_Reign of Phraates IV. His cruelties. Flight of Monceses to Antony.
Antony’s great Parthian Expedition, or Invasion of Media Atropatene. Its
Complete Failure. Subsequent Alliance of the Median King with Antony.
War between Parthia and Media. Rebellion raised against Phraates by
Tiridates. Phraates expelled. He recovers his Throne with the help of
the Scythians. His dealings with Augustus. His death and Character._
The shedding of blood is like, “the letting out of water.” When it once
begins, none can say where it will stop. The absolute monarch who, for
his own fancied security, commences a system of executions, is led on
step by step to wholesale atrocities from which he would have shrunk
with horror at the outset. Phraates had removed brothers whose superior
advantages of birth made them formidable rivals. He had punished with
death a father who ventured to blame his act, and to forget that by
abdication he had sunk himself to the position of a subject. Could he
have stopped here, it might have seemed that his severities proceeded
not so much from cruelty of disposition as from political necessity;
and historians, always tender in the judgments which they pass on kings
under such circumstances, would probably have condoned or justified his
conduct. But the taste for bloodshed grows with the indulgence of it.
In a short time the young king had killed all his remaining brothers,
although their birth was no better than his own, and there was no valid
ground for his fearing them; and soon afterwards, not content with the
murder of his own relations, he began to vent his fury upon the Parthian
nobles. Many of these suffered death; and such a panic seized the order
that numbers quitted the country, and dispersed in different directions,
content to remain in exile until the danger which threatened them should
have passed by. There, were others, however, who were not so patient. A
body of chiefs had fled to Antony, among whom was a certain Monseses,
a nobleman of the highest rank, who seems to have distinguished himself
previously in the Syrian wars. This person represented to Antony that
Phraates had by his tyrannical and bloody conduct made himself hateful
to his subjects, and that a revolution could easily be effected. If the
Romans would support him, he offered to invade Parthia; and he made
no doubt of wresting the greater portion of it from the hands of the
tyrant, and of being himself accepted as king. In that, case he would
consent to hold his crown of the Romans, who might depend upon his
fidelity and gratitude. Antony is said to have listened to these
overtures, and to have been induced by them to turn his thoughts to
an invasion of the Parthian kingdom. He began to collect troops and
to obtain allies with this object. He entered into negotiations with
Artavasdes, the Armenian king, who seems at this time to have been more
afraid of Rome than of Parthia, and engaged him to take a part in
his projected campaign. He spoke of employing Monseses in a separate
expedition. Under these circumstances Phraates became alarmed. He sent a
message to Monseses with promises of pardon and favor, which that chief
thought worthy of acceptance. Hereupon Monseses represented to Antony
that by a peaceful return he might perhaps do him as much service as by
having recourse to arms; and though Antony was not persuaded, he thought
it prudent to profess himself well satisfied, and to allow Monseses to
quit him. His relations with Parthia, he said, might perhaps be placed
on a proper footing without a war, and he was quite willing to try
negotiation. His ambassadors should accompany Monasses. They would be
instructed to demand nothing of Phraates but the restoration of the
Roman standards taken from Crassus, and the liberation of such of the
captive soldiers as were still living.’
But Antony had really determined on war. It may be doubted whether it
had required the overtures of Monseses to put a Parthian expedition into
his thoughts. He must have been either more or less than a man if the
successes of his lieutenants had not stirred in his mind some feeling of
jealousy, and some desire to throw their victories into the shade by a
grand and noble achievement. Especially the glory of Ventidius, who had
been allowed the much-coveted honor of a triumph at Rome on account of
his defeats of the Parthians in Cilicia and Syria, must have moved
him to emulation, and have caused him to cast about for some means of
exalting his own military reputation above that of his subordinates.
For this purpose nothing, he must have known, would be so effectual as
a real Parthian success, the inflicting on this hated and dreaded foe
of an unmistakable humiliation, the dictating to them terms of peace on
their own soil after some crushing and overwhelming disaster. And, after
the victories of Ventidius, this did not appear to be so very difficult.
