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.
[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
A Scythian Warrior
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.
[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.
[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.