_Results of the Establishment of Tiridates in Armenia. Long period of
Peace between Parthia and Rome. Obscurity of Parthian History at this
time. Relations of Volagases I. with Vespasian. Invasion of Western Asia
by Alani. Death of Volagases I. and Character of his Reign. Accession
and Long Reign of Pacorus. Relations of Pacorus with Decebalus of Dacia.
Internal Condition of Parthia during his Reign. Death of Pacorus and
Accession of Chosroes._
The establishment of Tiridates as king of Armenia, with the joint
consent of Volagases and Nero, inaugurated a period of peace between
the two Empires of Rome and Parthia, which exceeded half a century. This
result was no doubt a fortunate one for the inhabitants of Western Asia;
but it places the modern historian of the Parthians at a disadvantage.
Hitherto the classical writers, in relating the wars of the
Syro-Macedonians and the Romans, have furnished materials for Parthian
history, which, if not as complete as we might wish, have been at any
rate fairly copious and satisfactory. Now, for the space of half a
century, we are left without anything like a consecutive narrative, and
are thrown upon scattered and isolated notices, which can form only
a most incomplete and disjointed narrative. The reign of Volagases I.
appears to have continued for about twelve years after the visit of
Tiridates to Rome; and no more than three or four events are known as
having fallen into this interval. Our knowledge of the reign of Pacorus
is yet more scanty. But as the business of the workman is simply to make
the best use that he can of his materials, such a sketch of this dark
period as the notices which have come down to us allow will now be
attempted.
When the troubles which followed upon the death of Nero shook the Roman
world, and after the violent ends of Galba and Otho, the governor of
Judaea, Vespasian, resolved to become a candidate for the imperial power
(A.D. 69), Volagases was at once informed by envoys of the event, and
was exhorted to maintain towards the new monarch the same peaceful
attitude which he had now for seven years observed towards his
predecessors. Volagases not only complied with the request, out sent
ambassadors in return to Vespasian, while he was still at Alexandria
(A.D. 70), and offered to put at his disposal a body of forty thousand
Parthian cavalry. The circumstances of his position allowed Vespasian to
decline this magnificent proposal, and to escape the odium which
would have attached to the employment of foreign troops against his
countrymen. His generals in Italy had by this time carried all before
them; and he was able, after thanking the Parthian monarch, to inform
him that peace was restored to the Roman world, and that he had
therefore no need of auxiliaries. In the same friendly spirit in which
he had made this offer, Volagases, in the next year (A.D. 71), sent
envoys to Titus at Zeugma, who presented to him the Parthian king’s
congratulations on his victorious conclusion of the Jewish war, and
begged his acceptance of a crown of gold. The polite attention was
courteously received; and before allowing them to return to their master
the young prince hospitably entertained the Parthian messengers at a
banquet.
Soon after this, circumstances occurred in the border state of Commagene
which threatened a rupture of the friendly relations that had hitherto
subsisted between Volagases and Vespasian. Caesennius Paetus, proconsul
of Syria, the unsuccessful general in the late Armenian war, informed
Vespasian, early in A.D. 72, that he had discovered a plot, by which
Commagene, one of the Roman subject kingdoms, was to be detached from
the Roman alliance, and made over to the Parthians. Antiochus, the aged
monarch, and his son Epiphanes were, according to Paetus, both concerned
in the treason; and the arrangement with the Parthians was, he said,
actually concluded. It would be well to nip the evil in the bud. If the
transfer of territory once took place, a most serious disturbance of the
Roman power would follow. Commagene lay west of the Euphrates; and
its capital city, Samosata (the modern Sumeisat), commanded one of the
points where the great river was most easily crossed; so that, if the
Parthians held it, they would have a ready access at all times to the
Roman provinces of Cappadocia, Cilicia, and Syria, with a perfectly safe
retreat. These arguments had weight with Vespasian, who seems to have
had entire confidence in Paetus, and induced him to give the proconsul
full liberty to act as he thought best. Thus empowered, Paetus at once
invaded Commagene in force, and meeting at first with no resistance
(for the Commagenians were either innocent or unprepared), succeeded in
occupying Samosata by a _coup de main_. The aged king wished to yield
everything without a blow; but his two sons, Epiphanes and Callinicus,
were not to be restrained. They took arms, and, at the head of such a
force as they could hastily muster, met Paetus in the field, and
fought a battle with him which lasted the whole day, and ended without
advantage to either side. But the decision of Antiochus was not to be
shaken; he refused to countenance his sons’ resistance, and, quitting
Commagene, passed with his wife and daughters into the Roman province
of Cilicia, where he took up his abode at Tarsus. The spirit of the
Commagenians could not hold out against this defection; the force
collected began to disperse; and the young princes found themselves
forced to fly, and to seek a refuge in Parthia, which they reached
with only ten horsemen. Volagases received them with the courtesy and
hospitality due to their royal rank; but as he had given them no help
in the struggle, so now he made no effort to reinstate them. All the
exertion to which he could be brought was to write a letter on their
behalf to Vespasian, in which he probably declared them guiltless of the
charges that had been brought against them by Paetus. Vespasian, at any
rate, seems to have become convinced of their innocence; for though
he allowed Commagene to remain a Roman province, he permitted the two
princes with their father to reside at Rome, assigned the ex-monarch an
ample revenue, and gave the family an honorable status.