The prestige of the Parthian name was gone. Roman soldiers could be
trusted to meet them without alarm, and to contend with them without
undue excitement or flurry. The weakness, as well as the strength, of
their military system had come to be known; and expedients had been
devised by which its strong points were met and counterbalanced. At the
head of sixteen legions, Antony might well think that he could invade
Parthia successfully, and not only avoid the fate of Crassus, but gather
laurels which might serve him in good stead in his contest with his
great political rival.
Nor can the Roman general be taxed with undue precipitation or with
attacking in insufficient force. He had begun, as already noticed, with
securing the co-operation of the Armenian king, Artavasdes, who promised
him a contingent of 7000 foot and 6000 horse. His Roman infantry is
estimated at 60,000; besides which he had 10,000 Gallic and Iberian
horse, and 30,000 light armed and cavalry of the Asiatic allies. His own
army thus amounted to 100,000 men; and, with the Armenian contingent,
his entire force would have been 113,000. It seems that it was his
original intention to cross the Euphrates into Mesopotamia, and thus to
advance almost in the footsteps of Crassus but when he reached the banks
of the river (about midsummer B.C. 37) he found such preparations
made to resist him that he abandoned his first design, and, turning
northwards, entered Armenia, determined to take advantage of his
alliance with Artavasdes, and to attack Parthia with Armenia as the
basis of his operations. Artavasdes gladly received him, and persuaded
him, instead of penetrating into Parthia itself, to direct his arms
against the territory of a Parthian subject-ally, the king of Media
Atropatene, whose territories adjoined Armenia on the southeast.
Artavasdes pointed out that the Median monarch was absent from his own
country, having joined his troops to those which Phraates had collected
for the defence of Parthia. His territory therefore would be open to
ravage, and even Praaspa, his capital, might prove an easy prey. The
prospect excited Antony, who at once divided his troops, and having
given orders to Oppius Statianus to follow him leisurely with the more
unwieldy part of the army, the baggage-train, and the siege batteries,
proceeded himself by forced marches to Praaspa with all the calvary and
the infantry of the better class. This town was situated at the distance
of nearly three hundred miles from the Armenian frontier; but the way
to it lay through well-cultivated plains, where food and water were
abundant. Antony performed the march without difficulty and at once
invested the place. The walls were strong, and the defenders numerous,
so that he made little impression; and when the Median king returned,
accompanied by his Parthian suzerain, to the defence of his country, the
capital seemed in so little danger that it was resolved to direct the
first attack on Statianus, who had not yet joined his chief. A most
successful onslaught was made on this officer, who was surprised,
defeated, and slain. Ten thousand Romans fell in the battle, and all the
baggage-wagons and engines of war were taken. A still worse result of
the defeat was the desertion of Aitavasdes, who, regarding the case of
the Romans as desperate, drew off his troops, and left Antony to his own
resources.
The Roman general now found himself in great difficulties. He had
exhausted the immediate neighborhood of Praaspa, and was obliged to send
his foraging-parties on distant expeditions, where, being beyond the
reach of his protection, they were attacked and cut to pieces by the
enemy. He had lost his siege-train, and found it impossible to construct
another. Such works as he attempted suffered through the sallies of the
besieged: and in some of these his soldiers behaved so ill that he was
forced to punish their cowardice by decimation. His supplies failed,
and he had to feed his troops on barley instead of wheat. Meantime the
autumnal equinox was approaching, and the weather was becoming cold. The
Medes and Parthians, under their respective monarchs, hung about him,
impeded his movements, and cut off his stragglers, but carefully avoided
engaging him in a pitched battle. If he could have forced the city to a
surrender, he would have been in comparative safety, for he might have
gone into winter quarters there and have renewed the war in the ensuing
spring. But all his assaults, with whatever desperation they were made,
failed; and it became necessary to relinquish the siege and retire into
Armenia before the rigors of winter should set in. He could, however,
with difficulty bring himself to make a confession of failure, and
flattered himself for a while that the Parthians would consent to
purchase his retirement by the surrender of the Crassian captives and
standards. Having lost some valuable time in negotiations, at which the
Parthians laughed, at length, when the equinox was passed, he broke up
from before Praaspa, and commenced the work of retreat. There were two
roads by which he might reach the Araxes at the usual point of passage,
One lay towards the left, through a plain and open country, probably
that through which he had come; the other, which was shorter, but more
difficult, lay to the right, leading across a mountain-tract, but one
fairly supplied with water, and in which there were inhabited villages.
