THEIR CUSTOMS
[323-250 B.C.]
A Parthian Noble
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
[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.
[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.