_Condition of Western Asia under the earlier Seleucidce. Revolts of
Bactria and Parthia. Conflicting accounts of the establishment of the
Parthian Kingdom. First War with Syria._
The attempt of Alexander the Great to unite the whole civilized world in
a single vast empire might perhaps have been a success if the mind which
conceived the end, and which had to a considerable extent elaborated the
means, had been spared to watch over its own work, and conduct it
past the perilous period of infancy and adolescence. But the premature
decease of the great Macedonian in the thirty-third year of his age,
when his plans of fusion and amalgamation were only just beginning to
develop themselves, and the unfortunate fact that among his “Successors”
there was not one who inherited either his grandeur of conception or
his powers of execution, caused his scheme at once to collapse; and the
effort to unite and consolidate led only to division and disintegration.
In lieu of Europe being fused with Asia, Asia itself was split up. For
nearly a thousand years, from the formation of the great Assyrian empire
to the death of Darius Codomannus, Western Asia, from the Mediterranean
to Affghanistan, or even to India, had been united tinder one head, had
acknowledged one sovereign. Assyria, Media, Persia, had successively
held the position of dominant power; and the last of the three had
given union, and consequently peace, to a wider stretch of country and
a vaster diversity of peoples than either of her predecessors. Under
the mild yoke of the Achaemenian princes had been held together for two
centuries, not only all the nations of Western Asia, from the Indian and
Thibetan deserts to the AEgean and the Mediterranean, but a great part
of Africa also, that is to say, Egypt, north-eastern Libya, and the
Greek settlements of Cyrene and Barca. The practical effect of the
conquests of Alexander was to break up this unity, to introduce in
the place of a single consolidated empire a multitude of separate and
contending kingdoms. The result was thus the direct opposite of the
great conqueror’s design, and forms a remarkable instance of the
contradiction which so often subsists between the propositions of man
and the dispositions of an overruling Providence.
The struggle for power which broke out almost immediately after his
death among the successors of Alexander may be regarded as having been
brought to a close by the battle of Ipsus. The period of fermentation
was then concluded, and something like a settled condition of things
brought about. A quadripartite division of Alexander’s dominions was
recognized, Macedonia, Egypt, Asia Minor, and Syria (or south-western
Asia) becoming thenceforth distinct political entities. Asia Minor, the
kingdom of Lysimachus, had indeed less of unity than the other three
states. It was already disintegrated, the kingdoms of Bithynia, Pontus,
and Cappadocia, subsisting side by side with that of Lysimachus, which
was thus limited to western and south-western Asia Minor. After
the death of Lysimachus, further changes occurred; but the state of
Pergamus, which sprang up this time, may be regarded as the continuation
of Lysimachus’s kingdom, and as constituting from the time of Eumenes
I. (B.C. 263) a fourth power in the various political movements and
combinations of the Graeco-Oriental world.
Of the four powers thus established, the most important, and that with
which we are here especially concerned, was the kingdom of Syria (as
it was called), or that ruled for 247 years by the Seleucidae. Seleucus
Nicator, the founder of this kingdom, was one of Alexander’s officers,
but served without much distinction through the various compaigns by
which the conquest of the East was effected. At the first distribution
of provinces (B.C. 323) among Alexander’s generals after his death, he
received no share; and it was not until B.C. 320, when upon the death of
Perdiccas a fresh distribution was made at Triparadisus, that his
merits were recognized, and he was given the satrapy of Babylon. In this
position he acquired a character for mildness and liberality, and made
himself generally beloved, both by his soldiers and by those who were
under his government. In the struggle between Antigonus and Eumenes
(B.C. 317-316), he embraced the side of the former, and did him some
good service; but this, instead of evoking gratitude, appears to have
only roused in Antigonus a spirit of jealousy. The ambitious aspirant
after universal dominion, seeing in the popular satrap a possible, and
far from a contemptible, rival, thought it politic to sweep him out of
his way; and the career of Seleucus would have been cut short had he
not perceived his peril in time, and by a precipitate flight secured his
safety. Accompanied by a body of no more than fifty horsemen, he took
the road for Egypt, escaped the pursuit of a detachment sent to overtake
him, and threw himself on the protection of Ptolemy.