Antony was advised that the Parthians had occupied the easier route,
expecting that he would follow it, and intended to overwhelm him with
their cavalry in the plains. He therefore took the road to the
right through a rugged and inclement country--probably that between
Tahkt-i-Suleiman and Tabriz--and, guided by a Mardian who knew the
region well, proceeded to make his way back to the Araxes. His decision
took the Parthians by surprise, and for two days he was unmolested.
But by the third day they had thrown themselves across his path; and
thenceforward, for nineteen consecutive days, they disputed with Antony
every inch of his retreat, and inflicted on him the most serious
damage. The sufferings of the Roman army during this time, says a modern
historian of Rome, were unparalleled in their military annals. The
intense cold, the blinding snow and driving sleet, the want sometimes
of provisions, sometimes of water, the use of poisonous herbs, and the
harassing attacks of the enemy’s cavalry and bowmen, which could only be
repelled by maintaining the dense array of the phalanx or the tortoise,
reduced the retreating army by one-third of its numbers. At length,
after a march of 300 Roman, or 277 British, miles, they reached the
river Araxes, probably at the Julfa ferry, and, crossing it, found
themselves in Armenia. But the calamities of the return were not yet
ended. Though it was arranged with Artavasdes that the bulk of the army
should winter in Armenia, yet, before the various detachments could
reach their quarters in different parts of the country, eight thousand
more had perished through the effects of past sufferings or the severity
of the weather. Altogether, out of the hundred thousand men whom Antony
led into Media Atropatene, less than seventy thousand remained to
commence the campaign which was threatened for the ensuing year. Well
may the unfortunate commander have exclaimed as he compared his own
heavy losses with the light ones of Xenophon and his Greeks in these
same regions, “Oh, those Ten Thousand! those Ten Thousand!”
On the withdrawal of Antony into Armenia a quarrel broke out between
Phraates and his Median vassal. The latter regarded himself as wronged
in the division made of the Roman spoils, and expressed himself with so
much freedom on the subject as to offend his suzerain. He then began
to fear that he had gone too far, and that Phraates would punish him by
depriving him of his sovereignty. Accordingly, he was anxious to obtain
a powerful alliance, and on turning over in his mind all feasible
political combinations it seems to have occurred to him that his late
enemy, Antony, might be disposed to take him under his protection. He
doubtless knew that Artavasdes of Armenia had offended the Roman leader
by deserting him in the hour of his greatest peril, and felt that, if
Antony was intending to revenge himself on the traitor, he would be glad
to have a friend on the Armenian border. He therefore sent an ambassador
of rank to Alexandria, where Antony was passing the winter, and boldly
proposed the alliance. Antony readily accepted it; he was intensely
angered by the conduct of the Armenian monarch, and determined on
punishing his defection; he viewed the Median alliance as of the utmost
importance in connection with the design, which he still entertained,
of invading Parthia itself; and he saw in the powerful descendant of
Atropates a prince whom it would be well worth his while to bind to his
cause indissolubly. He therefore embraced the overtures made to him
with joy, and even rewarded the messenger who had brought them with a
principality. After sundry efforts to entice Artavasdes into his power,
which occupied him during most of B.C. 85, in the spring of B.C. 34 he
suddenly appeared in Armenia. His army, which had remained there from
the previous campaign, held all the more important positions, and, as he
professed the most friendly feelings towards Artavasdes, even proposing
an alliance between their families, that prince, after some hesitation,
at length ventured into his presence. He was immediately seized and put
in chains. Armenia was rapidly overrun. Artaxias, whom the Armenians
made king in the room of his father, was defeated and forced to take
refuge with the Parthians. Antony then arranged a marriage between the
daughter of the Median monarch and his own son by Cleopatra, Alexander,
and, leaving garrisons in Armenia, carried off Artavasdes and a rich
booty into Egypt.
