carrhæ, whose fame was now too great for the condition of a mere subject, was put to death a little later, the victim of Orodes’ jealousy; the victory itself was weakly followed up. Not till 52 B.C. was Syria invaded, and then with forces so weak that Cassius found the defence easy.

Orodes avoided a threatened breach with his son Pacorus, by associating him in the empire; but the Parthians took little advantage of the civil wars that preceded the fall of the Roman Republic. They occasionally stepped in to save the weaker party from utter annihilation, but even this policy was not followed with energy, and Orodes refused to help Pompey in his distress because the Roman would not promise to give him Syria. Labienus was with Orodes negotiating for help on a larger scale when the news of Philippi arrived, and remained with him till 40 B.C., when he was at last sent back to Syria, together with Pacorus and a numerous host. The Roman garrisons in Syria were old troops of Brutus and Cassius, who had been taken over by Antony; those in the region of Apamea joined Labienus; Antony’s legate Decidius Saxa was defeated, and fled from the camp afraid of his own men.

[Sidenote: [43-36 B.C.]]

Apamea, Antioch, and all Syria soon fell into the hands of the Parthians, and Decidius was pursued and slain. Pacorus advanced along the great road and received the submission of all the Phœnician cities save Tyre. Simultaneously the satrap Barzaphranes appeared in Galilee; the patriots all over Palestine rose against Phasael and Herod; and five hundred Parthian horse appearing before Jerusalem were enough to overthrow the Roman party and substitute Antigonus for Hyrcanus. The Parthian administration was a favourable contrast to the rule of the oppressive proconsuls, and the justice and clemency of Pacorus won the hearts of the Syrians. Meantime Labienus had penetrated Asia Minor as far as Lydia and Ionia. The Roman governor Plancus could only hold the islands; most of the cities opened their gates to Labienus, the “Parthicus imperator.”

But Rome even in its time of civil divisions was stronger than Parthia; in 39 B.C. Ventidius Bassus, general for Antony, suddenly appeared in Asia and drove Labienus and his provincial levies before him without a battle as far as the Taurus. Here the Parthians came to Labienus’ help, but, attacking rashly and without his co-operation, they were defeated by Ventidius and Labienus’ troops were involved in the disaster; Phranipates, the ablest lieutenant of Pacorus, fell, and the Parthians evacuated Syria. Before Ventidius had completed the resettlement of the Roman power in Syria and Palestine, and while his troops were dispersed in winter quarters, the Parthians fell on him again with a force of more than twenty thousand men and an unusually large proportion of free cavaliers in full armour. A battle was fought near the shrine of Hercules at Gindarus in Cyrrhestica, on the anniversary, it is said, of the defeat of Crassus (9th of June, 38 B.C.); the Parthians were utterly routed and Pacorus himself was 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 to reign by making away with brothers of whom he was jealous, and then strangling his father, who had not concealed his anger at the former crime (37 B.C.). The reign of Orodes was the culminating point of Parthian greatness, and all his successors adopted his title of king of kings, “Arsaces Euergetes.” It was he who moved the capital westward to Seleucia, or rather to Ctesiphon (Taisefún), its eastern suburb.

PHRAATES IV REPELS MARK ANTONY

[Sidenote: [36-9 B.C.]]

Phraates IV continued his reign in a series of crimes, 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. 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. Keeping the Parthians in play by feigned proposals of peace while he matured his preparations, he appeared in Atropatene in 36 B.C. with sixty thousand legionaries and forty thousand cavalry and auxiliary troops, and at once formed the siege of the capital Phraaspa. The Median king Artavasdes, son of Ariobarzanes, had marched to join Phraates, who looked for the attack in another quarter. Phraates had only forty thousand Parthians, including but four hundred freemen who never left the king, and probably ten thousand Median cavalry; 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 seventy-five hundred 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. As it was now October, he was at length forced to open negotiations with Phraates.

The Parthians 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, chastising one officer who hazarded an engagement by a defeat which cost the Romans three thousand killed and five thousand wounded. Still greater were the losses by famine and thirst and dysentery; and the whole force was utterly demoralised 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 geographical 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 discipline in the soldiers of the Civil War, which called for very severe 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.

Media and Armenia fell before the Parthians; the Romans who were still in the country were slain, and Artaxes II was raised to the Armenian throne (30 B.C.). In the very next year, however, the course of the Parthian affairs led Artaxes to make his peace with Rome. Phraates’ tyranny had only been aggravated by his successes, and open rebellion broke out in 33 B.C. We have coins of an anonymous pretender dated March to June 32 B.C. To him succeeded Tiridates II, whose rebellion was at a climax during the war of Actium. Phraates was taken by surprise and fled, slaying his concubines that they might not fall a prey to his victor. Tiridates seated himself on the throne in June, 27 B.C., and Phraates wandered for some time in exile till he persuaded the Scythians to undertake his cause. Before the great host of the Scythians Tiridates retired without a contest. In June, 26 B.C., as the coins prove, Phraates again held the throne. In 10 or 9 B.C. Phraates took the precaution of sending his family to Rome so that the rebels might have no Arsacid pretender to put forward, keeping only and designating as heir his youngest son by his favourite wife Thea Musa Urania, an Italian slave girl presented to him by Augustus. This was mainly a scheme of Urania’s, and she and her son crowned it by murdering the old tyrant.

ANARCHY IN PARTHIA

[Sidenote: [9 B.C.-40 A.D.]]

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.

[Sidenote: [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.

Gotarzes died of a sickness, not before June, 51 A.D., and was followed by Vonones II, who had been king in Atropatene, and was probably a brother of Artabanus III. According to the coins his short reign began before September, 51 A.D., and did not end before October, 54 A.D. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Volagases I, the brothers acquiescing in his advancement, although his mother was only a concubine from Miletus; and receiving their compensation by being nominated to kingdoms which gave them the second and third places after the king of kings--Pacorus to Media or Atropatene, and Tiridates to Armenia. The Armenians now offered no resistance to the Parthians, but the Romans were not content to lose their influence in the land. Open war with Rome, however, was still delayed by negotiations. Finally Rome refused to confirm a treaty, and war was declared. The first year of the war (62 A.D.) was unfortunate for the Romans. Next year the war was resumed, 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 A.D. 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 (Vologeses) formed very friendly relations with Vespasian, which endured till 75 A.D.

Volagases I died soon after the Alan wars, leaving a just reputation by his friendly relation to his brothers (a relation so long unknown), his patient steadfastness in foreign war and home troubles, and his foundation of a new capital. Perhaps also he has the merit of collecting from fragments or oral tradition all that remained of the Avesta. From June, 78 A.D., we find two kings coining and reigning together, Volagases II and Pacorus II, probably brothers. From 79 A.D. there is a long break in the coins of the former, and Artabanus IV takes his place with a coin struck in July, 81 A.D. This Artabanus appears as the protector of a certain Terentius Maximus, who pretended to be Nero; he threatened to restore him and displace Titus by force, and though the pretender was at length given up, the farce, which was kept up till 88 A.D., might have ended in earnest but for the disorders of the times--indicated by a break in the Parthian coinage between 84 and 93 A.D., in which latter year Pacorus appears as sole king.

[Sidenote: [88-116 A.D.]]

At this time the political horizon of Parthia was very wide, and its intercourse with the farthest East was livelier than at any other date. In 90 A.D. the Yue-chi had come to war with the governor of Chinese Tatary and been reduced to vassalship: in 94 A.D. a Chinese expedition slew their king, and advancing to the “North Sea” (Lake Aral) subdued fifty kingdoms. The Tochari, one sees, like the Greeks before them, had neglected the lands north of the Hindu-Kush in their designs on India; even of Ooemo-Kadphises no coins are found north of that range. In 97 A.D. Chinese envoys directed to Rome actually reached the Mediterranean, but were dissuaded from going further from Parthian accounts of the terrors of the sea voyage; and in 101 A.D. Muon-kiu, king of An-si (Parthians), sent lions and gazelles to the emperor of China. Muon-kiu reigned in Ho-to--i.e., Carta or Zadracarta in Hyrcania; he was therefore a king of the Hyrcanians, who also held the old Parthian lands east of the Caspian Gate, and may be identical with a king, rival to Pacorus, who struck copper coins in 107 and 108 A.D., if the latter is not identical with the later monarch Osroes.

But at any rate the representative of the Parthian power in the West was still Pacorus II, who in 110 A.D. sold the crown of Edessa to Abgar VII, bar Izat, and died soon after, making way for his brother Osroes, who had to reckon with two rivals--Volagases II from 112 A.D. onwards, and Meherdates (Mithridates) VI. The latter was a brother of Osroes, and so probably was the former. None of the three was strong enough to conquer the others, and continual war went on between them till Osroes was foolish enough to provoke Roman intervention by taking Armenia from Exedares, son of Pacorus, to whose appointment Rome had not objected, and transferring it to another son of Pacorus called Parthamasiris.

THE ROMANS INTERVENE

Trajan, who had quite thrown over the principle of the Julii and Flavii (that the Danube and the Euphrates were the boundaries of the empire) and was fully embarked on the old Chauvinist traditions of the republic, would not let such an occasion slip; and refusing an answer to an embassy that met him at Athens, he entered Armenia and took Arsamosata without battle, after receiving the homage of western Armenia (114 A.D.). Parthamasiris submitted himself to the emperor, but Trajan declared that Armenia must be a Roman province, appointed an escort to see the Parthian over the border, and when he resisted and tried to escape ordered his execution--a brutal act, meant to inspire terror and show that the Arsacids should no longer be treated with on equal terms. Armenia and the neighbouring kings to the north having given in their submission, Trajan marched back to Edessa, receiving the homage of Abgar. The campaign of 115 A.D. was in Mesopotamia. At its close Mesopotamia was made a Roman province; the Cardueni and the Marcomedi of the Armenian frontier had also been reduced, and Trajan received the title of “Parthicus.” In 116 A.D. the Tigris was crossed in the face of the enemy, and a third new province of Assyria absorbed the whole kingdom of Mebarsapes. Once more the Tigris was crossed and Babylonia invaded, still without resistance from the Parthians.

[Sidenote: [116-166 A.D.]]

A Roman fleet descended the Euphrates and the ships were conveyed across on rollers to the Tigris, to co-operate with the army; and now Ctesiphon fell and Osroes fled to Armenia, the northeast parts of which cannot have been thoroughly subdued. The Roman fleet descended the Tigris and received the submission of Mesene; but now, while Trajan was engaged in a voyage of reconnaissance in the Persian Gulf, plainly aiming at Bahrein, all the new provinces revolted and destroyed or expelled the Roman garrisons. The rebellion was at length put down, but Trajan now saw what it would cost to maintain direct Roman rule over such wide and distant conquests, and Parthamaspates was solemnly crowned in the great plain by Ctesiphon in the presence of Romans and Parthians (winter of 117 A.D.). An unsuccessful siege of Atra (Hatrá) in the Mesopotamian desert was Trajan’s next undertaking; illness and the revolt of the Jews prevented him from resuming the campaign, and after Trajan’s death (7th of August, 117 A.D.) Hadrian wisely withdrew the garrisons from the new provinces, which would have demanded the constant presence of the imperial armies, and again made the Euphrates the limit of the empire. Parthamaspates, too, had soon to leave Parthia, and Hadrian gave him Orrhoene. Thus Trajan’s Chauvinist policy had no other result than to show to the world the miserable weakness to which discord had reduced the Parthians. Osroes died soon after, and Volagases II became sole monarch, dying in November, 148 A.D., at the age of about ninety-six, after a reign of seventy-one years.

Volagases III, who succeeded, had designs on Armenia, and in 162 A.D. expelled the Arsacid Sohæmus, who was a client of Rome, and made Pacorus king. The destruction of a Roman legion under the legate of Cappadocia (Ælius Severianus), who fell on his own sword, laid Cappadocia and Syria open to the Parthians. When late in the year Ælius Verus arrived from the capital he found the troops so demoralised by defeat that he was ready to offer peace; but when Volagases refused to treat, the able lieutenants whom Verus directed from Antioch soon changed the face of affairs.

The war had two theatres, and was officially called the Armenian and Parthian War. Armenia was regained and Sohæmus restored (163, 164 A.D.), while Avidius Cassius drove Volagases from Syria in a bloody battle at Europus, and entering north Mesopotamia, took Edessa and Nisibis, though not without serious opposition. At length, deserted by his allies (the local kings, who were becoming more and more independent), Volagases abandoned Mesopotamia, and Cassius entered Babylonia, where, on a frivolous pretext, he gave up to rapine and the flames the friendly city of Seleucia, still the first city of the East, with four hundred thousand inhabitants.

The destruction of Seleucia was a hideous crime, a mortal wound dealt to Eastern Hellenism by its natural protectors; that Cassius next, advancing to Ctesiphon, razed the palace of Volagases to the ground may, on the other hand, be defended as a symbolical act calculated more than anything else to impair the prestige of the Parthian with his oriental subjects. Cassius returned to Syria in 165 A.D., with his victorious army much weakened through the failure of the commissariat and by the plague, which, breaking out in Parthia immediately after the fall of Seleucia, spread over the whole known world. In the same year Martius Verus won hardly less considerable successes in Media Atropatene, then apparently a separate kingdom. The peace which followed in 166 A.D. gave Mesopotamia to Rome.

This was the greatest of all wars between Rome and Parthia, alike in the extent of the lands involved and the energy of attack shown by the Parthians. Parthia, after this last effort, continued steadily to decline.

THE DECAY OF PARTHIAN GREATNESS

[Sidenote: [166-217 A.D.]]

The Romans at the same time made an effort to compete with Parthia for the Chinese trade (especially in silk), which the latter had jealously kept in their own hands, and in 166 A.D. an envoy of An-thun (M. Antoninus) reached the court of the emperor Huan-ti, via the sea and Tongking. But the effort to establish a direct trade with China was unavailing, and the trade still flowed in its old channels when a second Roman agent reached China in 226 A.D., a little before the fall of the Parthian Empire. The Chinese tell us that with India also the Parthians drove a considerable trade.