This event, untoward in appearance, proved the turning-point in
Seleucus’s fortunes. It threw him into irreconcilable hostility with
Antigonus, while it brought him forward before the eyes of men as
one whom Antigonus feared. It gave him an opportunity of showing his
military talents in the West, and of obtaining favor with Ptolemy, and
with all those by whom Antigonus was dreaded. When the great struggle
came between the confederate monarchs and the aspirant after universal
dominion, it placed him on the side of the allies. Having recovered
Babylon (B.C. 312), Seleucus led the flower of the eastern provinces to
the field of Ipsus (B.C. 301), and contributed largely to the victory,
thus winning himself a position among the foremost potentates of the
day. By the terms of the agreement made after Ipsus, Seleucus was
recognized as monarch of all the Greek conquests in Asia, with the sole
exceptions of Lower Syria and Asia Minor.
The monarchy thus established extended from the Holy Land and
the Mediterranean on the west, to the Indus valley and the Bolor
mountain-chain upon the east, and from the Caspian and Jaxartes towards
the north, to the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean towards the south. It
comprised Upper Syria, Mesopotamia, parts of Cappadocia and Phrygia,
Armenia, Assyria, Media, Babylonia, Susiana, Persia, Carmania, Sagartia,
Hyrcania, Parthia, Bactria, Sogdiana, Aria, Zarangia, Arachosia,
Sacastana, Gedrosia, and probably some part of India. Its entire area
could not have been much less than 1,200,000 square miles. Of these,
some 300,000 or 400,000 may have been desert; but the remainder was
generally fertile, and comprised within its limits some of the very most
productive regions in the whole world. The Mesopotamian lowland, the
Orontes valley, the tract between the Caspian and the mountains, the
regions about Merv and Balkh, were among the richest in Asia, and
produced grain and fruits in incredible abundance. The rich pastures
of Media and Armenia furnished excellent horses. Bactria gave an
inexhaustible supply of camels. Elephants in large numbers were readily
procurable from India. Gold, silver, copper, iron, lead, tin, were
furnished by several of the provinces, and precious stones of various
kinds abounded. Moreover, for above ten centuries, the precious metals
and the most valuable kinds of merchandise had flowed from every quarter
into the region; and though the Macedonians may have carried off, or
wasted, a considerable quantity of both, yet the accumulations of ages
withstood the drain, and the hoarded wealth which had come down from
Assyrian, Babylonian, and Median times was to be found in the days of
Seleucus chiefly within the limits of his Empire.
The situation which nature pointed out as most suitable for the capital
of a kingdom having the extension that has been here indicated was
some portion of the Mesopotamian valley, which was at once central and
fertile. The empire of Seleucus might have been conveniently ruled
from the site of the ancient Nineveh, or from either of the two still
existing and still flourishing cities of Susa and Babylon. The impetus
given to commerce by the circumstances of the time rendered a site near
the sea preferable to one so remote as that of Nineveh, and the
same consideration made a position on the Tigris or Euphrates more
advantageous than one upon a smaller river. So far, all pointed to
Babylon as the natural and best metropolis; and it was further in favor
of that place that its merits had struck the Great Conqueror, who
had designed to make it the capital of his own still vaster Empire.
Accordingly Babylon was Seleucus’s first choice; and there his Court
was held for some years previously to his march against Antigonus.
