Rome’s Enemies: Parthia

Author: Hatch, M., (2006), “Parthia”, first published in The Imperial Courier, Volume 1, Issue 7, THE RMRS, pp. 2-4.

The Parthian Empire, also known as the Arsacid Empire, was a major political and cultural power in ancient Iran from 247 BC to AD 224. Ruled by the Arsacid Dynasty, named after its founder, Arsaces I, beginning in the 3rd-century BC Parthia had been reunited after the break-up of the earlier Seleucid Empire. It had intermittently controlled Mesopotamia (the “land between the rivers” Tigris and Euphrates) between circa 150 BC to AD 224. Mostly due to its innovative heavy cavalry, Parthia became the arch enemy of Roman expansion beyond Cappadocia central Anatolia).

Imperial ambitions The Parthian Empire was the most enduring empires of the ancient Near East. After the Scythian-Parni nomads (the Assyrians called them “Ashkuz”) had settled in Parthia and built a small independent kingdom, they rose to prominence under the King Mithradates the Great (171 BC to 138 BC). Covering all of modern Iran, as well as Iraq, at its height the Parthian Empire controlled an area extending from eastern Turkey through Syria to Afghanistan and Pakistan in the west. In the north, the Parthian claimed territory encroached into Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. While its influence extended southwards through Kuwait, along the Persian Gulf Coast of Saudi Arabia to Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Thus, at its zenith, Parthian control reached as far as Ubar in Arabia, the nexus of the highly lucrative frankincense trade route, where Parthian-inspired ceramics have been discovered. The end of this loosely organised empire, however, came in AD 224 when the last Parthian king was defeated by one of the vassal states, the Persians of the Sassanid dynasty.

History The Parthians were members of the Parni tribe, a nomadic people of Iranian origin, who entered the Iranian Plateau from central Asia. They were consummate and highly skilled light horse-archers who famously used the eponymous “Parthian Shot” [1]. This tactic was used in real or feigned retreat where the horse-archers would turn their bodies to face backwards and, at full gallop, shoot at a pursuing enemy. It meant the Parthians could shoot at their enemy as they approached, wheeling right to ride parallel to the enemy front while continuing to shoot into their ranks before wheeling right once more to turn away. At this point the archer could use the “Parthian Shot” to deliver further arrows on target. Against static formations this circling tactic could be used time and again to whittle away at the enemy and sap morale. Should the enemy attempt to counterattack, then the Parthians would simply turn tail shooting at the pursuing enemy.

Sadly, little is known of the Parthians first-hand as their own literature has not survived. Parthian history is largely derived from foreign histories, therefore, tempered by the evidence from coins and inscriptions. Even the name by which they called themselves is debatable due to a lack of domestic records. Several ancient Greek authors wrote under Parthian rule, including Apolodorus of Artemita and Isidore of Charax, yet it is from these surviving fragments that our picture of the Parthians is derived. The power of the early Parthian empire, for example, seems to have been overestimated by these ancient historians who could not clearly differentiate the powerful later empire form it more humble, obscure origins. Parthian power was based on a combination of the guerrilla warfare of a mounted nomadic tribe with the organisational skills necessary to build and administer a vast territory. Yet its control never quite matched the dominance of the Persian empires that both preceded and followed Parthia. Vassal kingdoms seem to have made up a large part of the empire. The Kingdom of Tigranes II of Armenia, for example, and the Hellenistic cities both enjoyed a certain autonomy; their craftsmen being employed by Parthians.

Parthia and Rome collide In 53 BC, Marcus Licinius Crassus, the “richest man in Rome” who desperately desired to win military accolades to rival Gnaeus Pompeius (Pompey) and Gaius Julius Caesar, invaded Parthia with seven legions. His expedition, however, was a contemptible example of political expediency and personal greed; Crassus had hoped to gain the monopoly of Rome’s eastern trade routes. He, along with many thousands of ordinary Roman soldiers, was defeated and killed at the Battle of Carrhae by a Parthian commander named “Surena” in Greek and Latin sources. Most likely simply reflecting his membership of the Sūrēn clan, the actual name of the man who ensured the destruction of seven Roman legions remains uncertain.

The Parthian army had included two types of cavalry: the heavily-armed and armoured cataphracts (Greek: κατάφρακτος kataphractos (plural: kataphractoi) literally meaning “armoured” or “completely enclosed”), and the lighter armed contingents of mounted archers. The fast moving and mobile Parthian cavalry proved hard to defeat for a Roman force reliant on infantry. As described above, the Parthians fled every effort to engage them hand-to-hand, and as they wheeled and galloped away shot volleys of arrows into the sweating, parched, densely packed and immobile legionaries. The auxiliary cavalry attached to Roman legions, led by Publiius Crassus, son of the commanding general, were utterly destroyed in its first clash with the enemy horsemen. Without a cavalry screen the legions doggedly held out until dusk permitted the survivors, led by Gaius Cassius Longinus, to withdraw to the nearby settlement of Carrhae (modern Harran in Turkey).