It was probably not more than two or three years after the events above
narrated, that Volagases found himself in circumstances which impelled
him to send a petition to the Roman Emperor for help. The Alani,
a Scythian people, who had once dwelt near the Tanais and the Lake
Mseotis, or Sea of Azof, but who must now have lived further to the
East, had determined on a great predatory invasion of the countries west
of the Caspian Gates, and having made alliance with the Hyrcanians, who
were in possession of that important pass, had poured into Media through
it, driven King Pacorus to the mountains, and overrun the whole of
the open country. From hence they had passed on into Armenia, defeated
Tiridates, in a battle, and almost succeeded in capturing him by means
of a lasso. Volagases, whose subject-kings were thus rudely treated,
and who might naturally expect his own proper territories to be next
attacked, sent in this emergency a request to Vespasian for aid. He
asked moreover that the forces put at his disposal should be placed
under the command of either Titus or Domitian, probably not so much from
any value that he set on their military talents as from a conviction
that if a member of the Imperial family was sent, the force which
accompanied him would be considerable. We are told that the question,
whether help be given or no, was seriously discussed at Rome, and that
Domitian was exceedingly anxious that the troops should go, and begged
that he might be their commander. But Vespasian was disinclined for any
expenditure of which he did not recognize the necessity, and disliked
all perilous adventure. His own refusal of extraneous support,
when offered by his rival, rendered it impossible for him to reject
Volagases’s request without incurring the charge of ingratitude. The
Parthians were therefore left to their own resources; and the result
seems to have been that the invaders, after ravaging and harrying Media
and Armenia at their pleasure, carried off a vast number of prisoners
and an enormous booty into their own country. Soon after this, Volagases
must have died. The coins of his successor commence in June, A.D. 78,
and thus he cannot have outlived by more than three years the irruption
of the Alani. If he died, as is most probable, in the spring of A.D. 78,
his reign would have covered the space of twenty-seven years. It was an
eventful one for Parthia. It brought the second period of struggle with
the Romans to an end by compromise which gave to Rome the shadow and
to Parthia the substance of victory. And it saw the first completed
disintegration of the Empire in the successful revolt of Hyrcania--an
event of evil portent. Volagases was undoubtedly a monarch of
considerable ability. He conducted with combined prudence and firmness
the several campaigns against Corbulo; he proved himself far superior
to Paetus; exposed to attacks in various quarters from many different
enemies, he repulsed all foreign invaders and, as against them,
maintained intact the ancient dominions of the Arsacidae. He practically
added Arminia to the Empire. Everywhere success attended him, except
against a domestic foe. Hyrcania seceded during his reign, and it may
be doubted whether Parthia ever afterwards recovered it. An example was
thus set of successful Arian revolt against the hitherto irresistible
Turanians, which may have tended in no slight degree to produce the
insurrection which eventually subverted the Parthian Empire.
The successor of Volagases I. was Pacorus, whom most writers on Parthian
history have regarded as his son. There is, however, no evidence of this
relationship; and the chief reason for regarding Pacorus as belonging
even to the same branch of the Arsacidse with Volagases I. is his youth
at his accession, indicated by the beardless head upon his early coins,
which is no doubt in favor of his having been a near relation of the
preceding king. PLATE III., Fig 1. The Parthian coins show that his
reign continued at least till A.D. 93; it may have lasted considerably
longer, for the earliest date on any coin of Chosroes is AEr. Seleuc.
