_System of government established by Mithridates I. Constitution of the
Parthians. Government of the Provinces. Laws and Institutions. Character
of Mithridates I._
The Parthian institutions possessed great simplicity; and it is probable
that they took a shape in the reign of Arsaces I., or, at any rate, of
Tiridates, which was not greatly altered afterwards. Permanency is the
law of Oriental governments; and in a monarchy which lasted less than
five hundred years, it is not likely that many changes occurred. The
Parthian institutions are referred to Mithridates I., rather than to
Tiridates, because in the reign of Mithridates Parthia entered upon a
new phase of her existence--became an empire instead of a mere
monarchy; and the sovereign of the time could not but have reviewed
the circumstances of his State, and have determined either to adopt the
previous institutions of his country, or to reject them. Mithridates
I. had attained a position which entitled and enabled him to settle
the Parthian constitution as he thought best; and, if he maintained an
earlier arrangement, which is uncertain, he must have done so of his
own free will, simply because he preferred the existing Parthian
institutions to any other. Thus the institutions may be regarded as
starting from him, since he approved them, and made them those of the
Parthian EMPIRE.
Like most sovereignties which have arisen out of an association of
chiefs banding themselves together for warlike purposes under a single
head, the Parthian monarchy was limited. The king was permanently
advised by two councils, consisting of persons not of his own
nomination, whom rights, conferred by birth or office, entitled to their
seats. One of these was a family conclave (concilium domesticum), or
assembly of the full-grown males of the Royal House; the other was a
Senate comprising both the spiritual and the temporal chiefs of the
nation, the Sophi, or “Wise Men,” and the Magi, or “Priests.” Together
these two bodies constituted the Megistanes, the “Nobles” or “Great
Men”--the privileged class which to a considerable extent checked and
controlled the monarch. The monarchy was elective, but only in the house
of the Arsacidae; and the concurrent vote of both councils was necessary
in the appointment of a new king. Practically, the ordinary law of
hereditary descent appears to have been followed, unless in the case
where a king left no son of sufficient age to exercise the royal office.
Under such circumstances, the Megistanes usually nominated the late
king’s next brother to succeed him, or, if he had left behind him no
brother, went back to an uncle. When the line of succession had once
been changed, the right of the elder branch was lost, and did not revive
unless the branch preferred died out or possessed no member qualified to
rule. When a king had been duly nominated by the two councils, the
right of placing the diadem upon his head belonged to the Surena, the
“Field-Marshal,” or “Commander in Chief of the Parthian armies.” The
Megistanes further claimed and sometimes exercised the right of deposing
a monarch whose conduct displeased them; but an attempt to exercise this
privilege was sure to be followed by a civil war, no monarch accepting
his deposition without a struggle; and force, not right, practically
determining whether he should remain king or no.
After a king was once elected and firmly fixed upon the throne, his
power appears to have been nearly despotic. At any rate he could put to
death without trial whomsoever he chose; and adult members of the Royal
House, who provoked the reigning monarch’s jealousy, were constantly so
treated. Probably it would have been more dangerous to arouse the fears
of the “Sophi” and “Magi.” The latter especially were a powerful body,
consisting of an organized hierarchy, which had come down from ancient
times, and was feared and venerated by all classes of the people. Their
numbers at the close of the Empire, counting adult males only, are
reckoned at eighty thousand;’ they possessed considerable tracts of
fertile land, and were the sole inhabitants of many large towns or
villages, which they were permitted to govern as they pleased. The
arbitrary power of the monarchs must, in practice, have been largely
checked by the privileges of this numerous priestly caste, of which it
would seem that in later times they became jealous, thereby preparing
the way for their own downfall.
The dominion of the Parthians over the conquered provinces was
maintained by reverting to the system which had prevailed generally
through the East before the accession of the Persians to power, and
establishing in the various countries either viceroys, holding office
for life, or sometimes dependent dynasties of kings. In either case, the
rulers, so long as they paid tribute regularly to the Parthian monarchs
and aided them in their wars, were allowed to govern the people beneath
their sway at their pleasure. Among monarchs, in the higher sense of
the term, may be enumerated the kings of Persia, Elymaiis, Adiabene,
Osrhoene, and of Armenia and Media Atropatene, when they formed, as
they sometimes did, portions of the Parthian Empire. The viceroys,
who governed the other provinces, bore the title of Vitaxae, and were
fourteen or fifteen in number. The remark has been made by the historian
Gibbon that the system thus established “exhibited under other names a
lively image of the feudal system which has since prevailed in Europe.”