Phraates, during these transactions, stood wholly upon the defensive. It
may not have been unpleasing to him to see Artavasdes punished. It must
have gratified him to observe how Antony was injuring his own cause by
exasperating the Armenians, and teaching them to hate Rome even more
than they hated Parthia. But while Antony’s troops held both Syria and
Armenia, and the alliance between Media Atropatene and Rome continued,
he could not venture to take any aggressive step or do aught but protect
his own frontier. He was obliged even to look on with patience,
when, early in B.C. 33, Antony appeared once more in these parts, and
advancing to the Araxes, had a conference with the Median monarch,
whereat their alliance was confirmed, troops exchanged, part of Armenia
made over to the Median king, and Jotapa, his daughter, given as a bride
to the young Alexander, whom Antony designed to make satrap of the East.
But no sooner had Antony withdrawn into Asia Minor in preparation
for his contest with Octavian than Phraates took the offensive. In
combination with Artaxias, the new Armenian king, he attacked Antony’s
ally; but the latter repulsed him by the help of his Roman troops. Soon
afterwards, however, Antony recalled these troops without restoring
to the Median king his own contingent; upon which the two confederates
renewed their attack, and were successful. The Median prince was
defeated and taken prisoner. Artaxias recovered Armenia and massacred
all the Roman garrisons which he found in it. Both countries became once
more wholly independent of Rome, and it is probable that Media returned
to its old allegiance.
But the successes of Phraates abroad produced ill consequences at
home. Elated by his victories, and regarding his position in Parthia as
thereby secured, he resumed the series of cruelties towards his subjects
which the Roman war had interrupted, and pushed them so far that an
insurrection broke out against his authority (B.C. 33), and he was
compelled to quit the country. The revolt was headed by a certain
Tiridates, who, upon its success, was made king by the insurgents.
Phraates fled into Scythia, and persuaded the Scythians to embrace his
cause. These nomads, nothing loth, took up arms, and without any great
difficulty restored Phraates to the throne from which his people had
expelled him. Tiridates fled at their approach, and, having contrived to
carry off in his flight the youngest son of Phraates, presented himself
before Octavian, who was in Syria at the time on his return from Egypt
(B.C. 30), surrendered the young prince into his hands, and requested
his aid against the tyrant. Octavian accepted the valuable hostage, but
with his usual caution, declined to pledge himself to furnish any help
to the pretender; he might remain, he said, in Syria, if he so wished,
and while he continued under Roman protection, a suitable provision
should be made for his support, but, he must not expect armed resistance
against the Parthian monarch. To that monarch, when some years
afterwards (B.C. 23) he demanded the surrender of his subject and the
restoration of his young son, Octavian answered that he could not give
Tiridates up to him, but he would restore him his son without a ransom.
He should expect, however, that in return for this kindness the Parthian
king would on his part deliver to the Romans the standards taken
from Crassus and Antony, together with all who survived of the Roman
captives. It does not appear that Phraates was much moved by the
Emperor’s generosity. He gladly received his son; but he took no steps
towards the restoration of those proofs of Parthian victory which
the Romans were so anxious to recover. It was not until B.C. 20, when
Octavian (now become Augustus) visited the East, and war seemed the
probable alternative if he continued obstinate, that the Parthian
monarch brought himself to relinquish the trophies which were as much
prized by the victors as the vanquished. In extenuation of his act we
must remember that he was unpopular with his subjects, and that Augustus
could at any moment have produced a pretender, who had once occupied,
and with Roman help might easily have mounted for a second time, the
throne of the Arsacidse.