Volagases III died in 191 A.D., having reigned forty-two years without civil war, and was succeeded by Volagases IV, who fought several vain battles with Rome. In 199 A.D. a fleet on the Euphrates co-operated with the Roman army, and Severus, taking up an unaccomplished plan of Trajan, dredged out the old Naarmalca canal, through which his ships sailed into the Tigris, and took the Parthians wholly by surprise. Seleucia and Coche were deserted by their inhabitants; Ctesiphon was taken by the end of the year with terrible slaughter, one hundred thousand inhabitants being led captive and the place given up to pillage, for the Great King had fled powerless at the approach of the foe. Severus, whose force was reduced by famine and dysentery, did not attempt pursuit, but drew off up the Tigris. The army was again in its quarters by the 1st of April, 200 A.D., and for some time thereafter Severus was occupied in Armenia. But in 201 A.D. he undertook a carefully organised expedition against Atra, from whose walls the Romans had been repulsed with great loss when Severus, returning from the Tigris in the previous year, had attempted to carry it by a coup de main. This city, which in Trajan’s time was neither great nor rich, was now a wealthy place, and the sun temple contained vast treasures. The classical authors call it Arabian, but the king’s name is Syriac--Barsenius, i.e., Bar Sín, son of the moon, and we may suppose that it was really an Aramæan principality, which like Palmyra had its strength from the surrounding Arab tribes that it could call into the field. Severus lay before Atra for twenty days, but the enemy’s cavalry cut off his foraging parties, the admirable archers galled the Roman troops, a great part of the siege-train was burned with naphtha; and when, in addition, two assaults had been repulsed with tremendous loss on two successive days, the emperor was compelled to raise the siege--a severe blow to Roman prestige in the East, and one that greatly exalted the name of Atra and its prince, but did not help in the least the decaying power of Parthia.

In 209 A.D. Volagases IV was succeeded by his son Volagases V, under whom in 212 A.D. the fatal troubles in Persia began; while in 213 A.D. his brother Artabanus rose as rival claimant of the kingship, and the civil war lasted for many years. A fresh danger arose when Tiridates, a brother of Volagases IV, who had long been a refugee with the Romans and had accomplished Severus’ campaign of 199 A.D., escaped, in company with a Cilician adventurer, the cynic Antiochus, to the court of his nephew Volagases; for the emperor Antoninus (Caracalla) demanded their surrender, and obtained it only by a declaration of war (215 A.D.). About the same time Artabanus gained the upper hand, and in 216 A.D. he held Ctesiphon and its district; but Volagases still held out in the Greek cities of Babylonia, as his tetradrachms prove (till 222 A.D.). Artabanus’ strength lay in the north; the Arab histories of the Sassanians make him king of the Median region. Presently Artabanus had a war with Rome on his hands. An overwhelming Parthian force fell on Mesopotamia and refused to be appeased by the restoration of the captives of the previous year; Macrinus was beaten in two engagements and compelled to retire to Syria, abandoning the Mesopotamian plain; and in the winter of 217-218 A.D. he was glad to purchase peace for an indemnity of 50,000,000 denarii (£1,774,298 or $8,871,490). In or about 222 A.D. Artabanus must also have displaced his brother in Babylonia.

PERSIA CONQUERS PARTHIA

[Sidenote: [217-228 A.D.]]

Persia, which dealt the last blow to the Arsacids, had through the whole Parthian period held an isolated position, and is so seldom mentioned that our knowledge of its history and native princes is almost wholly due to recently found coins. The emblems on the coins show that Persia was always loyally Zoroastrian, and at Istakhr stood the famous Fire temple of the goddess Anahedh. Its priest was Sassan, whose marriage with a Bazrangian princess, Rambehisht, laid the foundation of the greatness of his house, while priestly influence, which was very strong, doubtless favoured its rise. Pabak, son of Sassan, and Ardashir, son of Pabak, begin the history of the Sassanian dynasty, which occupies the next chapter. Artabanus did nothing to check the rise of the new power till Ardashir had all Persia in his hands (224 A.D.) and had begun to erect a palace and temple at Gor (Firuzabad). Nirofar, king of Elymais, was then sent against him, but was defeated, and now Ardashir passed beyond Persia and successively reduced Ispahan (Farætacene), Ahwaz (Elymais), and Mesene.

After this victory Ardashir sent a challenge to Artabanus himself; their armies met by appointment in the plain of Hormizdjan, and Artabanus fell (the 28th of April, 227 A.D.). Ctesiphon and Babylonia must have fallen not much later, though Volagases V seems to have re-established himself there on his brother’s death, and a tetradrachm shows that he held the city till autumn 227 A.D. The conquest of Assyria and great part of Media and Parthia is assigned by Dion expressly or by implication to the year 228 A.D. And so the Parthian Empire was at an end.[c]

FOOTNOTES

[29] [Persia, or rather Persis, is the latinised form of a name which originally and exclusively designated only the country bounded on the north by Media and on the northwest by Susiana, which of old had its capital at Persepolis or Istakhr, and for almost twelve centuries since has had it at Shiraz.]

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II. THE EMPIRE OF THE SASSANIDS

[Sidenote: [228-652 A.D.]]

Of the countries whose sovereigns were subject to the dominion (sometimes actual and sometimes merely nominal) of the Parthian “king of kings,” Persia proper itself was one. The names of some of the lesser kings of that country during the Arsacid period are known to us, partly through a reference here and there in literature, partly from their coins; but we do not know whether they all belong to one and the same dynasty. About the beginning of the third century after Christ, the country presented a scene of confusion. The power of the local kings had fallen very low, and the mountainous regions, cleft asunder by natural divisions, were full of petty tyrants. Papak or Pabak, a son or descendant of Sassan, was one of these. He came originally from the village of Khir on the southern shore of the great salt lake east of Shiraz, and succeeded in overthrowing the last prince of that dynasty, Gozihr by name, in whose service he had been, and gaining dominion first over the district of Istakhr, the ancient Persepolis. On coins and inscriptions his son gives him the title of king. According to tradition, which in this instance is certainly trustworthy, his lawful successor would have been his son Sapor, to whom the Arsacid king is said to have granted the crown at his father’s request during the life-time of the latter.

After his death, however, another of his sons, named Ardashir, refused to submit to his brother, and rose in revolt; about which time Sapor died--we can hardly suppose by accident. That Ardashir found his brothers in his way and slew them, is so definitely affirmed by well authenticated tradition that we cannot entertain a doubt that such was the case. The empire of the Sassanids begins with Ardashir, just as that of the Achæmenides begins with Cyrus, whose forefathers had likewise been kings. His name, of which Artachshathr is the older form, is the same as that which the Greeks rendered by Artaxerxes. It is a remarkable fact that in the native home of the Achæmenides, who are otherwise unknown to genuine Persian tradition, the ancient royal names should have survived in common use; for several princes of the pre-Sassanid period were named Artaxerxes and Darius (Darjaw, Darao, Dara). According to a fairly probable estimate, Ardashir’s first appearance as king should be assigned to the year 211-12 A.D.

[Sidenote: [211-233 A.D.]]

That he had hard work to exalt himself from prince of Persis to “king of the kings of Iran” is recognised by tradition. He first made himself master of the province of Carmania, which lies east of Persis, then of Susiana, then of the small kingdom about the mouth of the Tigris. The resistance which he had to overcome in the first instance was offered by local sovereigns, not by the Parthian king, whose power was restricted to an enormous extent by his nobles and vassals. Ultimately, however, Ardashir came into conflict with him also.

According to Dion Cassius,[c] a contemporary, we are led to believe that Ardashir defeated the Parthians in three battles. His decisive encounter with Ardavan (Artabanus), the last Parthian Great King, probably took place on April 22nd, 224 A.D.[30] Ardavan fell in the battle, and from that time forward Ardashir assumed the title of “king of kings,” which from ancient days had been borne by the ruler of the empire of anterior Asia. All the evidence points to the decisive battle having taken place in Babylonia or Susiana. This would fit in with Dion’s statement that the first expedition afterwards undertaken was directed against Atra, in the midst of the Mesopotamian desert, where a small independent state had come into being in the near neighbourhood of the Parthian capital. At first Ardashir beat in vain upon the walls of Atra, whose strength can still be seen from the mighty ruins that remain, but the place was soon taken and destroyed either by him or his successor. He succeeded in conquering Media, where he was opposed by a scion of the Arsacid family, and the greater part of the Iranian highlands; but not Armenia, whither sons of Ardavan had fled.

The Romans had watched the rise of Ardashir with apprehension. There is no question that he cherished the design of seizing upon as many of their Asiatic possessions as he could. He gained some successes at first, but was forced to give ground when Alexander Severus marched against him. The history of the empire of the Sassanids was conditioned from the outset by its relations with Rome. Peace was again and again concluded between the two, but they invariably looked upon each other as adversaries, and as adversaries of equal rank. Under capable rulers and tolerable internal conditions Rome (that is Byzantium) maintained the ascendency of the European over the Asiatic, but circumstances were frequently adverse, and the Persians heaped disgrace upon the Roman name. This struggle fills the chief place in the political history of the Sassanids.

SASSANIAN POWER

[Sidenote: [236-260 A.D.]]

Istakhr remained the capital in theory, as Persepolis had formerly been. There stood the Fire temple of the royal house, in which the heads of vanquished foreign kings were hung up among other trophies. But the real metropolis was Ctesiphon, the capital of the Arsacids, and Seleucia, which was divided from it only by the Tigris and which Ardashir restored under the name of Veh-Ardashir (good Ardashir). The rich country in which this double city lay was neither geographically nor ethnographically a part of Iran, for the deep valley was peopled principally by Semites; the choice of it as the seat of government was due to the precedent set by the elder empire and in part, probably, to its nearness to Roman territory. We cannot in all cases be sure over which countries Ardashir ruled at the end of his life, for the national tradition tells of some conquests really made by his successors, and others which the Sassanids never made at all. But Ardashir won and consolidated a great empire that held together for four centuries, giving a powerful blow to the system of vassal states, which had become more and more prevalent under the Arsacids, and reducing most of these states to provinces.

SAPOR FIGHTS ROME

The statement that he associated his son Sapor with him in the government gains a degree of confirmation from the existence of coins bearing a youthful head beside his own. He died at the end of 241 or the beginning of 242. Sapor I (older form Shahpur; among Occidentals Sapor or Sapores) was in all likelihood solemnly crowned on March 20th, 242. The mythical statement that his mother was an Arcadian princess whom Ardashir took to wife at the conquest of Ctesiphon is incompatible with the probably more correct tradition that he had distinguished himself in the decisive battle against Ardavan; nor is it likely that a child of thirteen or fourteen would have taken so energetically in hand the war against Rome. For Ardashir had resumed the struggle in his later years (in the reign of Maximin, between February, 236, and about May, 238), and had taken Nisibis (Nesibin) and Carrhæ (Haran), the two fortresses round which so many battles were fought in the course of these wars.

In 242 Sapor had pressed forward to Antioch; but there he was met by the emperor Gordian, and the latter, or rather his father-in-law Timesitheus, drove him back and retook the two Mesopotamian strongholds. He defeated the Persians at Reshaina, and purposed to march upon the Persian capital. Like Julian after him, he chose the way along the Euphrates; and somewhat below the junction of the Chaboras with the Euphrates, nearly on the frontier between the two empires, Gordian was slain by the commander of the guard, Philip the Arab (beginning of 244). The murderer had himself proclaimed emperor and hastily concluded a shameful peace with Sapor, by which he is said to have resigned Armenia and Mesopotamia to him.

There seems then to have been a breathing space of several years, but in 251 or 252 Sapor made a fresh beginning. This time he really occupied Armenia, which he had not been able to conquer before, and forced the king to take refuge in Roman territory. From the isolated and contradictory rumours that have come down to us we can hardly gather how many times the Persians invaded Syria during this period. Nothing but the frightful decrepitude of Rome could have rendered such a thing possible. On one occasion Cyriades, a Syrian, led the Persians right to Antioch, and under their protection assumed the title of emperor! At last the emperor Valerian marched against them. For a while the war was waged on Mesopotamian soil, but fortune turned against the Romans in the end; and the bitterest of all humiliations befell them, for the emperor himself was taken prisoner by Sapor (260). Under what circumstances this came to pass we cannot tell; it was certainly preceded by negotiations in which Valerian vainly tried to secure an unmolested retreat for himself and his army on payment of a sum of money. The Romans laid the blame of it on treachery or breach of faith.

THE WAR WITH PALMYRA

[Sidenote: [260-293 A.D.]]

After taking Valerian captive, Sapor pressed on towards Asia Minor, but there was met by successful resistance. Many Persians were slaughtered by Ballista, the Roman general. But the heaviest blow was dealt to the king by the hand of a romanised Oriental. Odenathus (Odhenat), the chieftain of the great trading city of Palmyra in the heart of the Syrian desert, is said to have offered to enter into alliance with him, and to have been completely repulsed. This is quite possible, for though Palmyra was a part of the Roman Empire, yet since the emperor was a prisoner and Rome’s dominion over the East was apparently broken, an ambitious Oriental might easily have conceived the idea of playing an independent part as an ally of the Great King. However that may be, Odenathus, on the watch for a favourable place and opportunity, joined forces with Ballista, attacked the Persians on their retreat, and inflicted a severe defeat upon them. Part of the royal harem fell into his hands, and he even besieged Ctesiphon once, if not twice.

Towards the end of Sapor’s reign a great change took place in the oriental dominions of Rome. He appears to have supported Zenobia, the widow of Odenathus, against Rome, though without lasting success. By the time the emperor took Palmyra (273) and restored Roman supremacy over those regions, Sapor was presumably already dead.

His son Hormuzd (Ohrmazd) I began to reign at the end of 272 or 273. As a prince he appears to have fought gallantly against the Romans, and is known to tradition by the surname of “the hero.” Among other legends of all kinds he is said to have been satrap of Khorasan (which included all the northeastern provinces) before his accession. As a king he had hardly a chance of doing great deeds, for he reigned only one year.

According to the evidence of an inscription, his successor Bahram (Varahran) I was not his son, as tradition has it, but his brother. He is reported to have been an indolent and voluptuous sovereign. Manes ventured to approach him, but by the machinations of the priests of Zoroaster he was slain and his skin was stuffed and hung up to public view. Bahram I reigned from about 274 to about 277.

Of his son, Bahram II (about 277-294), Persian tradition knows practically nothing. Two large rock inscriptions, unfortunately much defaced, probably date from his reign; they are religious, even hortatory in substance, and strongly hierarchical in tendency. The emperor Probus (276-282) concluded a peace with him on one occasion; of the struggles which preceded it we have no knowledge. Probus himself was assassinated before he could resume hostilities, but Carus carried out his design (283), advanced to the very capital of the enemy’s empire, and took Ctesiphon and Coche (a part of Seleucia). The sudden death of the emperor, who is said to have been struck by a flash of lightning, wrought deliverance for the Persians, for after it the Romans appear to have withdrawn without much fighting. It is expressly stated that the arms of Carus were favoured by civil broils among the Persians. Of such the period was undoubtedly prolific, but we have no exact information on the subject. In the year 291 a rhetorician referred to the revolt of Prince Hormuzd (Ormies) against his brother the king, in conjunction with barbarian tribes.

The youthful son whom Bahram II caused to be figured opposite his consort upon his coins probably never came to the throne. It seems likely that after his death two claimants fought for the succession, Bahram III, presumably a son of Hormuzd, and Narseh, according to an inscription the son of Sapor I. At all events Bahram III, who as prince had been satrap of Sakenland (Sagastan, now Sistan) in the southeast of the empire, and consequently bore the surname of Sagan Shah (Saken-king), reigned, or at least held possession of the capital, for a very short time only.

