_Reign of Chosroes. General condition of Oriental Affairs gives a handle
to Trajan. Trajan’s Schemes of Conquest. Embassy of Chosroes to Trajan
fails. Great Expedition of Trajan. Campaign of A. D. 115. Campaign of
A.D. 116. Death of Trajan, and relinquishment of his Parthian Conquests
by Hadrian. Interview of Chosroes with Hadrian. Its Consequences. Death
of Chosroes and Accession of Volagases II._
The general state of Oriental affairs at the accession of Chosroes seems
to have been the following. Upon the demise of Tiridates (about A.D.
100) Pacorus had established upon the Armenian throne one of his sons,
named Exedares, or Axidares, and this prince had thenceforth reigned as
king of Armenia without making any application to Rome for investiture,
or acknowledging in any way the right of the Romans to interfere with
the Armenian succession. Trajan, sufficiently occupied in the West, had
borne this insult. When, however, in A.D. 114, the subjugation of Dacia
was completed, and the Roman Emperor found his hands free, he resolved
to turn his arms towards Asia, and to make the Armenian difficulty
a pretext for a great military expedition, designed to establish
unmistakably the supremacy of Rome throughout the East. The condition
of the East at once called for the attention of Rome, and was
eminently favorable for the extension of her influence at this period.
Disintegrating forces were everywhere at work, tending to produce a
confusion and anarchy which invited the interposition of a great power,
and rendered resistance to such a power difficult. Christianity, which
was daily spreading itself more and more widely, acted as a dissolvent
upon the previously-existing forms of society, loosening the old ties,
dividing man from man by an irreconcilable division, and not giving much
indication as yet of its power to combine and unite. Judaism, embittered
by persecution, had from a nationality become a conspiracy; and the
disaffected adherents of the Mosaic system, dispersed through all the
countries of the East, formed an explosive element in the population
which involved the constant danger of a catastrophe. The Parthian
political system was also, as already remarked, giving symptoms of
breaking up. Those bonds which for two centuries and a half had sufficed
to hold together a heterogeneous kingdom extending from the Euphrates
to the Indus, and from the Oxus to the Southern Ocean, were beginning
to grow weak, and the Parthian Empire appeared to be falling to pieces.
There seemed to be at once a call and an opportunity for a fresh
arrangement of the East, for the introduction of a unifying power, such
as Rome recognized in her own administrative system, which should compel
the crumbling atoms of the Oriental world once more into cohesion.
To this call Trajan responded. His vast ambition had been whetted,
rather than satiated, by the conquest of a barbarous nation, and a
single, not very valuable, province. In the East he might hope to add to
the Roman State half a dozen countries of world-wide repute, the seats
of ancient empires, the old homes of Asiatic civilization, countries
associated with the immortal names of Sennacherib and Sardanapalus,
Cyrus, Darius, and Alexander. The career of Alexander had an attraction
for him, which he was fain to confess; and he pleased himself by
imitating, though he could not hope at his age to equal it. His Eastern
expedition was conceived very much in the same spirit as that of
Crassus; but he possessed the military ability in which the Triumvir
was deficient, and the enemy whom he had to attack was grown less
formidable.
Trajan commenced his Eastern expedition in A.D. 114, seven years after
the close of the Dacian War. He was met at Athens in the autumn of
that year by envoys from Chosroes, who brought him presents, and made
representations which, it was hoped, would induce him to consent to
peace. Chosroes stated that he had deposed his nephew, Exedares, the
Armenian prince whose conduct had been offensive to Rome; and proposed
that, as the Armenian throne was thereby vacant, it should be filled by
the appointment of Parthamasiris, Exedares’s brother. This prince would
be willing, he said, to receive investiture at the hands of Rome; and he
requested that Trajan would transmit to him the symbol of sovereignty.
The accommodation suggested would have re-established the relations of
the two countries towards Armenia on the basis on which they had been
placed by the agreement between Volagases and Nero. It would have
saved the credit of Rome, while it secured to Parthia the substantial
advantage of retaining Armenia under her authority and protection.
Trajan might well have consented to it, had his sole object been to
reclaim the rights or to vindicate the honor of his country. But he had
distinctly made up his mind to aim, not at the re-establishment of any
former condition of things, but at the placing of matters in the East on
an entirely new footing. He therefore gave the ambassadors of Chosroes
a cold reception, declined the gifts offered him, and replied to the
proposals of accommodation that the friendship of kings was to be
measured by deeds rather than by words--he would therefore say nothing,
but when he reached Syria would act in a becoming manner. The envoys
of the Parthian monarch were obliged to return with this unsatisfactory
answer; and Chosroes had to wait and see what interpretation it would
receive from the course of events.