421, or A.D. 110. The accession of Chosroes has been conjecturally
assigned to A.D. 108, which would allow to Pacorus the long reign of
thirty years. Of this interval it can only be said that, so far as our
knowledge goes, it was almost wholly uneventful. We know absolutely
nothing of this Pacorus except that he gave encouragement to a person
who pretended to be Nero; that he enlarged and beautified Otesiphon;
that he held friendly communications with Decebalus, the great Dacian
chief, who was successively the adversary of Domitian and Trajan; and
that he sold the sovereignty of Osrhoene at a high price to the Edessene
prince who was cotemporary with him. The Pseudo-Nero in question appears
to have taken refuge with the Parthians in the year A.D. 89, and to have
been demanded as an impostor by Domitian. Pacorus was at first inclined
to protect and to even assist him, but after a while was induced to give
him up, probably by a threat of hostilities. The communication with
the Dacian chief was most likely earlier. The Dacians, in one of
those incursions into Maesia which they made during the first years of
Domitian, took captive a certain Callidromus, a Greek, if we may judge
by his name, slave to a Roman of some rank, named Liberius Maximus. This
prisoner Decebalus (we are told) sent as a present to Pacorus, in whose
service and favor he remained for a number of years. This circumstance,
insignificant enough in itself, acquires an interest from the indication
which it gives of intercommunication between the enemies of Rome, even
when they were separated by vast spaces, and might have been thought
to have been wholly ignorant of each other’s existence. Decebalus can
scarcely have been drawn to Pacorus by any other attraction than that
which always subsists between enemies of any great dominant power. He
must have looked to the Parthian monarch as a friend who might make a
diversion on his behalf upon occasion; and that monarch, by accepting
his gift, must be considered to have shown a willingness to accept this
kind of relation.
The sale of the Osrhoene territory to Abgarus by Pacorus was not a fact
of much consequence. It may indicate an exhaustion of his treasury,
resulting from the expenditure of vast sums on the enlargement and
adornment of the capital, but otherwise it has no bearing on the general
condition of the Empire. Perhaps the Parthian feudatories generally paid
a price for their investiture. If they did not, and the case of Abgarus
was peculiar, still it does not appear that his purchase at all altered
his position as a Parthian subject. It was not until they transferred
their allegiance to Rome that the Osrhoene princes struck coins, or
otherwise assumed the status of kings. Up to the time of M. Aurelius
they continued just as much subject to Parthia as before, and were far
from acquiring a position of independence.
There is reason to believe that the reign of Pacorus was a good deal
disturbed by internal contentions. We hear of an Artabanus as king of
Parthia in A.D. 79; and the Parthian coins of about this period present
us with two very marked types of head, both of them quite unlike that
of Pacorus, which must be those of monarchs who either contended with
Pacorus for the crown, or ruled contemporaneously with him over other
portions of the Parthian Empire. [PLATE III., Fig. 2.] Again, towards
the close of Pacorus’s reign, and early in that of his recognized
successor, Chosroes, a monarch called Mithridates is shown by the coins
to have borne sway for at least six years--from A.D. 107 to 113. This
monarch commenced the practice of placing a Semitic legend upon his
coins, which would seem to imply that he ruled in the western rather
than the eastern provinces. The probability appears, on the whole, to
be that the disintegration which has been already noticed as having
commenced under Volagases I. was upon the increase. Three or four
monarchs were ruling together in different portions of the Parthian
world, each claiming to be the true Arsaces, and using the full titles
of Parthian sovereignty upon his coins. The Romans knew but little of
these divisions and contentions, their dealings being only with the
Arsacid who reigned at Ctesiphon and bore sway over Mesopotamia and
Adiabene.
Pacorus must have died about A.D. 108, or a little later. He left behind
him two sons, Exedares and Parthamasiris, but neither of these two
princes was allowed to succeed him. The Parthian Megistanes assigned the
crown to Chosroes, the brother of their late monarch, perhaps regarding
Exedares and Parthamasiris as too young to administer the government of
Parthia satisfactorily. If they knew, as perhaps they did, that the
long period of peace with Rome was coming to an end, and that they might
expect shortly to be once more attacked by their old enemy, they might
well desire to have upon the throne a prince of ripe years and approved
judgment. A raw youth would certainly have been unfit to cope with the
age, the experience, and the military genius of Trajan.