But either certain disadvantages were found to attach to Babylon as
a residence, or the mere love of variety and change caused him very
shortly to repent of his selection, and to transfer his capital to
another site. He founded, and built with great rapidity, the city of
Seleucia upon the Tigris, at the distance of about forty miles from
Babylon, and had transferred thither the seat of government even before
B.C. 301. Thus far, however, no fault had been committed. The second
capital was at least as conveniently placed as the first, and would have
served equally well as a centre from which to govern the Empire. But
after Ipsus a further change was made--a change that was injudicious in
the extreme. Either setting undue store by his newly-acquired western
provinces, or over-anxious to keep close watch on his powerful neighbors
in those parts, Lysimachus and Ptolemy, Seleucus once more transferred
the seat of empire, exchanging this time the valley of the Tigris for
that of the Orontes, and the central position of Lower Mesopotamia for
almost the extreme western point of his vast territories. Antioch arose
in extraordinary beauty and magnificence during the first few years
that succeeded Ipsus, and Seleucus in a short time made it his ordinary
residence. The change weakened the ties which bound the Empire together,
offended the bulk of the Asiatics, who saw their monarch withdraw from
them into a remote region, and particularly loosened the grasp of the
government on those more eastern districts which were at once furthest
from the new metropolis and least assimilated to the Hellenic character.
Among the causes which led to the disintegration of the Seleucid
kingdom, there is none that deserves so well to be considered the
main cause as this. It was calculated at once to produce the desire to
revolt, and to render the reduction of revolted provinces difficult,
if not impossible. The evil day, however, might have been indefinitely
delayed had the Seleucid princes either established and maintained
through their Empire a vigorous and effective administration, or
abstained from entangling themselves in wars with their neighbors in the
West, the Ptolemies and the princes of Asia Minor.
But the organization of the Empire was unsatisfactory. Instead of
pursuing the system inaugurated by Alexander and seeking to weld
the heterogeneous elements of which his kingdom was composed into a
homogeneous whole, instead of at once conciliating and elevating
the Asiatics by uniting them with the Macedonians and the Greeks, by
promoting intermarriage and social intercourse between the two classes
of his subjects, educating the Asiatics in Greek ideas and Greek
schools, opening his court to them, promoting them to high employments,
making them feel that they were as much valued and as well cared for as
the people of the conquering race, the first Seleucus, and after him
his successors, fell back upon the old simpler, ruder system, the system
pursued before Alexander’s time by the Persians, and before them perhaps
by the Medes--the system most congenial to human laziness and human
pride--that of governing a nation of slaves by means of a class
of victorious aliens. Seleucus divided his empire into satrapies,
seventy-two in number. He bestowed the office of satrap on none but
Macedonians and Greeks. The standing army, by which he maintained his
authority, was indeed composed in the main of Asiatics, disciplined
after the Greek model; but it was officered entirely by men of Greek or
Macedonian parentage. Nothing was done to keep up the self-respect of
Asiatics, or to soften the unpleasantness that must always attach to
being governed by foreigners. Even the superintendence over the satraps
seems to have been insufficient. According to some writers, it was a
gross outrage offered by a satrap to an Asiatic subject that stirred
up the Parthians to their revolt. The story may not be true; but its
currency shows of what conduct towards those under their government the
satraps of the Seleucidae were thought, by such as lived near the time,
to have been capable.
It would, perhaps, have been difficult for the Seleucid princes, even
had they desired it, to pursue a policy of absolute abstention in
the wars of their western neighbors. So long as they were resolute to
maintain their footing on the right bank of the Euphrates, in Phrygia,
Cappadocia, and upper Syria, they were of necessity mixed up with the
quarrels of the west. Could they have been content to withdraw within
the Euphrates, they might have remained for the most part clear of such
entanglements; but even then there would have been occasions when they
must have taken the field in self-defence. As it was, however, the idea
of abstention seems never to have occurred to them. It was the fond
dream of each “Successor” of Alexander that in his person might,
perhaps, be one day united all the territories of the great Conqueror.
Seleucus would have felt that he sacrificed his most cherished hopes
if he had allowed the west to go its own way, and had contented himself
with consolidating a great power in the regions east of the Euphrates.