During the later months of autumn, Trajan advanced from Athens to
Antioch. At that luxurious capital, he mustered his forces and prepared
for the campaign of the ensuing year. Abgarus, the Osrhoene prince who
had lately purchased his sovereignty from Pacorus, sent an embassy
to him in the course of the winter, with presents and an offer of
friendship. Parthamasiris also entered into communications with him,
first assuming the royal title, and then, when his letter received no
answer, dropping it, and addressing the Roman Emperor as a mere private
person. Upon this act of self-humiliation, negotiations were commenced.
Parthamasiris was encouraged to present himself at the Roman camp, and
was given to understand that he would there receive from Trajan,
as Tiridates had received from Nero, the emblem of sovereignty and
permission to rule Armenia. The military preparations were, however,
continued. Vigorous measures were taken to restore the discipline of the
Syrian legions, which had suffered through the long tranquillity of the
East and the enervating influence of the climate. With the spring Trajan
commenced his march. Ascending the Euphrates, to Samosata, and receiving
as he advanced the submission of various semi-independent dynasts and
princes, he took possession of Satala and Elegeia, Armenian cities on
or near the Euphrates, and establishing himself at the last-named place,
waited for the arrival of Parthamasiris. That prince shortly rode into
the Roman camp, attended by a small retinue; and a meeting was arranged,
at which the Parthian, in the sight of the whole Roman army, took the
diadem from his brows and laid it at the feet of the Roman Emperor,
expecting to have it at once restored to him. But Trajan had determined
otherwise. He made no movement; and the army, prepared no doubt for the
occasion, shouted with all their might, saluting him anew as Imperator,
and congratulating him on his “bloodless victory.” Parthamasiris felt
that he had fallen into a trap, and would gladly have turned and fled;
but he found himself surrounded by the Roman troops and virtually a
prisoner. Upon this he demanded a private audience, and was conducted to
the Emperor’s tent, where he made proposals which were coldly rejected,
and he was given to understand that he must regard his crown as
forfeited. It was further required of him that, to prevent false rumors,
he should present himself a second time at the Emperor’s tribunal,
prefer his requests openly, and hear the Imperial decision. The Parthian
consented. With a boldness worthy of his high descent, he affirmed that
he had neither been defeated nor made prisoner, but had come of his
own free will to hold a conference with the Roman chief, in the full
expectation of receiving from him, as Tiridates had received from Nero,
the crown of Armenia, confident, moreover, that in any case he would
“suffer no wrong, but be allowed to depart in safety.” Trajan answered
that he did not intend to give the crown of Armenia to any one--the
country belonged to the Romans, and should have a Roman governor. As
for Parthamasiris, he was free to go whithersoever he pleased, and his
Parthian attendants might accompany him. The Armenians, however, must
remain. They were Roman subjects, and owed no allegiance to Parthia.
The tale thus told, with no appearance of shame, by the Roman historian,
Dio Cassius, is sufficiently disgraceful to Trajan, but it does not
reveal to us the entire baseness of his conduct. We learn from other
writers, two of them contemporary with the events, that the pompous
dismissal of Parthamasiris, with leave to go wherever he chose, was
a mere pretence. Trajan had come to the conclusion, if not before
the interview, at any rate in the course of it, that the youth was
dangerous, and could not be allowed to live. He therefore sent troops to
arrest him as he rode off from the camp, and when he offered resistance
caused him to be set upon and slain. This conduct he afterwards strove
to justify by accusing the young prince of having violated the agreement
made at the interview; but even the debased moral sense of his age was
revolted by this act, and declared the grounds whereon he excused it
insufficient. Good faith and honor had been sacrificed (it was said)
to expediency--the reputation of Rome had been tarnished--it would have
been better, even if Parthamasiris were guilty, to have let him escape,
than to have punished him at the cost of a public scandal. So strongly
was the disgrace felt that some (it seems) endeavored to exonerate
Trajan from the responsibility of having contrived the deed, and to
throw the blame of it on Exedares, the ex-king of Armenia and brother of
Parthamasiris. But Trajan had not sunk so low as to shift his fault on
another. He declared openly that the act was his own, and that Exedares
had had no part in it.
The death of Parthamasiris was followed by the complete submission of
Armenia. Chosroes made no attempt to avenge the murder of his nephew, or
to contest with Trajan the possession of the long-disputed territory.