The comparison is of some value, but, like most historical parallels, it
is inexact, the points of difference between the Parthian and the feudal
system being probably more numerous than those of resemblance, but the
points of resemblance being very main points, not fewer in number, and
striking.
It was with special reference to the system thus established that the
Parthian monarchs took the title of “King of Kings”, so frequent upon
their coins, which seems sometimes to have been exchanged for what was
regarded as an equivalent phrase, “Satrap of Satraps”. This title seems
to appear first on the coins of Mithridates I.
In the Parthian system there was one anomaly of a very curious
character. The Greek towns, which were scattered in large numbers
throughout the Empire, enjoyed a municipal government of their own, and
in some cases were almost independent communities, the Parthian kings
exercising over them little or no control. The great city of Seleucia
on the Tigris was the most important of all these: its population was
estimated in the first century after Christ at six hundred thousand
souls; it had strong walls, and was surrounded by a most fertile
territory. It had its own senate, or municipal council, of three hundred
members, elected by the people to rule them from among the wealthiest
and best educated of the citizens. Under ordinary circumstances it
enjoyed the blessing of complete self-government, and was entirely free
from Parthian interference, paying no doubt its tribute, but otherwise
holding the position of a “free city.” It was only in the case of
internal dissensions that these advantages were lost, and the Parthian
soldiery, invited within the walls, arranged the quarrels of parties,
and settled the constitution of the State at its pleasure. Privileges
of a similar character, though, probably, less extensive, belonged
(it would seem) to most of the other Greek cities of the Empire. The
Parthian monarchs thought it polite to favor them; and their practice
justified the title of “Phil-Hellene,” which they were fond of assuming
upon their coins. On the whole, the policy may have been wise, but it
diminished the unity of the Empire; and there were times when serious
danger arose from it. The Syro-Macedonian monarchs could always count
with certainty on having powerful friends in Parthia, whatever portion
of it they invaded; and even the Romans, though their ethnic connection
with the cities was not so close, were sometimes indebted to them for
very important assistance.
We are told that Mithridates I., after effecting his conquests, made a
collection of the best laws which he found to prevail among the various
subject peoples, and imposed them upon the Parthian nation. This
statement is, no doubt, an exaggeration; but we may attribute, with
some reason, to Mithridates the introduction at this time of various
practices and usages, whereby the Parthian Court was assimilated to
those of the earlier Great Monarchies of Asia, and became in the eyes
of foreigners the successor and representative of the old Assyrian and
Persian Kingdoms. The assumption of new titles and of a new state--the
organization of the Court on a new plan--the bestowal of a new character
on the subordinate officers of the Empire, were suitable to the new
phase of its life on which the monarchy had now entered, and may with
the highest probability, if not with absolute certainty, be assigned to
this period.
It has been already noticed that Mithridates appears to have been the
first Parthian sovereign who took the title of “King of Kings.”
The title had been a favorite one with the old Assyrian and Persian
monarchs, but was not adopted either by the Seleucidae or by the Greek
kings of Bactria. Its revival implied a distinct pretension to that
mastery of Western Asia which had belonged of old to the Assyrians and
Persians, and which was, in later times, formally claimed by Artaxerxes,
the son of Sassan, the founder of the New Persian Kingdom. Previous
Parthian monarchs had been content to call themselves “the King,” or
“the Great King”--Mithridates is “the King of Kings, the great and
illustrious Arsaces.”
At the same time Mithridates appears to have assumed the tiara, or tall
stiff crown, which, with certain modifications in its shape, had
been the mark of sovereignty, both under the Assyrians and under the
Persians. Previously the royal headdress had been either a mere cap of
a Scythic type, but lower than the Scyths commonly wore it; or the
ordinary diadem, which was a band round the head terminating in two long
ribbons or ends, that hung down behind the head on the back. According
to Herodian, the diadem, in the later times, was double; but the coins
of Parthia do not exhibit this peculiarity. [PLATE 1, Fig. 4.]