The remaining years of Phraates--and he reigned for nearly twenty years
after restoring the standards--are almost unbroken by any event of
importance. The result of the twenty years’ struggle between Rome and
Parthia had been to impress either nation with a wholesome dread of the
other. Both had triumphed on their own ground; both had failed when they
ventured on sending expeditions into the enemy’s territory. Each now
stood on its guard, watching the movements of its adversary across
the Euphrates. Both had become pacific. It is a well-known fact that
Augustus left it as a principle of policy to his successors that the
Roman Empire had reached its proper limits, and could not with advantage
be extended further. This principle, followed with the utmost strictness
by Tiberius, was accepted as a rule by all the earlier Caesars, and
only regarded as admitting of rare and slight exceptions. Trajan was the
first who, a hundred and thirty years after the accession of Augustus,
made light of it and set it at defiance. With him re-awoke the spirit of
conquest, the aspiration after universal dominion. But in the meantime
there was peace--peace indeed not absolutely unbroken, for border wars
occurred, and Rome was tempted sometimes to interfere by arms in the
internal quarrels of her neighbors--but a general state of peace and
amity prevailed--neither state made any grand attack on the other’s
dominions--no change occurred in the frontier, no great battle tested
the relative strength of the two peoples. Such rivalry as remained was
exhibited less in arms than in diplomacy and showed itself mainly in
endeavors on either side to obtain a predominant influence in Armenia.
There alone during the century and a half that intervened between Antony
and Trajan did the interests of Rome and Parthia come into collision,
and in connection with this kingdom alone did any struggle between the
two countries continue.
Phraates, after yielding to Augustus in the matter of the standards and
prisoners, appears for many years to have studiously cultivated his good
graces. In the interval between B.C. 11 and B.C. 7, distrustful of his
subjects, and fearful of their removing him in order to place one of his
sons upon the Parthian throne, he resolved to send these possible rivals
out of the country; and on this occasion he paid Augustus the compliment
of selecting Rome for his children’s residence. The youths were four in
number, Vonones, Seraspadanes, Rhodaspes, and Phraates; two of them were
married and had children; they resided at Rome during the remainder of
their father’s lifetime, and were treated as became their rank, being
supported at the public charge and in a magnificent manner. The Roman
writers speak of these as “hostages” given by Phraates to the Roman
Emperor; but this was certainly not the intention of the Parthian
monarch; nor could the idea well be entertained by the Romans at the
time of their residence.
These amicable relations between the two sovereigns would probably have
continued undisturbed till the death of one or the other, had not a
revolution occured in Armenia, which tempted the Parthian king beyond
his powers of resistance. On the death of Artaxias (B.C. 20), Augustus,
who was then in the East, had sent Tiberius into Armenia to arrange
matters, and Tiberius had placed upon the throne a brother of Artaxias,
named Tigranes. Tigranes died in B.C. 6, and the Armenians, without
waiting to know the will of the Roman Emperor, conferred the royal title
on his sons, for whose succession he had before his death paved the
way by associating them with him in the government. Enraged at this
assumption of independence, Augustus sent an expedition into Armenia
(B.C. 5), deposed the sons of Tigranes, and established on the throne a
certain Artavasdes, whose birth and parentage are not known to us. But
the Armenians were not now inclined to submit to foreign dictation;
they rose in revolt against Artavasdes (ab. B.C. 2), defeated his Roman
supporters, and expelled him from the kingdom. Another Tigranes was made
king; and, as it was pretty certain that the Romans would interfere
with this new display of the spirit of independence, the Parthians were
called in to resist the Roman oppressors. Armenia, was, in fact, too
weak to stand alone, and was obliged to lean upon one or other of the
two great empires upon her borders. Her people had no clear political
foresight, and allowed themselves to veer and fluctuate between the two
influences according as the feelings of the hour dictated. Rome had now
angered them beyond their very limited powers of endurance, and they
flew to Parthia for help, just as on other occasions we shall find them
flying to Rome. Phraates could not bring himself to reject the Armenian
overtures. Ever since the time of the second Mithridates it had been a
settled maxim of Parthian policy to make Armenia dependent; and, even
at the cost of a rupture with Rome, it seemed to Phraates that he must
respond to the appeal made to him. The rupture might not come. Augustus
was now aged, and might submit to the affront without resenting it.
He had lately lost the services of his best general, Tiberius, who,
indignant at slights put upon him, had gone into retirement at Rhodes.