And the policy of the founder of the house was followed by his
successors. The three Seleucid sovereigns who reigned prior to
the Parthian revolt were, one and all, engaged in frequent, if not
continual, wars with the monarchs of Egypt and Asia Minor. The first
Seleucus, by his claim to the sovereignty of Lower Syria, established a
ground of constant contention with the Ptolemies; and though he did not
prosecute the claim to the extent of actual hostility, yet in the reign
of his son, Antiochus I., called Soter, the smothered quarrel broke out.
Soter fomented the discontent of Cyrene with its subjection to Egypt,
and made at least one expedition against Ptolemy Philadelphus in person
(B.C. 264). His efforts did not meet with much success; but they were
renewed by his son, Antiochus II., surnamed “the God”, who warred with
Philadelphus from B.C. 260 to B.C. 250, contending with him chiefly in
Asia Minor. These wars were complicated with others. The first Antiochus
aimed at adding the kingdom of Bithynia to his dominions, and attacked
successively the Bythynian monarchs, Zipcetas and Nicomedes I. (B.C.
280-278). This aggression brought him into collision with the Gauls,
whom Nicomedes called to his aid, and with whom Antiochus had several
struggles, some successful and some disastrous. He also attacked Eumenes
of Pergamus (B.C. 263), but was defeated in a pitched battle near
Sardis. The second Antiochus was not engaged in so great a multiplicity
of contests; but we hear of his taking a part in the internal affairs of
Miletus, and expelling a certain Timachus, who had made himself tyrant
of that city. There is also some ground for thinking that he had a
standing quarrel with the king of Media Atropatene. Altogether it
is evident that from B.C. 280 to B.C. 250 the Seleucid princes were
incessantly occupied with wars in the west, in Asia Minor and in Syria
Proper, wars which so constantly engaged them that they had neither time
nor attention to spare for the affairs of the far east. So long as the
Bactrian and Parthian satraps paid their tributes, and supplied the
requisite quotas of troops for service in the western wars, the Antiochi
were content. The satraps were left to manage affairs at their own
discretion; and it is not surprising that the absence of a controlling
hand led to various complications and disorders.
Moreover, the personal character of the second Antiochus must be taken
into account. The vanity and impiety, which could accept the name of
“Theus” for a service that fifty other Greeks had rendered to oppressed
towns without regarding themselves as having done anything very
remarkable, would alone indicate a weak and contemptible morale, and
might justify us, did we know no more, in regarding the calamities of
his reign as the fruit of his own unfitness to rule an empire. But
there is sufficient evidence that he had other, and worse, vices. He
was noted, even among Asiatic sovereigns, for luxury and debauchery; he
neglected all state affairs in the pursuit of pleasure; his wives and
male favorites were allowed to rule his kingdom at their will; and
their most flagrant crimes were neither restrained nor punished. Such a
character could have inspired neither respect nor fear. The satraps, to
whom the conduct of their sovereign could not but become known, would
be partly encouraged to follow the bad example, partly provoked by it to
shake themselves free of so hateful and yet contemptible a master.
It was, probably, about the year B.C. 256, the fifth of the second
Antiochus, when that prince, hard pressed by Philadelphus in the west,
was also, perhaps, engaged in a war with the king of Atropatene in the
north, that the standard of revolt was first actually raised in the
eastern provinces, and a Syrian satrap ventured to declare himself an
independent sovereign. This was Diodotus, satrap of Bactria a Greek, as
his name shows. Suddenly assuming the state and style of king he
issued coins stamped with his own name, and established himself without
difficulty as sovereign over the large and flourishing province of
Bactria, or the tract of fertile land about the upper and middle
Oxus. This district had from a remote antiquity been one with special
pretensions. The country was fertile, and much of it strong; the people
were hardy and valiant; they were generally treated with exceptional
favor by the Persian monarchs; and they seem to have had traditions
which assigned them a pre-eminence among the Arian tribes at some
indefinitely distant period. We may presume that they would gladly
support the bold enterprise of their new monarch; they would feel their
vanity flattered by the establishment of an independent Bactria, even
though it were under Greek kings; and they would energetically second
him in an enterprise which gratified their pride, while it held out to
them hopes of a career of conquest, with its concomitants of plunder and
glory. The settled quiet which they had enjoyed under the Achaemenide
and the Seleucidae was probably not much to their taste; and they
would gladly exchange so tame and dull a life for the pleasures of
independence and the chances of empire.