[Sidenote: [293-339 A.D.]]

Narseh reigned about 293-303. He trod in the footsteps of Sapor, and conquered Armenia. Cæsar Galerius took the field against him (probably in 297) but was defeated in Mesopotamia, between Carrhæ and Callinicus (Rakka). Under the wise direction of Diocletian, however, Galerius soon restored the lustre of the Roman arms. He completely overthrew Narseh in Armenia and took his wives and children prisoners. The negotiations for peace, concerning which we have somewhat more definite information, ended in a brilliant triumph; for Persia resigned all pretensions to Armenia and Mesopotamia, and even ceded certain districts on the left of the Tigris, extending as far as Kurdistan. The king willingly gave up the provinces in return for the restoration of his family. This peace (dating from 298) lasted for forty years. Narseh was succeeded by his son Hormuzd II (about 303). Of his reign we know nothing.

After his death his son Adharnarseh ascended the throne (beginning of 310), but after a very short time was deposed--on account of his cruelty it is said--and probably slain. The nobles, who then had the power in their own hands, disqualified for rule another (unnamed) son of Hormuzd II by putting out his eyes, and flung Hormuzd, the third son, into prison. They then nominated for the kingship the newborn or still unborn son of the queen Ifra--Hormuzd. All these events took place in the course of the year 310. The royal infant was named Sapor II, oppressor of Christians.

The state of things under the rule of his mother and the great nobles may easily be imagined. But the child developed early into a man capable of governing alone; he was one of the most famous sovereigns of the dynasty. Before he had grown to manhood Hormuzd escaped from captivity and fled to the Romans (323), amongst whom he remained till his death, fighting with them against Sapor, his half-brother, down to the year 363. Persian tradition, which has little of a historical nature to tell of Sapor II, gives us accounts of his adventurous campaigns against the Arabs, who had occupied or devastated various parts of Persian territory during his minority. These legends are highly exaggerated, not without an anti-Arab intention; but there can be no doubt that Sapor zealously devoted himself to the task of keeping the rapacious Bedouins out of civilised regions--a very serious problem for the rulers of countries bordering on the desert. The restoration of the ancient city of Susa is notable amongst the cities which he founded. The inhabitants had rebelled against him, and in retaliation he had them put to death and their city trodden into the dust by elephants; after which he built it afresh. Nishapur (properly Nev-Shahpuhr), one of the largest cities of the East down to late mediæval times, was founded either by him or by Sapor I.

During Sapor’s youth the mighty change had taken place by which Constantine procured for Christianity the victory over paganism in the Roman Empire. The Christians in the Persian Empire immediately recognised in Rome the Christian state par excellence, and were strongly disposed in its favour. When Sapor went to war with the Romans (337 or 338) they openly displayed their own sentiments; at least a homily of Aphraates, a Syrian bishop in the Persian Empire, written about this time, speaks on the subject in no ambiguous tone. In addition to this, Simon, bishop of the capital, indulged in such defiant utterances as no oriental monarch was likely to let pass, least of all a young and energetic sovereign like Sapor II. It was the signal for conflict, and a frightful persecution of the Christians began almost simultaneously with the Roman War (339-40). We have an animated picture of these events in the Syrian Acts of the Martyrs, which throw much light on other things and persons in the empire. The king was not actuated by religious fanaticism. The Jews were as obnoxious to his priests as the Christians, but he left them unmolested. Even in the Acts of the Martyrs he repeatedly appears as a man wholly without bias in purely religious matters. But, like Diocletian, he wished to annihilate that state within the state--the organisation of the church; and he therefore destroyed church buildings and took the most vigorous measures against both the superior and the inferior clergy.

A NEW WAR WITH ROME

[Sidenote: [337-363 A.D.]]

According to Roman assertions, the Persians began the war by an invasion of Mesopotamia. Constantine died before he could take the field against them (the 22nd of May, 337). But the king’s great preparations date from the year which begins with the autumn of 337. On the first and longer half of the war, which lasted with many vicissitudes and long pauses for twenty-five years, our information is but scanty. On parts of the second, on the contrary, we possess very full reports by contemporaries and even eye-witnesses. The king’s object was to deprive the Romans of their possessions on the upper Tigris, where it must have been exceedingly inconvenient for the Persians to have them on account of their nearness to Ctesiphon. Above all, he aimed at taking the strong fortress of Nisibis; and he further desired to bring Armenia, that old apple of discord between the Eastern and Western empires, into subjection to himself once more. Three times he closely besieged Nisibis (in the years 338, 346, and 350), but in vain. Sieges, on the whole, play a very great part in this war.

If Sapor did not in the long run succeed in gaining great advantages, it was through no merit of the emperor Constantine, who was invariably defeated when he took command in person, as, for example, in the famous battle by night at Singara (Shingar, Arabic Sinjar) (348 A.D.). The main reason was that the great emperors Diocletian and Constantine had put the fortresses into admirable condition and taken other excellent measures for the protection of the provinces exposed to attack. It was a great thing gained that the Persians, even when victorious, could hardly penetrate into western Mesopotamia. Moreover the king’s forces were not large enough for him to leave garrisons in all the fortresses which he took. Thus in 360 Amida (Amid), which Sapor had taken after a long siege and with heavy loss in the previous year, was found by the Romans unoccupied. The Romans were also favoured by the circumstance that the king was at the same time engaged in conflict with several barbarous tribes. The third siege of Nisibis had almost come to a successful conclusion when he was obliged suddenly to depart to Khorasan, where his presence was urgently required.

The wars in the East brought about a long truce (from 350 to 358), interrupted only by small predatory excursions. But by the time negotiations were opened on the Roman side (356-358) Sapor had concluded peace with his enemies in the East, and offered terms which it was quite impossible to accept. In 359 and 360 hostilities were resumed with energy, and Sapor took several important fortresses. Another interval of repose ensued; but in 363 a change came over the whole conduct of the war.

[Sidenote: [363-379 A.D.]]

Vigorous, ambitious, and proved in arms, Julian, now sole emperor, determined to follow the example of Trajan, Septimius Severus, and Carus, and march straight upon the enemy’s capital. On the 5th of March he left Antioch, went first to Mesopotamia, and thence proceeded rapidly down the Euphrates. He ravaged Persian territory with fire and sword, took several cities after a short siege, among them Mahoz Malka, one of the royal cities close to Ctesiphon. He even reached Seleucia; but realising that he was not able to take the strongly fortified city of Ctesiphon on the far side of the Tigris by storm, he turned to retreat along the left bank of the river. Here for the first time Sapor’s troops began to annoy him seriously. None the less he would certainly have led the army back into Roman territory without heavy loss, but he was mortally wounded in an engagement on the 26th of June, 363.

Jovian, who was chosen emperor by the army after Julian’s death, was by no means equal to the difficult position in which he found himself, and conducted both the war and the negotiations in such a manner as ultimately to bring about a shameful peace. After the death of his dreaded enemy, Sapor behaved with equal adroitness and moderation. He obtained the retrocession of the districts to the left of the Tigris, which Galerius had won, and part of Mesopotamia, including Nisibis and Singara. The Romans with much difficulty secured permission for the inhabitants of these cities to depart elsewhere. The cession of Nisibis was the heaviest blow of all, for in all subsequent wars it was a strong point of departure to the Persians for offensive and defensive purposes.

More shameful even than these cessions was the stipulation that the Romans should withdraw their support from King Arsaces of Armenia, who had sided with them and given him up to Sapor. The king, however, did not find Armenia easy to conquer. He got Arsaces into his power, but that did not give him possession, still less permanent possession, of the country, split up as it was by many natural divisions and ruled by numerous and almost independent feudal lords. The Christians of Armenia inclined in the main to the Romans; the Zoroastrians, of whom there were still large numbers, to the Persians; while the varying private interests of the great barons, who would have preferred to have no master over them, constituted a third factor in the situation. The Romans supported, first secretly and then openly, Papa, the son of Arsaces, who had taken refuge with them, but only that they might use him as a tool to convert Armenia into a Roman province. In Iberia (north of Armenia) the adherents of the two empires likewise came into collision. At the end of five years the country was practically once more in a state of war. In 371 the Persian king came to open hostilities with the Roman troops in Armenia, both parties trying to acquire the country by force or fraud. But however often the negotiations between them came to naught, the pressure of circumstances (in the case of the Romans, the troubles with the Goths) and the dictates of reason prevented the outbreak of a general war.

ARDASHIR II TO BAHRAM IV

[Sidenote: [379-420 A.D.]]

Sapor II, who by even late tradition is held in honour as a mighty king, died towards the end of the summer of 379, and was succeeded by his brother, Ardashir II. The elevation of this old man to the throne may have been due to the same kind of motives as had prompted the coronation of the infant Sapor. As prince-satrap of Adiabene (a part of ancient Assyria) he had taken an active part in the suppression of Christianity as long before as 344, and again in 376. After his accession, however, the persecution ceased, perhaps by deliberate intention, perhaps out of mere oriental indolence. Even the capital could have its bishop again. But, having taken forcible action against the great nobles and put several of them to death, Ardashir was deposed by them in 383 or 384.

His successor, Sapor III, the son of Sapor II, had no sooner ascended the throne than he despatched ambassadors to Constantinople, and there concluded a settled peace (384). He reigned only a short time, being murdered by the nobles in 388 or 389.

His son (or possibly brother) and successor, Bahram IV, who bore the surname of Kerman Shah, “king of Carmania,” because as prince he had ruled that province, remained on friendly terms with the Romans and was clement towards the Christians. In 390 the two empires divided Armenia between them by treaty, in such a manner that by far the greater part became a vassal state to Persia and the remainder to Rome. There were many complications still to come, but this division nevertheless remained in force down to Arab times. Bahram IV also died a violent death, being slain by the arrows of “evil-doers,” in the summer of 399.

THE RULE OF YEZDEGERD I

His successor, Yezdegerd I, a son of Sapor II or Sapor III, seemed to have been designated as heir to the throne or otherwise invested with some sovereign dignity even during the life-time of Bahram IV, for his name appears on coins in conjunction with the king’s.

For all that he was far from being a Christian, and did not scruple to visit with severe chastisement the blind zeal which led Bishop Abda of Susiana to violate Zoroastrian sanctuaries. But the measure of toleration which he extended to Christianity was enough to rouse the hatred of the Persian priesthood, while the warlike nobility were probably ill pleased by his earnest desire to maintain peace with Rome. In the summer of 408 he concluded a firm treaty of peace and alliance, by which he seems to have undertaken a formal guarantee for the reign of the emperor Theodosius II, then a minor. He set a trustworthy vassal king over Persian Armenia in the person of his son Sapor. We have every reason to regard him as a skilful ruler for his time and country. But he was not well pleasing to the god of Persia. Wherefore he caused him to die suddenly in marvellous wise in far Hyrcania. We prosaically interpret this miracle to mean that he was murdered by the despotic nobles (probably late in the summer of 420); even as his three predecessors had been violently deprived of their sovereignty, and two of them murdered.

After his death, his son Sapor hastened from Armenia to the capital, no doubt intending to become king of the empire, but was murdered by the great nobles, for the latter were so exasperated against Yezdegerd that they resolved to exclude his sons from the succession. They chose a distant relative of his, Chosroes by name, to be their king. But another son of Yezdegerd, Bahram by name, contested his claim to the throne. During his father’s life-time this son had lived, presumably in a sort of banishment, with al-Mundhir (Alamundaros) the Arab king of Hira (west of the Euphrates and on the borders of the desert), a powerful vassal king. The latter supported Bahram’s pretensions with all his might, and this is probably the first time that the Arabs effectively interfered in the course of Persian history.

THE ARABS AID IN WAR WITH ROME

[Sidenote: [420-457 A.D.]]

Mundhir, with vast hordes of Arabs behind him, was soon at the gates of the capital, which lay only three or four days’ journey distant from Hira, and no doubt the rightful heir to the throne could count upon a party among the Persians. A compromise was therefore effected between the disputants, Chosroes withdrew his claim, and Bahram ascended the throne, but under promise to rule differently from his father and to do the will of the nobles and priests. Bahram V, who bears the surname of Gor, “the wild ass,” is a favourite with Persian tradition, which tells absolutely fabulous stories of him. He was young when he became king, and to the end of his days he was jovial and much addicted to women. The change of policy was immediately signalised by two things--the outbreak of a systematic persecution of the Christians, and a war with Rome. Both sides could easily find pretexts for war, but it is most likely that the Persian nobles urged it on; the Romans would certainly not have entered on the struggle merely on account of the persecution.

The main theatre of war was in Persian Mesopotamia and the mountain tracts that bounded it on the north. The Persian commander was Mihr Narseh, one of the most powerful nobles. A vainglorious Persian tradition relates that he made a victorious entry into Constantinople, but we know that, on the contrary, he suffered a severe defeat at the very beginning of the war (August, 421). The Romans besieged Nisibis for a long time, but the approach of a fresh force compelled them hastily to raise the siege. Mundhir, to whom Bahram owed his throne, was eager to devastate Syria with his Arabs, but was forced to retreat with great loss. The war, concerning the progress of which we have no adequate information, enfeebled both sides to such an extent that they quickly became anxious to end it. In the terms of peace (422) the Persians promised to allow the Christians the free exercise of their religion, and the Romans undertook to do likewise to the Zoroastrians.

The desire of the Persians for peace was most likely due to the fact that they were again involved in warfare with the rulers of the Bactria of that day and the neighbouring countries, the tribe of the Kushan, Haital (Hephthalites), or “white Huns.” To this perpetual conflict the Romans probably owed their rest from Persian invasion in the fifth century. We are not bound to take the word of Persian tradition for Bahram’s brilliant victory over the Hephthalites.

In Persian Armenia yearnings after independence had asserted themselves during the war with Rome, but when peace was concluded Bahram could again install a vassal king there; the selfish Armenian nobles, however, went to such lengths that the Persians were finally driven to do away with the Armenian monarchy altogether and to convert the country into a province (429), as the Romans had long since done with their portion of it. In this the Persians had the assistance of a strong party among the Armenians themselves, though as a matter of fact the Persian satraps had no less trouble with the barons and priests than with the kings before them.

After the death of Bahram (438 or 439) his son Yezdegerd II became king. He persecuted both Christians and Jews, nor is there much to be set to his credit in other respects. He abolished the audiences, on the first day of every month, in which any man of consequence was free to lay grievances or petitions before the king. The story goes that he married his own daughter (though that was no crime in the opinion of the Zoroastrians, who considered such marriages positively meritorious) and afterwards killed her.

WAR WITH THE HEPHTHALITES

[Sidenote: [457-489 A.D.]]