A little doubt seems for a short time to have been entertained by the
Romans as to its disposal. The right of Exedares to be reinstated in
his former kingdom was declared by some to be clear; and it was probably
urged that the injuries which he had suffered at the hands of Chosroes
would make him a sure Roman ally. But these arguments had no weight with
Trajan. He had resolved upon his course. An end should be put, at once
and forever, to the perpetual intrigues and troubles inseparable from
such relations as had hitherto subsisted between Rome and the Armenian
kingdom. The Greater and the Lesser Armenia should be annexed to the
Empire, and should form a single Roman province. This settled, attention
was turned to the neighboring countries. Alliance was made with
Anchialus, king of the Heniochi and Macheloni, and presents were sent
to him in return for those which his envoys had brought to Trajan. A
new king was given to the Albanians. Friendly relations were established
with the chiefs of the Iberi, Sauro-matse, Golchi, and even with the
tribes settled on the Cimmerian Bosphorus. The nations of these parts
were taught that Rome was the power which the inhabitants even of
the remote East and North had most to fear; and a wholesome awe was
instilled into them which would, it was hoped, conduce to the general
tranquillity of the Empire.
But the objects thus accomplished, considerable as they were, did
not seem to the indefatigable Emperor sufficient for one year. Having
settled the affairs of the North-east, and left garrisons in the chief
Armenian strongholds, Trajan marched southwards to Edessa, the capital
of the province of Gsrhoene, and there received the humble submission
of Abgarus, who had hitherto wavered between the two contending powers.
Manisares, a satrap of these parts, who had a quarrel of his own with
Chosroes, also embraced his cause, while other chiefs wavered in their
allegiance to Parthia, but feared to trust the invader. Hostilities
were commenced by attacks in two directions--southward against the tract
known as Anthemusia, between the Euphrates and the Khabour; and eastward
against Batnas, Nisibis, and the mountain region known as Gordyene,
or the Mons Masius. Success attended both these movements; and, before
winter set in, the Romans had made themselves masters of the whole of
Upper Mesopotamia, and had even pushed southwards as far as Singara, a
town on the skirts of the modern Sinjar mountain-range. Mesopotarnia
was at once, like Armenia, “reduced into the form of a Roman province.”
Medals were issued representing the conqueror with these subject
countries at his foot and the obsequious Senate conferred the title of
“Parthicus” upon the Imperator, who had thus robbed the Parthians of two
provinces.
According to some, the headquarters of Trajan during the ensuing winter
were at Nisibis or Edessa, but the nexus of the narrative in Dio seems
rather to require, and the other ancient notices to allow, the belief
that he returned to Syria and wintered at Antioch, leaving his generals
in possession of the conquered regions, with orders to make every
preparation for the campaign of the next year. Among other instructions
which they received was the command to build a large fleet at Nisibis,
where good timber was abundant, and to prepare for its transport to the
Tigris, at the point where that stream quits the mountains and enters on
the open country. Meanwhile, in the month of December, the magnificent
Syrian capital, where Trajan had his headquarters, was visited by a
calamity of a most appalling character. An earthquake, of a violence and
duration unexampled in ancient times, destroyed the greater part of its
edifices, and buried in their ruins vast multitudes of the inhabitants
and of the strangers that had flocked into the town in consequence of
the Imperial presence. Many Romans of the highest rank perished, and
among them M. Virgilianus Pedo, one of the consuls for the year. The
Emperor himself was in danger, and only escaped by creeping through
a window of the house in which he resided; nor was his person quite
unscathed. Some falling fragments struck him; but fortunately the
injuries that he received were slight, and had no permanent consequence.
The bulk of the surviving inhabitants, finding themselves houseless, or
afraid to enter their houses if they still stood, bivouacked during the
height of the winter in the open air, in the Circus, and elsewhere about
the city. The terror which legitimately followed from the actual perils
was heightened by imaginary fears. It was thought that the Mons Casius,
which towers above Antioch to the south-west, was about to be shattered
by the violence of the shocks, and to precipitate itself upon the ruined
town.
Nor were the horrors of the catastrophe confined to Antioch. The
earthquake was one of a series which carried destruction and devastation
through the greater part of the East. In the Roman province of Asia,
four cities were completely destroyed--Eleia, Myrina, Pitane, and Cyme.
