THE DECAY OF PARTHIAN GREATNESS

[1Sidenote: [166-217 A.D.]]

2The 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.

3Volagases 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.

4The 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.

5Severus 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.

6In 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.).

7About 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.

8Artabanus must also have displaced his brother in Babylonia.