Upon the death of Yezdegerd II (457) a quarrel seems to have broken out immediately between his sons, Hormuzd III, king (that is to say, “prince-satrap”) of Sagastan, and Peroz, who were the children of one mother, Dinak by name. Hormuzd, the elder, held his ground for a while, but at the end of two years Peroz supplanted him by the help of the Hephthalites and the active exertions of Raham, of the noble house of Mihran. He caused three others of his nearest kinsmen to be put to death, as well as his brother. He, again, was hostile to Christians and Jews, but he had political insight enough to favour the conversion of his Christian subjects to the doctrines of Nestorius, which had been banished as archheresy from the Roman Empire. At the synod held at Beth Lapat in the year 483 or 484, the ancient Christian church of the Persian Empire adopted the Nestorian confession; and being thenceforward separated by a great gulf from the Roman Christians, was consequently even less dangerous to the state than it had been before.

But, as a matter of fact, Christianity in Persia had never been really much of a menace to the country. The Armenians on the other hand joined the monophysites, who had a large party in the Roman Empire and often had the upper hand there.

Whether the Hephthalites wanted heavier payment for their assistance than had been previously agreed upon, or whether Peroz did not keep promises he had actually made, the end was that great conflicts ensued between them and the Persians. Peroz won some victories; but in the desert country east of the Caspian Sea the conduct of war is hampered by enormous difficulties. Twice he was compelled to conclude peace on unfavourable terms, once at least he himself fell into the hands of his enemies, and for two years his son Kavadh had to remain in the enemy’s camp as a hostage for the payment of his heavy ransom. Nevertheless Peroz was perpetually breaking the pledges he had given. In 484 he took the field with a large army. A tremendous battle ensued, in which Peroz perished among the unrecognised slain. His daughter was among the prisoners, and the king of the Hephthalites took her into his harem.

Evil days were now in store for Persia. The victors overran the country. For a time there was no king. Presently, however, Zarmihr, of the powerful house of the Karen, succeeded in restoring order in the empire. At the time of Peroz’s death this man had been in Armenia, which had rebelled again, and had almost completed its subjugation. He then hastened to the capital and installed Balash, a brother of the late ruler, as king. In all probability he afterward entered into negotiations with the victorious enemy, and bought him off with a yearly tribute.

A brother of Balash, Zareh by name, who likewise aspired to the crown, was defeated and slain. The king, however, had but little authority. He was obliged to induce the Armenians to submit by allowing them to exclude the state religion of Persia from their country altogether. The praise which the Syrians and the Armenians render to Balash’s clemency may perhaps have no other foundation than his disagreements with the priests of Zoroaster. The enmity thus aroused proved fatal to him. His treasury, of course, was empty, so that he could neither form a party among the nobles nor attach an army to himself; and in 488 or 489 the priests went so far as to have him blinded and so made incapable of governing. For according to the law of Persia no man could be king who was not whole and sound in body and mind.

KAVADH I

[Sidenote: [489-506 A.D.]]

His nephew, Kavadh I, the son of Peroz, was set in his place. He found the empire in a state of great disorder. We hear of revolts of savage mountain tribes, and of another rebellion in Armenia. Kavadh, who had no inclination to play the obedient servant to the tyrants who had raised him to the throne, adopted a dangerous method of weakening the power of priests and nobles; for he favoured Mazdak, a zealous preacher of religious-socialistic doctrines, who demanded in the name of justice that he who was blest with riches and possessed of many wives should give of his superfluity to those who were in want. Nor did he rest satisfied with the theory, for many of his disciples distributed their wives and goods. But the nobles and clergy united to depose Kavadh, imprisoned him in the “castle of oblivion,” and bestowed the crown on his brother Jamasp (about 496). Kavadh, however, escaped, and fled to the Hephthalites, among whom he had formerly lived as a hostage. The king gave him his daughter to wife, the child of that sister of Kavadh who had been taken in battle; and by the help of the barbarian prince he succeeded in overthrowing Jamasp and once more becoming king of Persia (498 or 499). His flight and restoration appear to have been favoured by some of the most powerful nobles. According to Persian tradition Zarmihr actually accompanied him into exile, but such testimony as we have concerning this man and the flight to the Hephthalites is so confused that we can place no reliance upon it. Certain it is that after his return the king visited his enemies with severe chastisement. Presumably he abandoned Zarmihr about that time, for he handed him over to his most formidable rival, Sapor, of the house of Mihran. It is not likely that Kavadh then resumed his experiment with the Mazdakites.

NEW CONFLICT WITH ROME

He had certainly reduced the empire to tolerable order by the time the war with the Romans began. There had been much treating over terms, both parties had violated compacts more or less, and the only question was whether either of them was desirous of finding a casus belli. This was the case with Kavadh. In the summer of 502 he inaugurated that era of hideous strife which so reduced the strength of both Persia and Eastern Rome as to make possible the subsequent victories of the Arabs. In August he took Theodosiopolis (Karin or Erzerum), the capital of Roman Armenia, without a blow. On the 10th of January, 503, Amida fell after a three months’ siege, and was frightfully punished for its resistance. Myriads of the inhabitants were slaughtered, as we know from the good accounts we have in existing contemporary Syrian sources.

In this war, of which very full contemporary accounts have come down to us, especially from Syrian sources, the Roman operations were conducted without the necessary energy, and lacked the direction of a single commander. Mesopotamia was fearfully ravaged. In 504 the Romans regained possession of Amida, after a long siege, by treaty, or more correctly speaking by purchase. After many battles and sieges peace was concluded in the August of 506, a peace which left everything in statu quo ante. The Romans once more undertook to pay an annual contribution towards the maintenance of the fortifications in the Caucasus. The Persians are said to have been induced to conclude peace by a war with the “Huns.”

[Sidenote: [506-554 A.D.]]

From the vague fashion in which the Greek authors of that time use the word “Huns” we cannot tell which of the tribes of northern barbarians is here meant. That Kavadh was at this time involved in serious difficulties at home or abroad may be inferred from the fact that he did not forcibly prevent a gross violation of the treaty of peace on the part of the emperor Anastasius, who converted the little village of Dara, close upon the frontier, into a great fortress intended to keep Nisibis in check. There was no further outbreak of hostilities during the life-time of Anastasius; but Justin I (July the 9th, 518-August the 1st, 527) appears to have intermitted the payment of the moneys stipulated to Persia.

In return Kavadh incited the Arabs to make predatory raids into Roman territory, and Roman troops once more invaded and ravaged Armenia. In addition, violent quarrels arose about the Caucaso-Pontic districts, over which both sides claimed dominion. This time, however, Kavadh was little disposed towards war; perhaps he had realised that he could hardly hope to gain any permanent advantage. In the perpetual renewal of negotiations he had only one main object in view; he was anxious to procure the succession for Chosroes, the best beloved of his sons and certainly the most capable of ruling the empire, although he was not the eldest; and for this purpose he wished for a kind of guarantee from the emperor, which should take the form of an adoption of Chosroes by the latter. Negotiations concerning this and other matters were carried on at Nisibis. If matters went as they are represented to have gone, the Romans acted most perversely; in any case the negotiations had no other result than to put both parties out of humour. The chiefs of the Roman embassy escaped with no worse than degradation, the Persians were executed, though personally they deserved well of the king. These negotiations took place in 525 or 526; the war began again before the death of Justin. There was hard fighting on the frontier as early as the summer of 527, the Romans making a vain assault on Nisibis, and the Persians an equally fruitless attempt on Dara.

EXPLOITS OF MUNDHIR

In these many years of war, with frequent pauses for negotiation, Belisarius first comes into prominence as a commander. One noteworthy event, among others, is Mundhir’s great invasion of Syria. This Mundhir was the Arab vassal-prince of Hira, of the same line as the prince of the same name. He seems before this to have grown so powerful as to rouse Kavadh’s apprehensions, and the latter therefore deprived him, either wholly or in part, of his dominions for a time, in favour of Harith, a member of the much-ramified family of the Kinda kings. The statement that this event bore some relation to the Mazdakite troubles is hardly probable.

On the outbreak of the war with Rome, however, Kavadh restored the whole of his former dominions to the tried warrior Mundhir. In the spring of 529 the latter invaded Syria, laid the whole country waste as far as Antioch, and carried off troops of captives that he might secure their ransom. He was a savage who in one day slaughtered four hundred nuns from a Syrian nunnery in honour of his goddess Zuhara (the planet Venus). In the same year his rival Harith went to war with him, and Mundhir caused a number of members of the princely family of Kinda, who had fallen into his hands, to be put to death at Hira. For half a century he was the terror of Roman subjects, troubling himself little to inquire whether peace prevailed or not, till at length he fell in battle against the Roman prince of the Arabs, Harith, the son of Jabala (June, 554), whose captive son he had likewise sacrificed to Zuhara.

[Sidenote: [531-540 A.D.]]

It was Mundhir who induced Kavadh, after an interval, to undertake a campaign in Syria itself (531). The Persians advanced far to the north along the right bank of the Euphrates, but were compelled to retreat by Belisarius. A battle was fought at Callinicus (Rakka), near the frontier that is, in which Belisarius was totally defeated; but the Persian commander was nevertheless obliged to return home. The Persians gained some successes in Mesopotamia the same year, and had almost reduced the great fortress of Martyropolis (Maiferkat, Arabic Mayafarikin) when tidings came of the death of the king, and brought about a truce.

A few years before his death Kavadh had brought the Mazdakites to a horrible end. The sect seems to have grown so powerful that it could no longer be tolerated; for, in spite of all its theoretic idealism it threatened to subvert the foundations of society and the state. The catastrophe, which was accompanied by lavish bloodshed, took place in 528 or 529, under the orders of Prince Chosroes, acting in agreement with the king.

Kavadh died on the 13th of September, 531, aged eighty-two. He certainly destined Chosroes for his successor; and according to a report we may well credit, he had him crowned on his death-bed. Chosroes I (Chosrau), who bears the surname of Anosharvan, “the blessed,” was undoubtedly a great king. It is true that he was by no means the ideal king that Orientals make him out to have been, but neither does he bear the title of “the just” without due reason.

CHOSROES “THE JUST”

The negotiation taken in hand on his accession led in the course of a year to an “eternal peace” (September, 532). The Romans agreed to make a large annual payment and other concessions, the Persians gave up some castles in Lazistan (the ancient Colchis, at the eastern extremity of the Black Sea). The conclusion of peace was evidently a matter of great moment to the Persian king. He probably availed himself at once of this breathing space to protect his frontiers from barbarians of all kinds. Tradition is certainly right in attributing to him comprehensive measures for the defence of the Caucasus and northeastern frontier, among which was the forcible transplantation of unruly tribes.

In a few years he felt himself strong enough to take up hostilities against the Romans once more. Perhaps he really feared that the result of the success of Justinian’s arms in Italy and Africa would be to make the Roman Empire too strong for him. No doubt the messengers sent by Witiges, king of the Goths, had painted the perils which would ensue to Persia from them in the liveliest colours. He probably found an incitement even more powerful in the fact that the Armenian nobles, who had rebelled in consequence of many acts of injustice, applied to him for aid although they were Christians.

CHOSROES ATTACKS ROME

[Sidenote: [540-551 A.D.]]

There was no lack of petty violations of the treaty by one side or the other; the Arabs on both sides alone took good care of that. At all events Chosroes was this time eager for war, and he therefore started early in the year 540 to invade Syria as Sapor I had done. He passed by the strongly fortified cities which bought him off by the payment of large sums, those which offered resistance he took. This fate fell heaviest upon Antiochia, the metropolis. The army left it laden with booty, which included many works of art. He burned the city and carried off its inhabitants. After advancing to the shores of the “Roman” Sea, he continued his victorious progress through northern Syria and Mesopotamia, from west to east. The fortress of Dara, which had always been an eyesore to the Persians because it had been built in contravention of the treaty, was obliged to purchase safety at a price. None went free without payment except the inhabitants of Carrhæ, who, being still heathen, might be supposed to entertain sympathy for the non-Christian empire. At the end of the summer he reached Ctesiphon again, without having encountered any open resistance in the field.

In the second year of the war Chosroes marched to Lazistan at the request of the inhabitants, penetrated to the Black Sea, and there took the strong fortress of Petra. The struggle was continued for several years in Mesopotamia with variable fortune. In 546 a truce was concluded for five years on payment of a large sum of money by the Romans. But Lazistan territory was excluded from the operation of the truce, both then and in 553, when the armistice was prolonged for a further period of five years. The Arabs of the two empires also continued to fight with one another. Not until 556 was the armistice extended to Lazistan, the Roman arms having made some progress in the meantime, and about Christmas, 562, a peace was concluded for fifty years.

The Romans again pledged themselves to pay a considerable sum every year, the Persians resigned their claims to Lazistan, but the question of who should possess the neighbouring province of Suania remained undecided. Our information concerning the articles of this peace happens to be exceptionally detailed; one important provision is that, though stipulating for full religious liberty for Persian Christians, the Romans recognise that they are prohibited from proselytising among Zoroastrians; and consequently that severe punishment inflicted for the infringement of this prohibition does not constitute a violation of the articles of peace.

In the attempt to conquer Yemen (about 570) we have in actual fact a somewhat wild undertaking. The country had been occupied in 525 by the Christian Abyssinians. A prince of Yemen besought Chosroes to aid him in delivering the country from the negroes. After some hesitation the king despatched a small force under Vahriz by sea, which actually succeeded in overcoming the feeble resistance of the Abyssinian army and bringing the country into subjection to the king. It remained nominally under the sovereignty of Persia until it became Moslem, but the empire reaped no advantage from this remote province beyond a certainly scanty and probably irregular tribute.

A country to which the sea offered the only convenient approach could be of no use to a race so utterly ignorant of navigation as the Persians, and we find no vestige of sea-borne traffic between Yemen and Persia. Chosroes may indeed have had some idea of diverting commercial advantages from the Romans and procuring them for the Persians, just as in other respects commercial interests play their part in the hostile and amicable relations of the empire; as was done, for instance, and to a very great extent, by the silk trade with the interior of Asia.

[Sidenote: [551-578 A.D.]]

The king was not exempt from strife within the borders of his dominions. About 551 his son Anoshazadh, who for some offence had been banished to Susiana, hearing that his father was seriously ill, proclaimed himself king and persisted in his rebellion. He relied upon the Christians, his mother’s co-religionists, but was soon overcome and taken prisoner. He was not executed, but merely rendered ineligible for the throne by a slight facial disfigurement.

In the later years of his life Chosroes was again involved in war with the Romans, who this time allied themselves with the Turkish chagan, now a formidable foe of Persia. The Persians did all they could to prevent intercourse between him and the Romans. The Romans likewise complained of the destruction of the Christian kingdom of Yemen. But these were secondary considerations. Even the refusal of the emperor, Justin II (November 14th, 565-6, to October, 578), to pay to Persia the sum stipulated by treaty would probably not have led to a direct rupture.