Being close to mutiny, the legionaries demanded Crassus parley with the Parthians, who had offered to negotiate a peace. Crassus, despondent at the earlier death of his son Publius, finally agreed to meet the Parthian general. When Crassus mounted a horse to ride to the Parthian camp, his junior officer Octavius suspected a Parthian trap and grabbed Crassus' horse by the bridle. This action instigated a sudden fight with the Parthians that left the Roman party dead, including Crassus [2]. In all, twenty thousand Romans were left dead on the battlefield, with a further 10,000 prisoners taken and seven Eagles lost.

Carrhae’s aftermath As a military proposition, Crassus’ expedition was a salutary reminder of the limitations of the legion as an all-conquering weapon. Yet the defeat at Carrhae merely heralded the beginning of a series of wars between Rome and Parthia that were to last three centuries. The Parthians found it difficult to occupy conquered areas as they were unskilled in the siege warfare necessary to capture key towns and cities. As Carrhae had demonstrated, the Romans were unable to decisively beat the Parthian cavalry and, thus, the weaknesses on both sides simply led to stalemate. The tension between Rome and Parthia remained unresolved in the years following the battle. The civil war that ensued as Pompey and Caesar sought to ultimate power left the Romans unable to campaign against Parthia. Although Caesar was eventually victorious, his subsequent murder plunged Rome into yet further civil strife; the respite undoubtedly allowed Parthia to consolidate its power.

Civil war The Roman general, Quintus Labienus, who had supported Caesar’s murderers and feared reciprocity from Caesar’s heirs, Marcus Antonius (Antony) and Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (later Augustus), sided with the old enemy. In one of history’s twists of fate, Labienus was to become the favoured general of King Pacorus I. Indeed, in 41 BC a Parthian army led by Labienus invaded the Roman provinces of Syria, Cilicia and Caria, and attacked Phrygia in Asia Minor. A second army intervened in Judaea and captured its king Hyrcanus II. The spoils were immense and put to good use, with King Phraates IV investing them in developing the Parthian city of Ctesiphon.

In 39 BC, Antony retaliated dispatching the old warhorse general Publius Ventidius Bassus and several of Caesar’s veteran legions to secure the conquered territories. Hoping to avenge the death of Crassus, Antony invaded Mesopotamia in 36 BC with Legio VI Ferrata and other units, together with a cavalry force that once more proved unreliable. The Romans were simply happy to reach Armenia having again suffered great losses to the Parthians. The campaign saw the deaths of both King Pacorus and Labienus killed in action, and the river Euphrates once again becoming the de-facto border between these two quarrelsome empires.

Antony’s abortive campaign was followed by a hiatus in the enmity between Parthia and Rome as the latter was embroiled in yet another civil war. On September 2nd, 31 BC, Antony and Queen Cleopatra’s force was finally defeated by those of Octavianus at the Battle of Actium. Heralding the beginning of the Principate, Octavianus chose to ignore Parthia to focus on consolidating his power in Rome and the west. Indeed, in the early years of the Emperor Augustus’ reign his son-in-law and future successor, Tiberius, negotiated a peace treaty with King Phraates in 20 BC.

At around the same time, roughly AD 1, the Parthians became interested in the valley of the Indus river and began the conquest of the petty kingdoms of Gandara. One of the Parthian leaders was Gondophares, king of Taxila, who, according to an old and widespread Christian tradition was baptized by the apostle, Thomas. While it may seem far-fetched, the story is not altogether improbable. Adherents of several religions lived together in Gandara and the Punjab, and there may have been an audience receptive to the representative of a new Jewish sect.

An uneasy peace War erupted again between Rome and Parthia in the AD 60s. By this time Armenia had become a Roman vassal kingdom. When the Parthian king, Vologases I, appointed a new Armenian ruler, it was too much for the Romans. Under the command of Cnaeus Domitius Corbulo, the legions invaded Armenia to secure Rome’s claims. Corbulo’s campaign resulted in the Armenian king once again being crowned in Rome from the Emperor Nero, and a compromise agreed between the two empires. In the future, the king of Armenia was to be a Parthian prince whose appointment had to be approved by Rome. Despite seemingly at peace, Parthia remained a thorn in Rome’s regional aspirations throughout the Principate and checked any dreams of eastward expansion by military might.

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Endnotes:

1. Despite the similar phonetic sounds, the phrases “Parthian shot” and “parting shot” were derived separately at different times; see “Stirrups”. ▲

2. Roman historian Cassius Dio later wrote that, after Crassus' death, the Parthians poured molten gold into his mouth, as a symbol of his thirst for wealth. ▲