In Greece two towns were reduced to ruins, namely, Opus in Locris, and
Oritus. In Galatia three cities, unnamed, suffered the same fate. It
seemed as if Providence had determined that the new glories which Rome
was gaining by the triumphs of her arms should be obscured by calamities
of a kind that no human power could avert or control, and that despite
the efforts of Trajan to make his reign a time of success and splendor,
it should go down to posterity as one of gloom, suffering, and disaster.
Trajan, however, did not allow himself to be diverted from the objects
that he had set before him by such trifling matters as the sufferings of
a certain number of provincial towns. With the approach of spring (A.D.
116) he was up and doing. His officers had obeyed his orders, and a
fleet had been built at Nisibis during the winter amply sufficient for
the purpose for which it was wanted. The ships were so constructed that
they could be easily taken to pieces and put together again. Trajan had
them conveyed on wagons to the Tigris at Jezireh, and there proceeded
to make preparations for passing the river and attacking Adiabene.
By embarking on board some of his ships companies of heavy-armed
and archers, who protected his working parties, and at the same time
threatening with other ships to cross at many different points, he was
able, though with much difficulty, to bridge the stream in the face of
a powerful body of the enemy, and to land his troops safely on the
opposite bank. This done, his work was more than half accomplished.
Chosroes remained aloof from the war, either husbanding his resources,
or perhaps occupied by civil feuds, and left the defence of his outlying
provinces to their respective governors. Mobarsapes, the Adiabenian
monarch, had set his hopes on keeping the invader out of his kingdom by
defending the line of the Tigris, and when that was forced he seems
to have despaired, and to have made no further effort. His towns and
strongholds were taken one after another, without their offering any
serious resistance. Nineveh, Arbela, and Gaugamala fell into the enemy’s
hands. Adenystrse, a place of great strength, was captured by a small
knot of Roman prisoners, who, when they found their friends near, rose
upon the garrison, killed the commandant, and opened the gates to their
countrymen. In a short time the whole tract between the Tigris and the
Zagros mountains was overrun; resistance ceased; and the invader was
able to proceed to further conquests.
It might have been expected that an advance would have at once been
directed on Ctesiphon, the Parthian capital; but Trajan, for some reason
which is not made clear to us, determined otherwise. He repassed the
Tigris into Mesopotamia, took Hatra (now el-Hadhr), at that time one of
the most considerable places in those parts, and then, crossing to the
Euphrates, descended its course to Hit and Babylon. No resistance was
offered him, and he became master of the mighty Babylon without a blow.
Seleucia seems also to have submitted; and it remained only to attack
and take the capital in order to have complete possession of the entire
region watered by the two great rivers. For this purpose a fleet was
again necessary, and, as the ships used on the upper Tigris had, it
would seem, been abandoned, Trajan conveyed a flotilla, which had
descended the Euphrates, across Mesopotamia on rollers, and launching it
upon the Tigris, proceeded to the attack of the great metropolis. Here
again the resistance that he encountered was trivial. Like Babylon and
Seleucia, Ctesiphon at once opened its gates. The monarch had departed
with his family and his chief treasures,6 and had placed a vast space
between himself and his antagonist. He was prepared to contend with
his Roman foe, not in battle array, but by means of distance, natural
obstacles, and guerilla warfare. He had evidently determined neither
to risk a battle nor stand a siege. As Trajan advanced, he retreated,
seeming to yield all, but no doubt intending, if it should be necessary,
to turn to bay at last, and in the meantime diligently fomenting that
spirit of discontent and disaffection which was shortly to render the
further advance of the Imperial troops impossible.
But, for the moment, all appeared to go well with the invaders. The
surrender of Ctesiphon brought with it the submission of the whole
region on the lower courses of the great rivers, and gave the conqueror
access to the waters of a new sea. Trajan may be excused if he overrated
his successes, regarded himself as another Alexander, and deemed that
the great monarchy, so long the rival of Rome, was now at last swept
away, and that the entire East was on the point of being absorbed into
the Roman Empire. The capture by his lieutenants of the golden throne
of the Parthian kings may well have seemed to him emblematic of this
change; and the flight of Chosroes into the remote and barbarous regions
of the far East may have helped to lull his adversary into a feeling of
complete security. Such a feeling is implied in the pleasure voyage of
the conqueror down the Tigris to the Persian Gulf, in his embarkation
on the waters of the Southern Sea, in the inquiries which he instituted
with respect to Indian affairs, and in the regret to which he gave
utterance, that his advanced years prevented him from making India
the term of his labors. No shadow of his coming troubles seems to have
flitted before the eyes of the Emperor during the weeks that he was thus
occupied--weeks which he passed in self-complacent contemplation of the
past and dreams of an impossible future.