But the Persians could not tamely submit to see the whole of Armenia become Roman. Armenian nobles were once more contemplating rebellion; the clergy and the fanatical mob raised a tumult when it was proposed to erect a temple of Fire at Dovin, the capital, and Suren, a Persian, was slain (spring of 571). The rebels turned to Constantinople; the king of Iberia (to the north of Armenia) did likewise. The incompetent emperor imagined that both countries might fall to Rome again, and took them under his protection. It was the signal for war. Excellent as are the contemporary reports of this war which have come down to us, we have no complete and chronologically exact summary of its progress. At the very beginning Nisibis was besieged to no purpose by the Romans; Chosroes, on the other hand, took Dara after a six months’ siege (573), while his general, Adharmahan, invaded Syria by way of the right bank of the Euphrates, and there perpetrated ravages similar to those for which his master had been responsible in 540. He destroyed Apamea and carried the inhabitants away into captivity. After marching through Mesopotamia he joined forces with the king before Dara. Some of the captives he settled in New Antioch.

Tiberius, who directed the government at Constantinople in concert with the empress Sophia and was formally appointed co-regent on the 7th of December, 574, was anxious for peace. But even the conclusion of a truce for three years did not bring about real tranquillity, as Armenia was not included in the armistice. Early in the year 575 Chosroes marched through Armenia and penetrated a long way towards Cappadocia. He was obliged to withdraw before the Roman troops, who actually plundered his camp, but could not prevent him from burning Sebastia and Melitene and getting safely home. His Roman pursuers occupied a great part of Persian Armenia and wintered there, but were driven out of it in the following year.

That the Romans displayed no more humanity than the Persians is clear from the fact that they carried off even the Christian inhabitants of the Persian border-provinces of Arzanene, and considered it a singular favour to assign dwelling-places to them in Cyprus (577). Negotiations for peace were set on foot again and again. After recent experiences the Roman claims to Persian Armenia and Iberia were readily renounced at Constantinople. On the point of honour that the temporal and spiritual nobles of Armenia who had taken refuge at Constantinople should not be handed over to the vengeance of the Persians, an understanding might also have been arrived at. Dara was still a great stumbling-block, the Romans insisting on its restoration, with excellent reason. For all that, peace would probably have been concluded if Chosroes had not died (about February, 579) shortly after Tiberius had become sole monarch (October 4th or 6th, 578).

HORMUZD IV

[Sidenote: [578-590 A.D.]]

The new king, Hormuzd IV, son of Chosroes and the daughter of the Turkish chagan, was haughty and enterprising. It produced an unpleasant impression at Constantinople that he sent no notification of his accession thither, for even in time of war announcements of this sort had been ceremoniously made by both courts. Altogether Greek authors criticise Hormuzd very unfavourably, and even Persian tradition testifies that he was spiteful and shed much blood. We know on the evidence of a contemporary that he put his brothers to death when he came to the throne, but the same authority states that this was a barbarous custom among the Persians. On the other hand, Persian tradition reports that he exercised strict justice without respect of persons, and zealously took the part of the common man against the noble. The weight of his severity fell upon the great. This agrees with the fact that he took thought for the soldiers in the ranks and treated the aristocratic cuirassiers with slight regard. He also incurred the wrath of the priests by a decision which does him the highest honour, for he ironically rejected their petition that he should place Christians at a disadvantage. In many points he seems to have resembled the first Yezdegerd, whose fate he likewise shared. It was his misfortune that he did not possess the intellectual superiority which enabled his father to control the nobles, both temporal and spiritual.

The war with Rome lasted through the whole of his reign, and the repeated attempts at negotiations came to nought. Sometimes one side was victorious, sometimes the other. To this war was added an unfortunate war with the Turks. Against them Hormuzd despatched Bahram Chobin. He succeeded in gaining a brilliant victory over them, or rather over one of their vassals, and took much booty; and even, as the story goes, converted the Persian tribute to the Turks into a Turkish tribute to the Persians. The victorious general was next sent (589) to the countries south of the Caucasus, there to aim a mighty blow at the Romans. Bahram, however, was totally routed. Hormuzd was then guilty of the folly of dismissing this experienced commander, the head of the house of Mihran, with ignominy.

CIVIL WAR

[Sidenote: [590-592 A.D.]]

Bahram retaliated by open rebellion. His army took his part. He very likely knew how disaffected the nobles were, and could count upon malcontents among the rest of the troops. The army in Mesopotamia, which had retreated to Nisibis after being defeated by the Romans and dreaded the vengeance of the king, mutinied and joined Bahram, though without resigning its independence. Bahram had advanced as far as the great Zab (not far from the Mosul of to-day) on his way to the capital, when he was confronted by a royal army. But this army likewise rebelled, not, indeed, in Bahram’s favour, but in favour of Chosroes, the king’s son. Some of these troops reached Ctesiphon soon after, whither Hormuzd had hurried from Media on receipt of the fatal tidings. The city was given over to tumult. Bindoe, whose sister was Chosroes’ mother, was imprisoned there (a fate most liable to befall an oriental noble); his brother Bistam (Vistahm) liberated him by force, and the nobles proceeded to depose Hormuzd and proclaim Chosroes king (summer of 590). He was on bad terms with his father, and the movement certainly did not come upon him as a surprise. How far he was implicated in the assassination of Hormuzd, which soon followed, we cannot tell with any degree of certainty; most likely he let that happen which he could not well prevent.

Chosroes II, surnamed Parvez, “the victorious,” tried in vain to win Bahram over to his side. The latter himself wished to reign either in the name of a prince who was not of age, or preferably in his own. Chosroes marched against him, but his army was not loyal. The famous general commanded more respect than the faint-hearted king, whose troops deserted him after the first serious engagement. Chosroes, with his family and a few faithful followers, fled into Syria, to the Romans. When he had reached the frontier city of Circesium, he wrote to implore the aid of the emperor Maurice (who had been on the throne since the 14th of August, 582). The latter was not adroit enough to take advantage of this extraordinarily favourable situation for the benefit of his empire, for he undertook to restore Chosroes without stipulating for a fair equivalent. A man of mean origin himself, he probably felt flattered by the mere fact of being called upon to reinstate a legitimate king of ancient lineage and being able to declare himself “father” of such a one.

Meanwhile Bahram, after some hesitation, had caused himself to be proclaimed king and had struck coins in his own name. He had also been fortunate enough to get Bindoe into his power. But Bahram’s was but a tottering throne from the outset. The nobles would not submit to a man who had been their equal. Even in the Parthian Empire, however, often kings were deposed and raised to the throne; it had always been accounted right that none but an Arsacid should wear the crown, and in the empire of the Sassanids the legitimist sentiment was much stronger. In the popular mind the “ancient royal majesty” (farrahi kayanik) was bound up with the house of Ardaschir, and no other could reign.

There was a rising even in Ctesiphon itself, which was put down by Bahram, though Bindoe escaped during the tumult, further to exert himself on his nephew’s behalf. By the beginning of 591 an imperial army was in the field to reinstate Chosroes. Martyropolis, which had fallen into the hands of the Persians through treachery, and had already been blockaded for a considerable time, was given over to the Romans by Chosroes; so was Dara. The Persian army at Nisibis went over to him, and increased from day to day by the arrival of Persian nobles, among whom were barons from Armenia. Bistam collected an army at Aderbaijan to march against Bahram; the main Romano-Persian army advanced upon him to the left of the Tigris, but before ever they came into touch with the enemy, a royal force which had been sent in advance straight through the Mesopotamian desert had taken the capital cities of Ctesiphon, Seleucia, and New Antiochia.

All men took the part of their lawful sovereign, and in the great battle that was fought near the Zab, Bahram was completely routed (summer of 591). He fled to the Turks, by whom he was received with honour, but soon afterwards assassinated. Chosroes was escorted to Ctesiphon by the Romans, and as a matter of course peace was concluded between Rome and Persia. Equally of course the payment of tribute was dropped; but the frontiers remained as they had been before the war, and Nisibis was left in the hands of the Persians.

Chosroes still felt so insecure on his throne that he begged the emperor to leave him a body-guard of one thousand Romans. His first thought was to rid himself of all dangerous characters, and especially of those who had compassed his father’s fall and his own elevation to the throne. Among others he had his uncle, Bindoe, put to death; but Bindoe’s brother Bistam was beyond his reach. When the latter saw that his death was determined upon, he followed Bahram’s example, assumed the title of king in Media, and had coins struck. He too was of ancient lineage, and he too could not gain the prestige of the legitimate line. He seems to have relied upon the remnants of Bahram’s forces, and to have entered into alliance with the Turks and Delamites. He withstood Chosroes’ troops for nearly six years, till he fell by treachery (probably at the end of 595 or the beginning of 596).

VICES OF CHOSROES II

[Sidenote: [592-610 A.D.]]

These disorders must have sadly distracted the empire, which had been sufficiently enfeebled before by the long wars in the east and the west. Nor was Chosroes II the sagacious, strong, and humane ruler whom it required under these circumstances. At best he was a very ordinary type of oriental prince. Weak at bottom, he was at the same time boastful and cowardly, and to ostentation and luxury he added the much more harmful fault of avarice. At his death the royal treasuries, which he had found empty, were full, while his dominions were impoverished by war. Some excuse may be found in the circumstances of the time for his conduct towards those who had helped him to the throne. In war he never distinguished himself, his victories are only those of his generals. He did indeed protect the Christians, he even treated them with distinction, and built churches for them; but he did it partly on account of the impression made upon him by the help of the Romans and (as he himself thought) the assistance of St. Sergius, the patron saint of the Syrians and Arabs in the Roman Empire, partly at the instigation of Shirin, his favourite wife, who was an ardent Christian, and of others, such as his Christian physician in ordinary, Gabriel. In later days Chosroes’ friendship for the Christians was turned into the opposite sentiment. And we know that he was a man of gross character.

After Maurice had been overthrown by a mutiny and slain, and the vile Phocas elevated to the imperial throne (November, 602), Chosroes looked upon himself as in a state of war against the Romans, in the capacity of avenger of his “father” Maurice, and protector of his putative son Theodosius, who had taken refuge with him. Furthermore Narses, who was in command at Edessa, appealed to him against Phocas. Chosroes, therefore, made a beginning by imprisoning the ambassadors by whose hand Phocas informed him of his accession. The actual war probably commenced at the beginning of 604. For twenty years the Roman Empire was overrun by Persian armies as it never had been before, so disordered was it by Phocas, so harassed by Avars and other barbarous tribes. Chosroes was present in person at the taking of Dara, after which he took no active part in the war. In a few years the Persian armies had pressed forward far on the road to Asia Minor, even reaching Chalcedon, opposite Constantinople.

The fact that the power of the Persian Empire was not very firmly based for all that, is shown by an event, in itself insignificant, which falls within this period (between 604 and 610), the battle of Dhu Kar. Chosroes had abolished the kingdom of Hira, and caused Nohman, the last king, to be put to death. By this means the empire was quit of a vassal state which had often proved troublesome; but, on the other hand, it was henceforward far more difficult to gain an ascendency over the savage tribes of the desert, and prevent them from making raids upon the cultivated regions. After the fall of Nohman, the Bedouin tribes of Bekr ben Wail succeeded in inflicting a total defeat on an imperial army consisting of Arabs and Persian regular troops at Dhu Kar, not far from the Euphrates and a few days’ march from Ctesiphon, and holding the territory out of which the Persians wished to drive them. This victory of Arabs over Persians, magnified by national vanity, greatly encouraged the former in their self-esteem, and strengthened the confidence of the Moslems when they attacked the empire.

CONFLICT WITH HERACLIUS; FALL OF CHOSROES II

[Sidenote: [610-628 A.D.]]

The war with the Romans continued to make successful progress, after Phocas had been overthrown, by his able successor Heraclius (October, 610). The latter, seeing himself hard pressed on all sides, sued in vain for peace. Damascus was taken in 613. The surrounding country, which had never been trodden by Persian feet since the founding of the empire, was laid so utterly waste that to this day countless ruins bear witness to these ravages. In the June of 614 Jerusalem was taken. The whole of Christendom was horrified by the tidings that, together with the patriarch, the Persians had carried off the “Holy life-giving Cross” of Christ. Egypt was next conquered, and Asia Minor again overrun as far as to Chalcedon. Not till 622 was Heraclius able to take the field against the Persians. He took ship for the Bay of Issus, thence pressed forward to Armenia and the regions about the Pontus, and for the first time in the campaign inspired the enemy with respect for the Roman arms. The loss of church treasures must be reckoned as a heavy item in the cost of the war. On the 15th of March, 623, Heraclius at length started upon the great military expedition which led him again and again into the heart of Persian territory. The almost extravagant daring of his cross-marches and transverse marches, in which he was generally deprived of all communication with his base and must have had great difficulty in feeding his troops, prove him a great commander and a great statesman.

In the first year of the campaign he destroyed one of the most sacred sanctuaries of the Persians, the Fire temple of Ganjak, not far from the Lake of Urumiyeh; it was his reply to the destruction of Jerusalem. We find him now in the vicinity of the Caucasus, now in the east of Asia Minor, now, again, in Mesopotamia, never vanquished, often victorious, more often still, it may be, weakening or deluding superior forces by skilful movements. Chosroes, who felt the emperor disquietingly near at Ganjak, sent Shahrbaraz, the most famous of his generals, with a great army direct to Chalcedon to draw him off (626).

It was an anxious time for Constantinople, with the Persians on this side and the Avars on that (in the summer of 626), and the emperor almost beyond knowledge in the remote parts of Asia. But the Avars soon withdrew, seeing that the Persians, having no fleet, could not undertake concerted operations with them on the far side of the Bosporus. In retaliation Heraclius brought the savage Khazars, from the north of the Caucasus, into Persian territory. At length, in 627, he ventured into the chief province of the monarchy. He kept the “feast of lights” (January 6th, 628) at Dastagerd, only about three days’ journey from Ctesiphon, where Chosroes had held his court regularly for the last twenty years.

[Sidenote: [628-629 A.D.]]

The king had fled in terror, not feeling safe till he and his harem had the bridge of the Tigris at Ctesiphon behind them. Heraclius had naturally accomplished his tremendous march from the Caucasus with comparatively few troops, and was in no position to attack the capital, strongly fortified and protected by waterways as it was. On the contrary, before the king had collected a large army he withdrew, but only to Ganjak, thus remaining on the enemy’s soil; and in February and March traversed the Alps of Kurdistan amidst perpetual snow-storms, a feat which has not often been matched in the annals of war.