Ammianus says that among the titles assumed by the Parthian monarchs was
that of “Brother of the Sun and Moon.” It appears that something of a
divine character was regarded as attaching to the race. In the civil
contentions, which occur so frequently throughout the later history,
combatants abstained from lifting their hands knowingly against an
Arsacid, to kill or wound one being looked upon as sacrilege. The
name of _Deos_ was occasionally assumed, as it was in Syria; and more
frequently kings took the epithet of [Greek], which implied the divinity
of their father. After his death a monarch seems generally to have been
the object of a qualified worship; statues were erected to him in the
temples, where (apparently) they were associated with the images of the
great luminaries.
Of the Parthian Court and its customs we have no account that is either
complete or trustworthy. Some particulars, however, may be gathered of
it on which we may place reliance. The best authorities are agreed that
it was not stationary, but migrated at different times of the year to
different cities of the Empire, in this resembling the Court of the
Achaemenians. It is not quite clear, however, which were the cities thus
honored. Ctesiphon was undoubtedly one of them. All writers agree
that it was the chief city of the Empire, and the ordinary seat of
the government. Here, according to Strabo, the kings passed the winter
months, delighting in the excellence of the air. The town was situated
on the left bank of the Tigris, opposite to Seleucia, twelve or thirteen
miles below the modern Baghdad. Pliny says that it was built by the
Parthians in order to reduce Seleucia to insignificance, and that when
it failed of its purpose they built another city.
Vologesocerta, in the same neighborhood with the same object; but the
account of Strabo is more probable--viz., that it grew up gradually out
of the wish of the Parthian kings to spare Seleucia the unpleasantness
of having the rude soldiery, which followed the Court from place to
place, quartered upon them The remainder of the year, Strabo tells us,
was spent by the Parthian kings either at the Median city of Ecbatana,
which is the modern Hamadan, or in the province of Hyrca--In Hyrcania,
the palace, according to him, was at Tape and between this place and
Ecbatana he no doubt regarded the monarchs as spending the time which
was not passed at Ctesiphon. Athenaeus, however, declares that Rhages
was the spring residence of the Parthian kings; and it seems not
unlikely that this famous city, which Isidore, writing in Parthian
times, calls “the greatest in Media,” was among the occasional
residences of the Court. Parthia itself was, it would seem, deserted;
but still a city of that region preserved in one respect a royal
character, being the place where all the earlier kings were interred.
The pomp and grandeur of the Parthian monarchs are described only in the
vaguest terms by the classical writers. No author of repute appears
to have visited the Parthian Court. We may perhaps best obtain a true
notion of the splendor of the sovereign from the accounts which have
reached us of his relations and officers, who can have reflected only
faintly the magnificence of the sovereign. Plutarch tells us that the
general whom Orodes deputed to conduct the war against Crassus came into
the field accompanied by two hundred litters wherein were contained
his concubines, and by a thousand camels which carried his baggage. His
dress was fashioned after that of the Medes; he wore his hair parted
in the middle and had his face painted with cosmetics. A body of ten
thousand horse, composed entirely, of his clients and slaves, followed
him in battle. We may conclude from this picture, and from the
general tenor of the classical notices, that the Arsacidae revived
and maintained very much such a Court as that of the old Achaemenian
princes, falling probably somewhat below their model in politeness and
refinement, but equalling it in luxury, in extravagant expenditure, and
in display.
Such seems to have been the general character of those practices and
institutions which distinguish the Parthians from the foundation of
their Empire by Mithridates, Some of them, it is probable, he rather
adopted than invented; but there is no good reason for doubting that of
many he was the originator. He appears to have been one of those rare
individuals to whom it has been given to unite the powers which form
the conqueror with those which constitute the successful organizer of a
State. Brave and enterprising in war, prompt to seize an occasion and to
turn it to the best advantage, not even averse to severities where they
seemed to be required, he yet felt no acrimony towards those who had
resisted his arms, but was ready to befriend them so soon as their
resistance ceased. Mild, clement, philanthropic, he conciliated those
whom he subdued almost more easily than he subdued them, and by the
efforts of a few years succeeded in welding together a dominion which
lasted without suffering serious mutilation for nearly four centuries.
Though not dignified with the epithet of “Great,” he was beyond all
question the greatest of the Parthian monarchs. Later times did him more
justice than his contemporaries, and, when the names of almost all the
other kings had sunk into oblivion, retained his in honor, and placed it
on a par with that of the original founder of Parthian independence.