He had no one that he could employ but his grandsons, youths who had not
yet fleshed their maiden swords. Phraates probably hoped that Augustus
would draw back before the terrors of a Parthian war under such
circumstances, and would allow without remonstrance the passing of
Armenia into the position of a subject-ally of Parthia.
But if these were his thoughts, he had miscalculated. Augustus, from the
time that he heard of the Armenian troubles, and of the support given
to them by Parthia, seems never to have wavered in his determination to
vindicate the claims of Rome to paramount influence in Armenia, and to
have only hesitated as to the person whose services he should employ
in the business. He would have been glad to employ Tiberius; but that
morose prince had deserted him and, declining public life, had betaken
himself to Rhodes, where he was living in a self-chosen retirement.
Caius, the eldest of his grandsons, was, in B.C. 2, only eighteen years
of age; and, though the thoughts of Augustus at once turned in this
direction, the extreme youth of the prince caused him to hesitate
somewhat; and the consequence was that Caius did not start for the
East till late in B.C. 1. Meanwhile a change had occured in Parthia.
Phraates, who had filled the throne for above thirty-five years, ceased
to exist, and was succeeded by a young son, Phraataces, who reigned in
conjunction with the queen-mother, Thermusa, or Musa.
The circumstances which brought about this change were the following.
Phraates IV. had married, late in life, an Italian slave-girl, sent him
as a present by Augustus; and she had borne him a son for whom she was
naturally anxious to secure the succession. According to some, it was
under her influence that the monarch had sent his four elder boys to
Rome, there to receive their education. At any rate, in the absence of
these youths, Phraataces, the child of the slave-girl, became the chief
support of Phraates in the administration of affairs, and obtained a
position in Parthia which led him to regard himself as entitled to the
throne so soon as it should become vacant. Doubtful, however, of his
father’s goodwill, or fearful of the rival claims of his brothers, if
he waited till the throne was vacated in the natural course of events,
Phraataces resolved to anticipate the hand of time, and, in conjunction
with his mother, administered poison to the old monarch, from the
effects of which he died. A just Nemesis for once showed itself in that
portion of human affairs which passes before our eyes. Phraates IV.,
the parricide and fratricide, was, after a reign of thirty-five years,
himself assassinated (B.C. 2) by a wife whom he loved only too fondly
and a son whom he esteemed and trusted.
Phraates cannot but be regarded as one of the ablest of the Parthian
monarchs. His conduct of the campaign against Antony--one of the best
soldiers that Rome ever produced--was admirable, and showed him a master
of guerilla warfare. His success in maintaining himself upon the throne
for five and thirty years, in spite of rivals, and notwithstanding the
character which he obtained for cruelty, implies, in such a state as
Parthia, considerable powers of management. His dealings with Augustus
indicate much suppleness and dexterity. If he did not in the course of
his long reign advance the Parthian frontier, at any rate he was not
obliged to retract it. Apparently, he ceded nothing to the Scyths as
the price of their assistance. He maintained the Parthian supremacy
over Northern Media. He lost no inch of territory to the Romans. It was
undoubtedly a prudent step on his part to soothe the irritated vanity
of Rome by a surrender of useless trophies, and scarcely more useful
prisoners; and, we may doubt if this concession was not as effective as
the dread of the Parthian arms in producing that peace between the
two countries which continued unbroken for above ninety years from the
campaign of Antony, and without serious interruption for yet another
half century. If Phraates felt, as he might well feel after the
campaigns of Pacorus, that on the whole Rome was a more powerful state
than Parthia, and that consequently Parthia had nothing to gain but much
to lose in the contest with her western neighbor, he did well to allow
no sentiment of foolish pride to stand in the way of a concession
that made a prolonged peace between the two countries possible. It
is sometimes more honorable to yield to a demand than to meet it with
defiance; and the prince who removed a cause of war arising out of mere
national vanity, while at the same time he maintained in all essential
points the interests and dignity of his kingdom, deserved well of his
subjects, and merits the approval of the historian. As a man, Phraates
has left behind him a bad name: he was cruel, selfish, and ungrateful, a
fratricide and a parricide; but as a king he is worthy of respect, and,
in certain points, of admiration.