Meanwhile important events had been taking place at Ctesiphon. Chosroes’ tyranny and extortion had exasperated high and low alike; by his cowardly flight he had forfeited the respect of his people. In addition, he had designated Mardanshah--his son by Shirin, who still governed him wholly in spite of her years and his thousands of other wives--as his successor, to the exclusion of Kavadh. The latter was imprisoned in a fortress with most of his brothers. Some nobles, among whom was a Christian, Shamta, son of the deceased farmer-general Ezdin, now set Kavadh at liberty and proclaimed him king (February 25th, 628). Chosroes, deserted by all men, was dragged out of his hiding-place, put in prison, and, after a few days, executed (the 29th of February, 628). Thus miserably and horribly perished the man whose camps extended almost to the borders of the Achæmenid Empire. No hand was raised to defend or avenge him. The Christians above all--who, apart from other things, had suffered deadly insult at his hands by the carrying away of the True Cross--hailed with acclamations the parricide Kavadh, in whose elevation one of themselves had played no small part.

SUCCESSORS OF CHOSROES II

The first thing that Kavadh (II) Seroes did was to murder all his brothers (probably to the number of eighteen); the second was to send the emperor an urgent entreaty for peace. A truce was quickly concluded, but no peace as yet, Heraclius being in no hurry for it, since he was now to some extent master of the situation. All Persian troops received orders to evacuate Roman territory. Heraclius seems next to have introduced such order as he could into the affairs of the provinces so recovered, and of Mesopotamia in particular. On reaching Syria he learned that Kavadh Seroes was already dead. The wretched man had only reigned for about half a year. His reign was marked by a dreadful pestilence.

The party in power set his son Ardashir III, a child of seven, in his place; and an epoch of unspeakable confusion ensued, in which the children and women on the throne served only as a pretext for the ambitions of contesting nobles. During Ardashir’s reign the cross, which had been sent back from Ctesiphon to Heraclius through the head of the Nestorian church, was solemnly set up again by him in Jerusalem. The festival of the Elevation of the Cross on the 14th of September still keeps that joyful day in remembrance (629).

The government at Ctesiphon was powerless. The Khazars invaded and ravaged the empire. Possibly it was at this time that Chosroes, the son of Kavadh and grandson of Hormuzd IV, who had grown to manhood among the Turks, first tried to establish his throne in Khorasan. He was killed in a few months, but a mightier than he, the victorious general Shahrbaraz, grasped at the crown. In a personal interview at Arabissus in Cappadocia (June, 629) he seems to have secured the assent of Heraclius, who must have been deeply interested in weakening the hostile empire by fostering internecine discord. Shahrbaraz then marched with a small force upon Ctesiphon, and the famous defender of the empire took the city of its kings by the treasonable aid of some of the principal inhabitants. The city was given over to plunder, murder, and horrors of every kind; and the boy Ardashir was slain on April 27, 630. But on the ninth of June, Shahrbaraz himself fell a victim of the jealousy and legitimism of his compeers. His corpse was dragged through the street; and tradition heaps grotesque irony on the man who would be king and could not, because he was not of the legitimate line.

[Sidenote: [630-633 A.D.]]

A woman, Boran, the daughter of Chosroes II, was next raised to the throne. She seems to have formally concluded peace with Heraclius at last; on what terms we do not know, but probably the peace with Maurice was simply ratified anew. At all events, Nisibis remained Persian.

Boran only reigned until about the autumn of 631. She was succeeded at Ctesiphon, probably after the brief intermediate reign of a prince, Peroz by name, by her sister Azarmidokht. At Nisibis, however, the troops of the murdered Shahrbaraz set up Hormuzd V, a grandson of Chosroes II, who held his ground in that district for some time (in the years 631 and 632). Azarmidokht was overthrown by Rustem, the mighty hereditary crown-general of Khorasan, whose father she had caused to be put to death. From the confused accounts of this time of confusion we cannot gather with any certainty who was king or who pretender in the capital or provinces, nor determine the date or even the sequence of these “reigns.”

It is certain that after Azarmidokht one Ferrukhzadh (or Khorrezadh) Chosroes was for some time accounted king at Ctesiphon. He was probably a child, and according to some authorities was the only son of Chosroes II who had escaped the general butchery. But others of the men in power set up another child at Persis, Yezdegerd III, son of Shahriyar and grandson of Chosroes II, and crowned him in the Fire temple of Ardashir (in the second half of 632 or the first half of 633). He was presently acknowledged in the capital, Chosroes having been put to death. No lasting resistance appears to have been encountered in other provinces.

ANARCHY AND CHAOS

No one could now dream of a real restoration of the fearfully distracted empire; but at least a grandson of Chosroes, who did not trace his descent from the parricide Sheroe, was sole king once more. He was consecrated at Istakhr, the home of the dynasty; and the mighty Rustem stood at his side. A change for the better seems really to have ensued, but it was no more than a brief respite. A foe destined to prove more formidable than Julian or Heraclius was already knocking at the gates of the empire. In the internal disorders which had distracted Ctesiphon, the loss of Yemen, and a few of the empire’s possessions in northeastern Arabia to the Moslems, had probably passed almost unnoticed.

The Moslems, however, were soon close at hand. The Bekr Bedouins had made raids upon the royal dominions several times since the battle of Dhu Kar. After a while Muthanna, one of their bravest chiefs, became a convert to Islam, and with that force behind them their attacks grew bolder. Then (probably in 633) the mighty Khalid, after subduing the insurrections in Arabia, appeared with a small force on the lower Euphrates to conduct the operations of these same Bedouins. Persian Arabs and imperial troops were defeated in small engagements, and soon a number of border forts were in the hands of the Moslems. The inhabitants of the regions west of the Euphrates, who were all Christians, and, like all the Christians about the Euphrates and Tigris, felt little loyalty to the empire, submitted to the victors and even undertook to supply them with information.

ARAB INCURSIONS

[Sidenote: [633-637 A.D.]]

The Arabs were already beginning to rove on the far side of the Euphrates; they plundered Baghdad, then a village, while a fair was being held there, as well as other places on the right bank of the Tigris. But Khalid presently received orders (the commencement of the summer of 634) to start for Syria, the conquest of which was at the time a matter of greater consequence to the caliph. His successor, Abu Obaid of Taif, brought some reinforcements with him; but when at length a regular Persian army came on the scene, the Moslems, in spite of their heroic valour, were completely defeated in the “battle of the Bridge,” on the Euphrates, November 26th, 634. After their leader had fallen Muthanna had great difficulty in extricating the remains of his army. Most of the Moslem conquests were lost without further ado. After some hesitation Omar (caliph since August 23rd, 634) resolved to send more troops to Irak. He appealed simultaneously to the greed and piety of the Arabs, urging them in the same breath to win the treasures of Chosroes and the joys of paradise. A larger Persian army was now defeated for the first time (at Buwaib, 635 or 636); the commander, a member of the house of Mihran, was among the slain.

The Arabs were once more masters of the country west of the Euphrates. They found an energetic and cautious leader in Saad, son of Abu Wakkas, one of the first followers of the prophet. The lords at Ctesiphon now realised the great danger that impended over the empire. The news of the battle on the Yarmuk (August 20th, 636) which cost Heraclius, the conqueror of Persia, the whole of Syria, probably contributed to their fears. Rustem, therefore, took the head of a great army in person. As a token of the gravity of the struggle he bore with him the sacred banner of the empire (dirafshi Kaviyan), which was supposed to have come down from time immemorial. He also took with him a number of elephants, according to the Persian usage in war. At the approach of the advanced guard of the Persian army Saad evacuated his position and retreated to Kadisiya, on the verge of the desert (south or southwest of Hira). For months the armies confronted one another, with only a little space between. The Arabic force was certainly much the smaller of the two; they could not have fed a large army in that place, for they were dependent on the produce of their raids and such provisions as the caliph sent after them from Medina.

At length the great battle of Kadisiya (end of 636 or 637) was fought. It lasted for several days; Saad was ill, but nevertheless took the command. The Persians were, for the most part, much better armed than the Arabs, but the courage of the latter was wound up to the highest pitch. They were terrified by the elephants at first, but as they pressed on gallantly for all their fears, the animals appear to have got beyond control and to have become a source of confusion to the Persian ranks. The great majority of the Persians certainly behaved with cowardice, after their ancient fashion; but the Arabs had hard work before the foe was defeated, Rustem himself slain, and the banner of the Persian Empire taken.

ARAB CONQUEST

[Sidenote: [637-652 A.D.]]

The battle of Kadisiya practically decided the fate of the provinces on the Tigris. There were a few other fights, some of them in the vast territory of ancient Babylon, but the Arabs soon afterwards reached Seleucia, took it after a protracted siege, crossed the rapid stream of the Tigris, and quickly forced their way into Ctesiphon. The young king Yezdegerd had already fled to Holwan (on the border between Babylonia and Media). On their way thither, at Jalula, the Arabs won another victory over the Persians under Khorrezadh, Rustem’s brother, and Yezdegerd fled further into the interior. Meanwhile other Arabs had conquered the delta of the stream and thence advanced into Susiana. A very able resolute commander might still have saved the actual land of Iran for the Persians. Omar, who was very cautious in spite of his energy, was apprehensive lest the Arabs should extend their forces too far, and at first would not give orders for an advance into the highlands. At length he did so. A great Persian army had been collected at Nehavend, a little to the south of the ancient highway from Babylon to Ecbatana. Here a great battle was fought (in 640, 641, or 642), in which the Arabs--first under the command of Nohman and, after he had fallen, under Hudhaifa the Meccan--won a brilliant victory.

With good reason the Moslems called the triumph of Nehavend the “victory of victories.” It completely shattered the empire of Persia. The Arabs had a long contest before them, until they had really conquered all the provinces of the vast monarchy, but it consisted of isolated struggles in which there could be no doubt of the ultimate issue, as their enemies had lost all cohesion. Many towns and districts had to be subjugated again and again, because they were constantly rebelling. The most obstinate resistance appears to have been offered in Persia proper, especially about Istakhr, the cradle of the empire of the Sassanidæ and the centre of its religion. Many of the great provincial nobles and some of the lesser entered into friendly agreement with the Arabs. They one and all met them on the footing of independent sovereigns.

King Yezdegerd meanwhile led a wretched life. He could not summon up courage to set his life on the stake for his crown and empire. He fled from one satrap to another. He seems to have stayed longest at Istakhr, the home of his race. The outward pomp of royalty was left him, coins were still struck in his name, but as soon as he became a troublesome guest he was sent away. At length he took refuge in the extreme northeast, and there he was miserably murdered, in the neighbourhood of Merv. The circumstances of his death, which took place in 651 or 652, are not exactly known, but it seems tolerably certain that Mahoe, satrap of Merv, had a hand in it. [For the traditional account see page 154, this volume.]

The similarity of the circumstances under which the Achæmenid and Sassanid empires perished forces itself upon our notice, a similarity which, though apparently fortuitous, indicates a great correspondence in character. As the battle on the Granicus first fully showed the formidable nature of the enemy, as Issus cost the king his western provinces and Gaugamela rent the empire asunder without thereby making the victor master of all its several provinces, so it came to pass nearly one thousand years later, with the battles of Buwaib, Kadisiya, and Nehavend. And as the fugitive Darius was slain, in the northeast, not by enemies but by treacherous nobles, so it was with Yezdegerd, who was no more a hero than he. The Persian nobility did not exhibit so gross a lack of patriotism and loyalty in the case of the Arabs as in that of Alexander; the vivid consciousness of religious differences and the ruder manners of the Arabs made adherence to them more difficult; but there was no lack of traitors of high rank nor of renegades among the greater and lesser nobles. The complete subjugation of the Persian monarchy took the Arabs much longer than it had taken the great Macedonian, but on the other hand its effects were much more lasting; Hellenism touched the mere surface of Persia, but Iran has been thoroughly permeated by Arab religion and Arab characteristics.

[Sidenote: [652-750 A.D.]]

A fragment of the Sassanid empire continued to exist for some time longer. The hereditary crown-generals (Shahpat, Ispehbedh) of Khorasan, of the house of Karen, withdrew into the mountain country of Tabaristan (Mazanderan) and there reigned for more than one hundred years, though they occasionally found themselves under the necessity of paying tribute to the caliph. They remained faithful to the religion of Zoroaster. The era which they struck upon their coins begins, in all probability, with the death of Yezdegerd, and they thus seemed to have looked upon themselves as the direct succession of the last Sassanid king.[b]

FOOTNOTES

[30] [Or according to Von Gutschmid, 227; see chapter I.]

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III. EARLY HISTORY OF THE ARABS

[Sidenote: [ca. 2500 B.C.-622 A.D.]]

The Arabian peninsula is Africa reduced in size and of more moderate proportions, but without a river-valley like that of the Nile. The heart of the country is a tableland, sparely watered under a burning sun, and forming a depression in the midst of sandy deserts, rocky plains, peaks, and naked cliffs. Thus, despite its great extent of over a million square miles, Arabia presents, especially in the interior, but few stretches of land suitable for cultivation. It is in the south, where the plateau slopes down to the Indian Ocean in a series of declivities, that fertile valleys lie; and on the mountain terraces, where cool winds from the ocean temper the tropic heat, the richest fruits abound. This district of Arabia is the land of frankincense, of sugar-cane, and coffee tree, of pomegranates, figs, dates, of maize, and wheat.

Herodotus,[b] who like all other historians of antiquity applies the name Arabia to regions lying even beyond Sinai and the Syrian deserts, gives us but meagre information concerning the inhabitants of this vast land. “The Arabs,” he says, “wear long garments, carry at their right side great bows with double strings, and ride on swift camels. They worship two gods, Dionysus whom they call Urotal, and Urania whom they call Alilat, the latter also being called by the Babylonians Mylitta. Compacts are made in the following manner; a third person cuts each of the parties to the agreement in the hand near the thumb, and with the blood thus obtained smears seven stones that lie on the ground between, at the same time calling on Urotal and Alilat. Compacts thus sealed are held sacred by the Arabs, and are kept with a fidelity rarely found in other nations.” Artemidorus[c] of Ephesus calls Arabia rich in animals of all sorts; lions, panthers, wolves, wild asses, and camels; and the inhabitants, according to him, were wandering herdsmen who travelled about and did their fighting on the backs of camels, and lived on the camels’ milk and flesh. He withholds from us the names of these tribes on account of their obscurity and unmusical sound. Diodorus[d] also tells us that parts of Arabia on the Syrian side were inhabited by tribes who lived by trading and agriculture; but the tracts adjoining were for the most part barren and without water, and the Nachabæans who occupied them led the life of bandits, plundering their neighbours far and wide; no other tribe had succeeded in conquering them. In the interior and in the west of Arabia were sand plains of immense extent, across which it was only possible to travel by taking, as on the sea, the Great Bear as a guide.

Pliny[e] remarks: “Wonderful to say, the Arabians live about equally by robbery and by trade; what they obtain from their forests (meaning the products of the date-palms and the fruit-trees of the south) and from the sea they sell, yet they never buy anything in return.”