It would seem that Antiochus, sunk in luxury at his capital, could not
bring himself to make even an effort to check the spirit of rebellion,
and recover his revolted subjects. Bactria was allowed to establish
itself as an independent monarchy, without having to undergo the ordeal
of a bloody struggle. Antiochus neither marched against Diodotus
in person, nor sent a general to contend with him. The authority of
Diodotus was confirmed and riveted on his subjects by an undisturbed
reign of eighteen years before a Syrian army even showed itself in his
neighborhood.
The precedent of successful revolt thus set could not well be barren
of consequences. If one province might throw off the yoke of its feudal
lord with impunity, why might not others? Accordingly, within a few
years the example set by Bactria was followed in the neighboring country
of Parthia, but with certain very important differences. In Bactria the
Greek satrap took the lead, and the Bactrian kingdom was, at any rate at
its commencement, as thoroughly Greek as that of the Seleucidae. But in
Parthia Greek rule was from the first cast aside. The natives rebelled
against their masters. An Asiatic race of a rude and uncivilized type,
coarse and savage, but brave and freedom-loving, rose up against the
polished but effeminate Greeks who held them in subjection, and claimed
and established their independence. The Parthian kingdom was thoroughly
anti-Hellenic. It appealed to patriotic feelings, and to the hate
universally felt towards the stranger. It set itself to undo the work
of Alexander, to cast out the Europeans, to recover to the Asiatics the
possession of Asia. It was naturally almost as hostile to Bactria as to
Syria, although danger from a common enemy might cause it sometimes
to make a temporary alliance with that kingdom. It had, no doubt, the
general sympathy of the populations in the adjacent countries, and
represented to them the cause of freedom and autonomy.
The exact circumstances under which the Parthian revolt took place are
involved in much obscurity. According to one account the leader of the
revolt, Arsaces, was a Bactrian, to whom the success of Diodotus was
disagreeable, and who therefore quitted the newly-founded kingdom, and
betook himself to Parthia, where he induced the natives to revolt and to
accept him for their monarch. Another account, which is attractive from
the minute details into which it enters, is the following:--“Arsaces and
Tiridates were brothers, descendants of Phriapites, the son of Arsaces.
Pherecles, who had been made satrap of their country by Antiochus Theus,
offered a gross insult to one of them, whereupon, as they could not
brook the indignity, they took five men into counsel, and with their aid
slew the insolent one. They then induced their nation to revolt from
the Macedonians, and set up a government of their own, which attained to
great power.” A third version says that the Arsaces, whom all represent
as the first king, was in reality a Scythian, who at the head of a body
of Parnian Dahce, nomads inhabiting the valley of the Attrek (Ochus),
invaded Parthia, soon after the establishment of Bactrian independence,
and succeeded in making himself master of it. With this account, which
Strabo seems to prefer, agrees tolerably well that of Justin, who
says that “Arsaces, having been long accustomed to live by robbery
and rapine, attacked the Parthians with a predatory band, killed their
satrap, Andragoras, and seized the supreme authority.” As there was
in all probability a close ethnic connection between the Dahae and the
Parthians, it would be likely enough that the latter might accept for
a king a chieftain of the former who had boldly entered their country,
challenged the Greek satrap to an encounter, and by defeating and
killing him freed them--at any rate for the time--from the Greek yoke.
