man, to make the wounds which they inflicted more deadly.1 Thus, what was threatened was not merely the conquest of one race by another cognate to it, like that of the Medes by the Persians, or of the Greeks by Rome, but the obliteration of such art, civilisation, and refinement as Western Asia had attained to in course of ages by the successive efforts of Babylonians, Assyrians, Medes, Persians, and Greeks-the spread over some of the fairest regions of the earth of a low type of savagery -a type which in religion went no further than the worship of the sun;2 in art knew but the easier forms of metallurgy and the construction of carts; in manners and customs, included cannibalism, the use of poisoned weapons, and a relation between the sexes destructive alike of all delicacy and of all family affection. The Parthians were, no doubt, rude and coarse in their character as compared with the Persians; but they had been civilised to a certain extent by three centuries of subjection to the Persians and the GrecoMacedonians before they rose to power; they affected Persian manners; they patronized Greek art, they appreciated the advantages of having in their midst a number of Greek states. Had the Massagetæ and their kindred tribes of Sakas, Tochari, Dahæ, Yue-chi, and Su, which now menaced the Parthian power, succeeded in sweeping it away, the general declension of all which is lovely or excellent in human life would have been marked. Scythicism would have overspread Western Asia. No doubt the conquerors would have learned something from those whom they subjected; but it cannot be supposed that they would have learned much. 1 See Plin. H. N. xi. 53. 2 Herod. i. 216. O povrov ήλιον σέβονται. Strabo repeats the statement (1. s. c.) The change would have been like that which passed over the Empire of the West, when Goths, Vandals, Burgundians, Alans, Heruli, depopulated its fairest provinces and laid its civilisation in the dust. The East would have been barbarised; the gains of centuries would have been lost; the work of Cyrus, Darius, Alexander, and other great benefactors of Asiatic humanity have been undone; Western Asia would have sunk back into a condition not very much above that from which it was raised two thousand years earlier by the primitive Chaldæans and the Assyrians. Artabanus II., the Parthian monarch who succeeded Phraates II., appears to have appreciated aright the perils of his position. He was not content, when the particular body of barbarians which had defeated and slain his predecessor, having ravaged Parthia Proper, returned home, to fold his arms and wait until he was again attacked. According to the brief, but expressive words of Justin,' he assumed the aggressive, and invaded the country of the Tochari, one of the most powerful of the Scythic tribes, which was now settled in a portion of the region that had, till lately, belonged to the Bactrian kingdom. Artabanus evidently felt that what was needed was to roll back the flood of invasion, which had advanced so near to the sacred home of his nation; that the barbarians required to be taught a lesson; that they must at least be made to understand that Parthia was to be respected; or that, if this could not be done, the fate of the Empire was sealed. He therefore, with a gallantry and boldness that we cannot sufficiently admire-a boldness that seemed like 1 'Bello Tocharis illato' (Hist. 2 See above, p. 115. Phil. xlii. 2, § 2). rashness, but was in reality prudence, without calculating too closely the immediate chances of battle, led his troops against one of the most forward of the advancing tribes. But fortune, unhappily, was adverse. How the battle was progressing we are not told; but it appears that in the thick of an engagement, Artabanus received a wound in the fore-arm, from the effects of which he died almost immediately.' The death of the leader decides in the East, almost to a certainty, the issue of a contest. We cannot doubt that the Parthians, having lost their monarch, were repulsed; that the expedition failed; and that the situation of affairs became once more at least as threatening as it had been before Artabanus made his attempt. Two Parthian monarchs had now fallen within the space of a few years in combat with the aggressive Scyths-two Parthian armies had suffered defeat. Was this to be always so? If it was, then Parthia had only to make up her mind to fall, and, like the great Roman, to let it be her care that she should fall grandly and with dignity. 1 In brachio vulneratus, statim decedit.' (Justin, 1. s. c.) The immediate death consequent upon a wound in the forearm raises a painful suspicion that the weapon which dealt the wound had been poisoned. (See above, p. 120, note 1.) BOD CHAPTER IX. Accession of Mithridates II. Termination of the Scythic Wars. Commencement of the struggle with Armenia. Previous history of Armenia. Result of the first Armenian War. First contact of Rome with Parthia. Attitude of Rome towards the East at this time. Second Armenian War. Death of Mithridates. 'Mithridati res gestæ Magni cognomen dedere.'—Justin, xlii. 2, § 3. Ox the death of Artapanus II., about B.C. 124, his son, Mithridates II., was proclaimed king. Of this monarch, whose achievements (according to Justin') procured him the epithet of the Great,' the' accounts which have come down to us are extremely scanty and unsatisfactory. Justin, who is our principal informant on the subject of the early Parthian history, has unfortunately confounded him with the third monarch of the name," who ascended the throne more than sixty years later, and has left us only the slightest and most meagre outline of his actions. The other classical writers, only to a very small extent, supplement Justin's narrative; and the result is that of a reign which was one of the most important in the early Parthian series, the historical inquirer at the present day can form but a most incomplete conception. It appears, however, from the account of Justin, and from such other notices, as have reached us of the con See the passage quoted at the head of the chapter. Compare Trog. Pomp. Prol. lib. xlii. 2 Justin, xlii. 4, § 1. That Trogus did not make the mistake appears from the Prologue to book xlii., where we are told that he placed several kings between Mithridates II. and Orodes. dition of things at this time in the regions lying east of the Caspian, that Mithridates was entirely successful where his father and his cousin had signally failed. He gained a number of victories over the Scythic hordes; and effectually checked their direct progress towards the south, throwing them thereby upon the east and the south-east. Danger to Parthia from the Scyths seems after his reign to have passed away. They found a vent for their superabundant population in Seistan, Affghanistan, and India, and ceased to have any hopes of making an impression on the Arsacid kingdom. Mithridates, it is probable, even took territory from them. The acquisition of parts of Bactria by the Parthians from the Scyths, which is attested by Strabo," belongs, in all likelihood, to his reign; and the extension of the Parthian dominion to Seistan 3 may well date from the same period. Justin tells us that he added many nations to the Parthian Empire. The statements made of the extent of Parthia on the side of Syria in the time of Mithridates the First render it impossible for us to discover these nations in the west: we are, therefore, compelled to regard them as consisting of races on the eastern frontier, who could at this period only be outlying tribes of the recent Scythic immigration. The victories of Mithridates in the East encouraged him to turn his arms in the opposite direction, and to make an attack on the important country of Armenia, which bordered his north-western frontier. Armenia was at the time under the government of a certain 1 Cum Scythis prospere aliquoties dimicavit, ultorque injuriæ parentum fuit.' (Justin, xlii. 2, § 5.) 2 Strab. xi. 9, § 2. AgioTo τῆς Βακτριανῆς μέρος [οἱ Παρθυαῖοι] βιασάμενοι τοὺς Σκύθας. 46 |