“The Arabs,” says Ammianus Marcellinus[f] “cover the territory that reaches from the Euphrates to Egypt. They wear no clothing save a sort of apron around the body, and a voluminous cloak. Every man among them is a warrior, and on their camels and swift, fine-limbed horses they are everywhere to be seen. They cannot endure to remain long in any one locality; without permanent dwelling-place they wander restlessly about, and their whole life is nothing but a flight. Of bread and wine the majority of Arabs have never even heard.”

Different information is given us regarding the southern coast of Arabia. Herodotus[b] remarks that the greatest blessings are showered upon the extreme limits of the earth, and that this seems to be true of Arabia, the most southern point of the inhabited world. Here only in all the earth grow frankincense, myrrh, cassia, and ladanum; here only are raised sheep with tails so bushy that wagons have to be bound beneath them to support them. But the trees bearing frankincense are guarded by winged serpents and those bearing cassia by bats.

Thoroughly informed in matters relating to this district by reason of Alexandria’s wide trade connections, Eratosthenes[g] could name the different tribes that inhabited the south. “In the interior,” he adds, “were thick forests formed by tall frankincense and myrrh trees; and besides these there were cinnamon trees, palm and calmus, and other trees of a similar nature, sending forth the sweetest odours. Out of so many it is not possible to name every species; it is enough to say that the perfumes they diffused were delicious beyond all words. Even people going by this land in ships at some distance from the shore, have the odours wafted to them on the breeze. For here the aroma does not proceed from spices old, stale, and laid away, but is sent forth in full strength and freshness, so that sailors along the coast believe they are enjoying ambrosia, no other name expressing the extraordinary strength and richness of the perfume they inhale. Among the Sabæans the monarchy is hereditary, and it is here that the king lives, dispensing justice to the people, but never venturing to leave his palace. Should he once show himself outside he would be stoned by his subjects, who would thus be fulfilling an ancient oracle. The Sabæans are the richest people in the world. In exchange for their few wares silver and gold flow in to them from all sides, and owing to the remoteness of their situation no other tribe has ever conquered them.”

[Sidenote: [ca. 2500-645 B.C.]]

The Hebrew Scriptures have preserved for us information concerning the populations of Arabia, that is older by a thousand years than that of Pliny, and by five hundred than that of Herodotus. According to Genesis[h] the tribes fall into four main groups; the Joktanites, among whom the tribes of the south and east are the most prominent; the Keturites, which include certain tribes of the east and northwest; the Ishmaelites, among whom can be counted tribes of the north and of the tableland of the interior; and finally the group of tribes who wandered and settled near the eastern frontiers of Canaan--the Amalekites, Edomites, Moabites, and Ammonites. The Hebrews ascribe to the Arabs the same origin as their own.

From the genealogies it is plain that the Hebrews regarded the Arabian tribes as close kinsmen of their own, and kinsmen of a far more ancient branch. The Arabs of the south traced their origin back to the fifth generation after Shem, the common forefather, while the Hebrews descended from the second son of Isaac. Most closely related to them are the Ishmaelites, who are divided into twelve tribes--the descendants of the sons of Ishmael, the “twelve princes”; then follow the Edomites, the Ammonites, and the Moabites.

The tradition of the Arabs scarcely goes back to the beginning of the Christian era. What their writers, who began after Mohammed to tell the early history of their race, knew of those ancient periods is either derived from the accounts of the Hebrews, or is the work of pure imagination. They represent the Amalekites, whom they found in Hebrew Scriptures, as the founders of their race, and place their dwelling variously in Canaan and Damascus, and the district of Mecca and Oman, and cause them at one time to rule over Egypt. These Amalekites, the Tasmites and Jadi, Aadites and Jorhomites, they look upon as the true Arabian stock, to whom God taught Arabic after the confusion of tongues. But the Tasmites and Jadi are as little to be accepted historically as Amalek, their names signifying “the extinct,” and “the vanished”; the Aadites are a purely fabulous people, and the Jorhomites (near Mecca) are a tribe of by no means ancient origin. The progenitor of the tribes of Yemen in the south is, according to the Arabians, Kahtan, the son of Eber, and great-grandson of Noah; this is the Joktan of Genesis. This founder of the Sabæan monarchy left two sons, Himyar and Kahtan. Himyar was the progenitor of the Himyarites, and their abode is placed on the southern coast of Arabia, between Mareb (Saba) and Hadramaut.

To the kingdom of Mareb, founded by Abd Shams-Sabah, is ascribed by Arab tradition a long succession of rulers. But even if we were to allow to each name a reign of more than thirty years, Kahtan’s period would not be carried back beyond 700 B.C. Abd Shams-Sabah is supposed to have built not only Mareb but a great dam for the irrigation of the land. The well-built dams, canals, and sluices at Sana (the Uzal of the Hebrews, to the west of Mareb) are said to have been erected by Asad. The castles of Sahlin and Bainun (near Sana) were built by dæmons, at Solomon’s bidding, for Belkis, queen of Sheba. Towards the end of the year 700 B.C. Harith, at the head of the Himyarites, gained possession of the kingdom of the Sabæans, who were thus driven from their own land, and the Himyarites who supplanted them (the Homerites of western nations) became the ruling people in Yemen. Arab tradition had somewhat prepared the way for this change by making Himyar the oldest son and successor of Abd Shams-Sabah.

If we trace the genealogies given by Arab tradition to the rulers of the tribes descended from Ishmael backwards for twenty generations till we reach Adnan, his grandson, we do not arrive at an earlier period than the second century B.C., even if we allow thirty years for each generation.

There have been handed down to us no consistent accounts of these people. We learn that Egypt, at some period later than 3000 years B.C., gained a foothold in the west of the Sinai peninsula, but we are unable to obtain any certainty of the origin of the invading tribes. The inscriptions of Egypt of the time of Tehutimes and the first Ramses,[i] tell of victories achieved over the Shasu and over the Punt, that is, the Arabs; but we cannot learn the extent of these victorious operations, nor the names of the tribes against which they were directed, hence we conclude that they were of but a transitory nature. The Hebrews relate that the queen of the Sabæans, ruler over that fruitful, spice-bearing land, journeyed to Jerusalem to lay before King Solomon rich presents of spices and gold.

It would surprise us to learn that an Arabian monarchy was in the hands of a woman, did not the inscriptions of the Assyrian kings[j] reveal that even the tribes of the deserts frequently had women as rulers. These same inscriptions also furnish us with information concerning certain early Arabian tribes, and make known to us their great wealth in cattle. The third Tiglathpileser relates that in the year 735 B.C. he received tribute from Zabibieh, queen of Arabia (Aribi). In the year 734 he marched on Samshi, queen of Arabia, and took from her as spoils thirty thousand camels and twenty thousand oxen, afterwards subjugating the people of Saba, the Sabæan city. King Sargon makes boast that he conquered the people of Thamud, the Thamudenes of western writers; also those of Tasid, Ibadid, Marsiman, Chayapa, the distant Arbæans, the inhabitants of the lands of Bari, “which the learned and the scribes knew not,” and that Samshi, queen of the Arabs and Yathamic, the Sabæan, paid him tribute of spices, camels, and gold (715 B.C.). Sennacherib took from the Pecod, the Hagarites, the Nabatæans, and certain other tribes, 5330 camels, and 800,600 head of small cattle (703 B.C.). During the reign of Asshurbanapal, Adija, queen of the Arabs, and Ammuladin, king of the Kedarites, were conquered and brought in chains to Nineveh; and the “innumerable warriors” of another prince, Yauta-ben-Bir-Dadda, were put to rout and his tents were burned. A third chief, Abiyate, with his allies, Yauta-ben-Hazael, Natnu (Nathan) king of the Nabatæans, and the worshippers of Istar, was defeated in 645 B.C.

The position of Arabia between the river valleys of the Nile, the Euphrates, and the Tigris, which had been the seats of the oldest industries and where agriculture and civilisation had early begun to flourish, brought the Arabs, who were continually wandering about the frontiers of their land, into close connection with Egypt and Babylon. What robbery failed to supply could be obtained by barter. The wandering herdsmen had need of corn, tools, and weapons; the Egyptians and Babylonians, of horses, camels, skins, and wool. By giving in exchange for what they required cattle and skins, the Arabs kept the Egyptians and Babylonians supplied with raw materials for their industries. According to Hebrew tradition Abraham went into Egypt, and the sons of Jacob bought grain in Egypt when “there was a famine in the land.” The fact that the Egyptians gained possession, in 3000 B.C., of the valley of Maghara in the Sinai peninsula, and that a thousand years later certain nomad tribes of the northwest of Arabia obtained supremacy over Egypt, served but to strengthen the later relations between the two countries. That there had long been intercourse is certain; and contact with the superior culture of Egypt had so multiplied the wants of the Arabs as greatly to increase their trading relations. They could offer not alone their cattle to the Egyptians in barter but the costly products of their southern coasts, the frankincense and perfumes that had already attained a high celebrity in Egypt as early as 2500 B.C.

It is no wonder then, in view of this ancient and active trade, that Queen Ramaka (Maat-ka-Ra or Hatshepsu) of Egypt made the attempt to import the products of southern Arabia direct by way of the Red Sea; and it must have been this same intention that caused Ramses II to project a canal that should connect the Nile with the Red Sea. Later, Ramses III caused ships to be built especially for the trade with “the land of Punt” (Arabia) and “the land of the gods” (the far East). Great as was the demand of Egypt for incense and perfumes, that of Babylon seems to have been no less. Herodotus[b] tells us that at the annual feast of Belos a thousand talents of incense was burned on the altar of the great Babylonian temple.

[Sidenote: [ca. 1225 B.C.-100 A.D.]]

The demand for Arabian products must have greatly increased when the Phœnician cities planted along the coast of Syria, grew to be important trade centres.

That the Babylonian talent was current among the Sabæans is evidence of the extent and activity of Babylonian trade. First passing their goods from one to another of their own tribes until the market at Damascus was reached, or the Euphrates and the Nile for shipping, the Arabs permitted or refused passage to the caravans of the Babylonians and the Phœnicians. They lay in wait for the merchant-trains, and either plundered them or forced them to pay for safe passage and convoy.

The beauty and fertility of the portion of Arabia occupied by the Sabæans and the Chatramites must have early served to fix them there as permanent settlers, and their constantly growing commerce with Egypt, Syria, and Babylonia unquestionably resulted in a great influx of wealth to these tribes. Thus even the tales current among western nations of the splendour of their cities--the sixty temples of Sabbatha, and the gold and silver vessels, pillars, and couches of Mareb--must have had strong foundation in fact. Ruins of mighty aqueducts, dams, and basins remain, which are the wonder and admiration of our tourists for the excellence of their plan and the solidity of their construction. They reveal to us not only the skill of the ancient Sabæans and Chatramites in erecting important works, but their complete understanding of the subject of irrigation; since the whole system of canals and basins was evidently designed to utilise upon their own lands the streams rushing down from the mountains. Remains of magnificent structures, not alone near Mareb but near Nejran, Ghorab, Nakb-el-Hajara, go far towards confirming what western and Arab tradition tell us of the glories of ancient times; and inscriptions on these and other ruins in the southwest of Yemen give us, though they do not go back further than the year 120 B.C., an insight into the life and culture of the tribes of South Arabia. We also learn the earlier forms of their spoken and written language, and discover that their alphabet was derived from that of the Phœnicians, developing later independently side by side with it. Of a more recent date (the first century A.D.) are inscriptions on the rocks of the Sinai peninsula in the extreme northwest of Arabia, which are written in the north Arabian language and characters.

A glance at the meagre array of facts made known to us reveals the basis of the religious conceptions of the Semitic tribes in Arabia to be almost the same as that of the Semitic tribes in Syria, or those by the Euphrates and Tigris. It can readily be believed that the rites of those tribes nearest Syria partake somewhat of the character of the Syrian rites and that the worship of the southern tribes is closely allied to that of the Babylonians.

That the tribes of the desert should pay particular reverence to the stars cannot occasion much wonder. With the refreshing dews of night came not only Venus and the moon but the entire splendour of the firmament, to dazzle the eye and touch the spirit of the Arab. High above the silent desert, the tents, and sleeping flocks, looking down on the midnight ride and the waiting ambuscade, the stars swung on their glittering way. They were the source of a varied knowledge to the Arab; they marked out his path through the trackless desert, foretold the coming of the rain for which he had prayed, indicated the change of the seasons and the time for breeding in his flocks. Since these stars could at one time provide good pasturage and all that was needful for flocks, and at another dry up the wells and grass, why could they not also bring joy and pain, happiness and sorrow to mankind? Thus to the tribes of the desert the stars that shone brightest became living spirits, that ruled supreme over nature and the destinies of men.

The life of the nomad tribes of the interior (included by the Arabs under one name, Badawi [Bedouins] “children of the desert”) has suffered but few changes; up to the present day there have been no very radical departures from the customs and conditions of the olden time, which are fully described elsewhere.

In the Arabs the qualities peculiar to the Semitic character have attained their soundest and most strongly marked development. Their wandering life in the desert, exposed to burning sun and tempests of wind and sand, has steeled and strengthened them. In a land of trackless wastes, surrounded by beasts of prey and hostile tribes, each man was dependent for safety on his own watchfulness and keenness of vision, on his own courage and resolution, on his horse and lance. Soberly and frugally nourished, the body became lean and spare, but supple, sinewy, and capable of great endurance, and within these hardened frames dwelt a spirit of indomitable resolution. Thus the Arabs are characterised by a freer bearing, a more steadfast good faith, a more umbrageous pride, a greater love of independence, and a bolder daring than any other tribes of their race. The nature of their country and of their life has saved them from the excesses of greed of luxury and sensuality into which the Semitic populations on the Euphrates and the Tigris, as well as those on the Mediterranean, frequently fell, though they share in the cruelty and blood-thirstiness common to their race. It was the Arabs on whose unused strength it was possible to found an empire, a new Semitic civilisation in the Middle Ages, after Babel and Asshur, Tyre and Carthage, Jerusalem and Palmyra, had long passed away.[k]

ARAB HISTORY BEFORE MOHAMMED

[Sidenote: [380 B.C.-634 A.D.]]

The history of Arabia and its inhabitants naturally divides itself into two distinct and even dissimilar periods, that, namely, which preceded the era of Mohammed, and that which followed it. Each of these two periods, though comprising in its extent several minor phases and fluctuations, now of advance, now of retrogression, bears, however, a well-marked general character of its own. The first of the two periods is distinguished as one of local monarchies and federal governments; the latter commences with theocratic centralisation dissolving into general anarchy.

The first dawning gleams of anything that deserves to be called history disclose Arabia wholly, or nearly so, under the rule of a race of southern origin; the genuine, or, as they are sometimes termed from a mythical ancestor Kahtan, the Kahtanee Arabs. These, again, we find subdivided into several aristocratic monarchical governments, arranged so as to form a broad framework or rim around the central wilds of the peninsula.