An oppressed people gladly adopts as chief the head of an allied tribe
if he has shown skill and daring, and offers to protect them from their
oppressors.
The revolt of Arsaces has been placed by some as early as the year B.C.
256. The Bactrian revolt is assigned by most historians to that
year; and the Parthian, according to some, was contemporary. The
best authorities, however, give a short interval between the two
insurrections; and, on the whole, there is perhaps reason to regard the
Parthian independence as dating from about B.C. 250. This year was the
eleventh of Antiochus Theus, and fell into the time when he was still
engaged in his war with Ptolemy Philadelphus. It might have been
expected that when he concluded a peace with the Egyptian monarch in
B.C. 249, he would have turned his arms at once towards the east, and
have attempted at any rate the recovery of his lost dominions. But, as
already stated, his personal character was weak, and he preferred the
pleasures of repose at Antioch to the hardships of a campaign in the
Caspian region. So far as we hear, he took no steps to re-establish
his authority; and Arsaces, like Diodotus, was left undisturbed to
consolidate his power at his leisure.
Arsaces lived, however, but a short time after obtaining the crown. His
authority was disputed within the limits of Parthia itself; and he had
to engage in hostilities with a portion of his own subjects. We may
suspect that the malcontents were chiefly, if not solely, those of Greek
race, who may have been tolerably numerous, and whose strength would
lie in the towns. Hecatompylos, the chief city of Parthia, was among the
colonies founded by Alexander; and its inhabitants would naturally be
disinclined to acquiesce in the rule of a “barbarian.” Within little
more than two years of his coronation, Arsaces, who had never been able
to give his kingdom peace, was killed in battle by a spear-thrust in the
side; and was succeeded (B.C. 247) by his brother, having left, it is
probable, no sons, or none of mature age.
Tiridates, the successor of Arsaces, took upon his accession his
brother’s name, and is known in history as Arsaces II. The practice
thus begun passed into a custom, each Parthian monarch from henceforth
bearing as king the name of Arsaces in addition to his own real
appellation, whatever that might be. In the native remains the assumed
name almost supersedes the other; but, fortunately, the Greek and Roman
writers who treat of Parthian affairs, have preserved the distinctive
appellations, and thus saved the Parthian history from inextricable
confusion. It is not easy to see from what quarter this practice was
adopted; perhaps we should regard it as one previously existing among
the Dahan Scyths.
If the Parthian monarchy owed its origin to Arsaces I., it owed its
consolidation, and settled establishment to Arsaces II., or Tiridates.
This prince, who had the good fortune to reign for above thirty years,
and who is confused by many writers with the actual founder of the
monarchy, having received Parthia from his brother, in the weak and
unsettled condition above described, left it a united and powerful
kingdom, enlarged in its boundaries, strengthened in its defences, in
alliance with its nearest and most formidable neighbor, and triumphant
over the great power of Syria, which had hoped to bring it once more
into subjection. He ascended the throne, it is probable, early in B.C.