Oldest and chiefest among the Arab monarchies was that of Yemen; its regal residence is said to have been in the now abandoned town of Mareb, in the extreme south. After a devastating inundation, referred with some probability to the first century of the Christian era, the seat of government was removed from the ruins of Mareb to Sana, a city which has continued the metropolis of Yemen to the present day. The Yemenite kings, descendants of Kahtan and Himyar (the dusky), a name denoting African origin, and each adorned with the reiterated surname of “Tobba,” a word of African etymology, and signifying “powerful,” are said to have reigned, with a few dynastic interruptions and palace revolutions, for about twenty-five hundred years, during which long period they commanded the direct obedience of the entire southern half of the peninsula; while, by their tribute-collectors, and by chiefs of kindred or delegated authority, they indirectly governed the northern. One of these monarchs is asserted, though historical criticism will hardly admit the assertion for fact, to have subdued the whole of central Asia, and even to have reached the boundaries of China; while another anticipated, so runs the story, the later and more authentic conquests of his race on the north African continent. In both these cases Arab chroniclers seem to have appropriated for their own rulers, not without some additional exaggerations, the glories and exploits of the Egyptian kings. But that theirs was a vigorous and in some respects a civilised government is attested alike by the literary and the architectural relics of their time. Their sovereignty was at last overthrown, 529 (A.D.) by an Abyssinian invasion, and was re-established in 603 A.D. as a dependency of the Persian Empire, till in the year 634 it was finally absorbed by Mohammedan conquest.

[Sidenote: [100-500 A.D.]]

Next in importance to the kingdom of Yemen came the subsidiary monarchy of Hira, or more correctly Heerah, situated in the northeasterly province of Arabian Irak. Its kings, a collateral branch of the royal race of Sana, governed the western shore of the lower Euphrates, from the neighbourhood of Babylon down to the confines of Nejd, and along the coast of the Persian Gulf. The duration of their empire, founded in the second century after Christ, was 424 years. This kingdom paid an uncertain allegiance to their more powerful neighbours, the Persian despots; and from time to time exercised considerable influence over the turbulent tribes of central Arabia, till, like Yemen, it sank before the rising fortunes of Mohammed and his followers.

A third monarchy, that of Ghassan, lorded it on the northwest over lower Syria and the Hedjaz; its independence was somewhat tempered with unequal alliances with the Roman, and subsequently the Byzantine Empire. It was founded in the first century of the Christian era, shortly after the flood of Mareb; and its duration, till subdued by the all-conquering prophet, exceeded six hundred years.

A fourth government, that of Kindeh, detached itself from Irak early in the fifth century, and united under its sceptre the tribes of northerly Nejd and even those of Oman, for about 160 years. Its kings were, like those before mentioned, of Yemenite origin; but their rule was weak and disturbed by frequent wars.

Much has been written by Arab authors regarding the great inundation, as they term it, of Arem or Mareb, possibly a tropical cyclone of more than ordinary destructiveness, like that of 1867 in the West Indies; and this event they love to assign as the proximate cause which dispersed the families of Yemen over northern Arabia, and led to the foundation of the kingdoms of Irak and Ghassan. But the reality of the events, physical or political, symbolised by the “flood of Arem” (a counterpart, after its fashion, of the biblical flood) cannot now be well deciphered.

This is however certain--in that the Yemenite Arabs, and especially those who tenanted the south of the peninsula, had, during the period now cursorily sketched, attained a very fair degree of civilisation--that arts and commerce flourished, that wealth was accumulated, literature cultivated, and talent held in esteem. On all these points we have not only the uncertain and distorted testimony of foreign authors, such as Strabo, Pliny, Diodorus, Ptolemy, and the like, but the more positive though fragmentary evidence afforded by the national writings, chiefly verse, that have survived to our day. In its general character and institutions the kingdom of Yemen seems to have borne a considerable resemblance to the neighbouring one of the Nile valley, on the other side of the Red Sea, and, like it, to have reached at a very early epoch a relatively high degree of prosperity and social culture, from which, however, it had long declined before its final extinction in the seventh century. But the daughter-kingdom of Hira had, as was natural, something of a Persian tinge; while that of Ghassan took a more Byzantine colouring. Lastly, the nomadic element predominated in the ill-cemented monarchy of Kindeh.

But while the sceptre of Yemen was yet, in one form or other, outstretched over the length and breadth of the land, and its children, the genuine or African Arabs, formed a complete and dense circle of population all around, the centre of Arabia remained the stronghold of a different though kindred race, in their mode of living wild and ferocious; less susceptible of culture, but gifted with greater energy and concentration of purpose than their southern cousins. The latest recorded emigration of this branch of the Arab stock had been not from the south but the north; and instead of the mythical Kahtan, they claimed a no less mythical Adnan, or his supposed grandson Nezar, for their ancestor; their language, though radically identical with that spoken by the genuine Arabs, was yet dialectically different in several respects, and nearer to the Syriac or Hebrew. Lastly, unlike the Arabs from the south, they had little disposition for agriculture, and even less for architecture and the fine arts; their instincts leading them to a pastoral and consequently a nomadic life. The almost infinite ramifications of these “Mustareb” or “adscititious Arab” tribes lead ultimately up to five principal stocks. These were Rabiah, which, however, laid some claim to a Yemenite kinsmanship in the east centre of the peninsula; Koreish, on the west; Kais, or Kais-Ailan, and Hawazin, on the north; and Tamin in the middle.

[Sidenote: [500-570 A.D.]]

History has left unrecorded the exact date of their arrival in Arabia; nor has she defined the period during which they remained tributaries, though often refractory, of the kings of Yemen. But in the fifth century of the Christian era there appeared among the Mustareb tribes a leader of extraordinary talent and energy named Kolaib, sprung from the tribe of Rabiah, who having, in the fashion of William Tell, slain with his own hand the insolent and licentious tax-gatherer sent them from Sana, raised the banner of general revolt in Nejd; and, in the battle of Hazat (500 A.D.), broke forever the bonds of Yemen from off the neck of the northern Arabs. This done, Kolaib aspired to unite his countrymen into one vast confederacy, over which he himself exercised for a time an almost kingly power; but the scheme was prematurely broken off by his own assassination. Left now without a master, but also without a ruler, the Mustareb tribes found themselves involved in a series of wars that lasted during the whole of the sixth century, their heroic period. Yet in spite of severe losses sustained in battle by this or that particular clan, their power as a whole went on increasing, till at the dawn of the seventh century they had wholly absorbed the feeble kingdom of Kindeh, and encroached yearly more and more on the narrowing bounds of Yemen, Irak, and Ghassan.

Nor, probably, would they have stayed till they had become absolute lords over the whole, or nearly the whole, of the peninsula, had there not developed itself from among themselves a still more energetic element which, before many years had passed, reduced both northern and southern Arabs alike to common obedience, then raised them to an unexpected height of common glory, and at last plunged them, along with itself, into one comprehensive decline and ruin. This new and potent element was the well-known clan of Fihr or Koreish. Its families, of Mustareb descent, had at an early period, which subsequent and Mohammedan chroniclers have tried to identify with the fortunes of the mythical Ismail, established themselves in the southerly Hedjaz, near the town of Mecca, a locality even then the principal religious and commercial centre of Arabia. Already, at the beginning of the fifth century, the chiefs of Koreish had, by a mixture of violence and craft very characteristic of their race, rendered themselves the masters and the acknowledged guardians of the sacred “Kaaba.” This square stone temple, or rather shrine, itself of unknown antiquity, was situated within the precincts of the town of Mecca; and to it the Arabs were in the habit of bringing yearly offerings, and of making devout pilgrimages, for centuries before Mohammed had adopted it into the new ritual of Islam as the house of the true God. The keys of the consecrated building had originally been in possession of delegates appointed by the monarch of Yemen; but the Koreish Arabs, having once obtained them, held them fast forever after, and successfully repelled every effort, both of their own pagan competitors and of the invading Christian Abyssinians (570 A.D.), to recapture or to seize them. Their possession of the temple keys not only gave the tribe of Koreish a semi-religious pre-eminence over all the other clans of Arabia, but also placed at their disposal the treasures of gold, silver, jewels, and other offerings accumulated by the pagan piety of ages in the temple of Mecca.

[Sidenote: [500-600 A.D.]]

A more important, as also a more creditable, source of wealth to the Koreish clan was their Red Sea coast traffic, particularly with the ports of Yemen and Abyssinia. Jiddah has been always the chief westerly seaport, and Mecca, which is only a few leagues distant, the principal inland emporium, of Arab trade; and under the dominating influence of the clever and active merchants of Koreish, both places acquired special prosperity and importance.

Lastly, only a day’s journey distant from Mecca, was held, in the pre-Islamitic times, the great yearly fair and gathering of Okad, so called from the name of the plain where it used to assemble--a national meeting, frequented by men of all conditions, from all quarters of the Arab peninsula, and lasting through the entire month of Dhul-kaadeh, which in pagan, as subsequently in Mohammedan reckoning, immediately preceded the ceremonies of the annual pilgrimage. Here horse races, athletic games, poetical recitals, and every kind of public amusement, diversified the more serious commercial transactions of an open fair, that, in its comprehensiveness, almost assumed the proportions of a national exhibition. Here, too, matters of the highest import, questions of peace and war, of treaty and alliance, of justice and revenge, were habitually treated by the chiefs of the northern Arabs; the “children of Mezar,” to give them their favourite Mustareb patronymic, assembled in a sort of amphictyonic council, not less ancient, but while it lasted much more influential throughout Arabia, than that of Thebes ever had been in classic Greece. In this assembly the immediate local proximity of the Koreish chiefs, joined to their personal wealth, courage, and address, assigned them a predominant position.

Of their pedigree, which, as is well known, includes that of Mohammed himself, we have a carefully (too carefully, indeed, for authenticity) constructed chronicle, bringing the family tree up in due form to Ishmael, the son of Abraham, of whom the Koreish figure as the direct descendants. In the same artificial annals the Yemenite, or genuine Arabs, appear under the cousinly character of the children of Joktan, the son of Eber. On these points all Mohammedan annalists are equally positive and distinct; all other Arab testimony is equally adverse or silent. That a fable so utterly defiant of reasonable chronology, and even of the common sense of history itself, should have been adopted as matter of fact by Arab vanity and ignorance, is less surprising than that it should have found favour in the eyes of not a few, indeed of most, of our own European writers. Enough here to say that Mohammedan chroniclers, by adopting as irrefragable historical authority the Jewish records, and then retouching them here and there in accordance with their own special predictions and tenets, have succeeded in concealing the truth of their own national identity and story from themselves and even from others, under an almost hopeless incrustation of childish fiction.

To sum up, at the opening of the seventh century of our era, and coincidently with the first appearance of the prophetic autocrat and destined remodeller of Arabia, the overteeming life and energy of the great peninsula was, broadly taken, thus divided: Foremost stood the tribe of Koreish, with their allies, a powerful confederacy composed of tribes belonging to the Mustareb or northern stock, and occupying the upper half of the westerly coast and region. Next in importance came the countless independent, and, thus far, uncentralised clans of the centre of the peninsula; they, too, are mostly of Mustareb origin; though a few claimed the more ancient and aristocratic kinsmanship of Yemen, but without, however, paying any allegiance to its rulers. Lastly, to the south, east, and north, still existed the noble but enfeebled relics of the old Yemenite kingdoms of Sana, Hira, and Ghassan, half-sunk into Persian or Byzantine vassalage, and exerting little authority, even within their own ancestral limits.

[Sidenote: [25 B.C.-632 A.D.]]

But, however important to the country itself and in their ultimate results to the world at large might be the events that took place within Arabia during the pre-Islamitic epoch, they had small bearing on the nations outside the peninsula. The Yemenite queen of Sheba’s ambassage to Solomon, even if an historical event, led at least to no historical results; and with other coeval rulers and nationalities, Greek, Persian, and Macedonian, the Arabs rarely came into any other contact than that of distant and desultory traffic. Nor do the frontier skirmishes by which an Antigonus or a Ptolemy attempted, without success, to gain a footing in Arabia, deserve more than a passing notice; and Pompey himself, victorious elsewhere, was foiled on its frontiers.

At last during the reign of Augustus, Ælius Gallus, the Roman prefect of Egypt, undertook a military expedition against Yemen itself, with the view of annexing that region, which report enriched with immense treasures, to the Roman Empire. With an army composed of ten thousand Roman infantry, five hundred Jews, and one thousand Nabatæans, he crossed the Red Sea in two hundred and ten galleys, and landed at Moilah, or Leuce Come, in 25° N. lat., near the modern Yambo. After some delay, the consequence of disease and disorganisation among his troops, he marched southward until he reached the inland district and city of Nejran, on the nearer frontier of Yemen. The town of Nejran he is said to have taken by assault, as well as a few neighbouring places, probably mere villages, of little note.

Meanwhile a large force of Arabs had assembled to oppose him, but Gallus easily defeated them, and advanced to Mareb itself, then, we may suppose, the capital of Yemen. But the Roman soldiers, unaccustomed to the heat of the tropical climate, and much reduced in numbers, were incapable of laying siege to that town; and their general thus found himself forced to retreat, and recrossed the sea to Egypt without having effected any permanent settlement on the Arab side. Later attempts, made by Roman governors or generals under Trajan and Severus, were restricted to the neighbourhood of the Assyrian frontier; and the ruined cities of Bosrah and Petra yet indicate the landmarks of the extreme southerly limits reached by imperial dominion over Arab territory.

More serious, and more lasting in its consequences, was the great Abyssinian invasion of Yemen in 529, when Aryat, son or lieutenant of the king of Abyssinia, landed in Aden with an army of seventy thousand men, to avenge his co-religionists, the Christians, who had been cruelly persecuted by Dhu-Nowas, king of Yemen, himself a proselyte to and an ardent propagator of the Jewish code. The expedition was successful; Dhu-Nowas perished, Christianity was proclaimed, and for seventy-six years the Ethiopian conquerors retained subject to their rule the southern and richer half of the peninsula. Their king Abraha even advanced, in 570 A.D. (the year of the birth of Mohammed) as far as Mecca; but beneath its walls suffered a repulse, which has been magnified by the Koran and Mohammedan tradition into the proportions of a miracle. Persian assistance, furnished by the great Chosroes, ultimately enabled the Arabs under Seif, son of Yezen, last direct lineal descendant of the old kings of Sana, to liberate their territory from its dusky usurpers (605 A.D.).

The seventh century had now commenced, and before long the wonderful successes of Mohammed (622-632 A.D.), while they closed in one great centralising effort the era of Arab progress and development within the land, opened a marvellous phase of new activity and almost boundless extension without.[l]

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