247, and had scarcely been monarch a couple of years when he witnessed
one of those vast but transient revolutions to which Asia is subject,
but which are of rare occurrence in Europe. Ptolemy Euergetes, the son
of Philadelphus, having succeeded to his father’s kingdom in the same
year with Tiridates, marched (in B.C. 245) a huge expedition into Asia,
defeated Seleucus II. (Callinicus) in Syria, took Antioch, and then,
having crossed the Euphrates, proceeded to bring the greater part of
Western Asia under his sway. Mesopotamia, Assyria, Babylonia, Susiana,
Persia, Media, submitted to him. He went in person as far as Babylon,
and, according to his own account, was acknowledged as master by all
the Eastern provinces to the very borders of Bactria. The Parthian
and Bactrian kingdoms cannot but have trembled for their newly won
independence. Here was a young warrior who, in a single campaign, had
marched the distance of a thousand miles, from the banks of the Nile to
those of the Lower Euphrates, without so much as receiving a check, and
who was threatening to repeat the career of Alexander. What resistance
could the little Parthian state hope to offer to such an enemy? It
must have rejoiced Tiridates to hear that while the new conqueror was
gathering somewhat too hastily the fruits of victory, collecting and
despatching to Egypt the most valuable works of art that he could find
in the cities which he had taken, and levying heavy contributions on the
submitted countries, a revolt had broken out in his own land, to quell
which he was compelled to retire suddenly and to relinquish the greater
part of his acquisitions. Thus the threatened conquest proved a mere
inroad, and instead of a power of greater strength replacing Syria in
these regions, Syria practically retained her hold of them, but with
enfeebled grasp, her strength crippled, her prestige lost, and her honor
tarnished. Ptolemy had, it is probable, not retired very long, when,
encouraged by what he had seen of Syria’s weakness, Tiridates took the
aggressive, and invading the neighboring district of Hyrcania, succeeded
in detaching it from the Syrian state, and adding it to his own
territory. This was throwing out a challenge which the Syrian monarch,
Callinicus, could scarcely decline to meet, unless he was prepared to
lose, one by one, all the outlying provinces of his empire.
Accordingly in B.C. 237, having patched up a peace with his brother,
Antiochus Hierax, the Syrian monarch made an expedition against Parthia.
Not feeling, however, altogether confident of success if he trusted
wholly to his own unaided efforts, he prudently entered into an alliance
with Diodotus the Bactrian king, and the two agreed to combine their
forces against Tiridates. Hereupon that monarch, impressed with a
deep sense of the impending danger, quitted Parthia, and, proceeding
northwards, took refuge with the Aspasiacae, a Scythian tribe which
dwelt between the Oxus and the Jaxartes. The Aspasiacae probably lent
him troops; at any rate, he did not remain long in retirement, but,
hearing that the Bactrian king, whom he especially feared, was dead, he
contrived to detach his son and successor from the Syrian alliance, and
to draw him over to his own side. Having made this important stroke, he
met Callinicus in battle, and completely defeated his army.
This victory was with reason regarded by the Parthians as a sort of
second beginning of their independence. Hitherto their kingdom had
existed precariously, and as it were by sufferance. It could not but
be that the power from which they had revolted would one day seek to
reclaim its lost territory; and, until the new monarchy had measured
its strength against that of its former mistress, none could feel secure
that it would be able to maintain its existence. The victory gained by
Tiridates over Callinicus put an end to these doubts. It proved to the
world at large, and also to the Parthians themselves, that they had
nothing to fear--that they were strong enough to preserve their freedom.
Considering the enormous disproportion between the military strength
and resources of the narrow Parthian State and the vast Syrian
Empire--considering that the one comprised about fifty thousand and the
other above a million of square miles; that the one had inherited the
wealth of ages and the other was probably as poor as any province in
Asia; that the one possessed the Macedonian arms, training, and tactics,
while the other knew only the rude warfare of the Steppes--the result
of the struggle cannot but be regarded as surprising. Still it was
not without precedent, and it has not been without repetition. It adds
another to the many instances where a small but brave people, bent on
resisting foreign domination, have, when standing on their defence, in
their own territory, proved more than a match for the utmost force that
a foe of overwhelming strength could bring against them. It reminds us
of Marathon, of Bannock-burn, of Morgarten. We may not sympathize wholly
with the victors, for Greek civilization, even of the type introduced by
Alexander into Asia, was ill replaced by Tatar coarseness and barbarism;
but we cannot refuse our admiration to the spectacle of a handful of
gallant men determinedly resisting in the fastness of their native land
a host of aliens, and triumphing over their would-be oppressors.
The Parthians themselves, deeply impressed with the importance of
the contest, preserved the memory of it by a solemn festival on the
anniversary of their victory, which they still celebrated in the time of
Trogus.