Suddenly, tidings of a most alarming kind dispelled his pleasing
visions, and roused him to renewed exertions. Revolt, he found, had
broken out everywhere in his rear. At Seleucia, at Hatra, at Nisibis,
at Edessa, the natives had flown to arms; his entire line of retreat was
beset by foes, and he ran a risk of having his return cut off, and
of perishing in the land which he had invaded. Trajan had hastily to
retrace his stops, and to send his generals in all directions to check
the spread of insurrection. Seleucia was recovered by Erucius Clarus
and Julius Alexander, who punished its rebellion by delivering it to the
flames. Lucius Quietus retook Nisibis, and plundered and burnt Edessa.
Maximus, on the contrary, was defeated and slain by the rebels, who
completely destroyed the Roman army under his orders. Trajan, perceiving
how slight his hold was upon the conquered populations, felt compelled
to change his policy, and, as the only mode of pacifying, even
temporarily, the growing discontent, instead of making Lower Mesopotamia
into a Roman province, as he had made Armenia, Upper Mesopotamia, and
Adiabene (or Assyria), he proceeded with much pomp and display to set
up a native king. The prince selected was a certain Parthamaspates, a
member of the royal family of the Arsacidse, who had previously sided
with Rome against the reigning monarch. In a plain near Ctesiphon,
where he had had his tribunal erected, Trajan, after a speech wherein he
extolled the greatness of his own exploits, presented to the assembled
Romans and natives this youth as King of Parthia, and with his own hand
placed the diadem upon his brow.
Under cover of the popularity acquired by this act the aged Emperor now
commenced his retreat. The line of the Tigris was no doubt open to him,
and along this he might have marched in peace to Upper Mesopotamia or
Armenia; but either he preferred the direct route to Syria by way
of Hatra and Singara, or the insult offered to the Roman name by
the independent attitude which the people of the former place still
maintained induced him to diverge from the general line of his course,
and to enter the desert in order to chastise their presumption. Hatra
was a small town, but strongly fortified. The inhabitants at this time
belonged to that Arabian immigration which was always more and more
encroaching upon Mesopotamia. They were Parthian subjects, but appear
to have had their own native kings. On the approach of Trajan,
nothing daunted, they closed their gates, and prepared themselves for
resistance. Though he battered down a portion of the wall, they repulsed
all the attempts of his soldiers to enter through the breach, and when
he himself came near to reconnoitre, they drove him off with their
arrows. His troops suffered from the heat, from the want of provisions
and fodder, from the swarms of flies which disputed with them every
morsel of their food and every drop of their drink, and finally from
violent hail and thunderstorms. Trajan was forced to withdraw after a
time without effecting anything, and to own himself baffled and defeated
by the garrison of a petty fortress.
The year, A.D. 116, seems to have closed with this memorable failure.
In the following spring, Chosroes, learning the retreat of the Romans,
returned to Ctesiphqn, expelled Parthamaspates, who retired into Roman
territory, and re-established his authority in Susiana and Southern
Mesopotamia. The Romans, however, still held Assyria (Adiabene) and
Upper Mesopotamia, as well as Armenia, and had the strength of the
Empire been exerted to maintain these possessions, they might have
continued in all probability to be Roman provinces, despite any efforts
that Parthia could have made to recover them. But in August, A.D. 117,
Trajan died; and his successor, Hadrian, was deeply impressed with the
opinion that Trajan’s conquests had been impolitic, and that it was
unsafe for Rome to attempt under the circumstances of the time any
extension of the Eastern frontier. The first act of Hadrian was to
relinquish the three provinces which Trajan’s Parthian war had added to
the Empire, and to withdraw the legions within the Euphrates. Assyria
and Mesopotamia were at once reoccupied by the Parthians. Armenia
appears to have been made over by Hadrian to Parthamaspates, and to have
thus returned to its former condition of a semi-independent kingdom,
leaning alternately on Rome and Parthia. It has been asserted that
Osrhoene was placed likewise upon the same footing; but the numismatic
evidence adduced in favor of this view is weak; and upon the whole
it appears most probable that, like the other Mesopotamian countries,
Osrhoene again fell under the dominion of the Arsacidae. Rome therefore
gained nothing by the great exertions which she had made, unless it were
a partial recovery of her lost influence in Armenia, and a knowledge of
the growing weakness of her Eastern rival--a knowledge which, though it
produced no immediate fruit, was of importance, and was borne in mind
when, after another half-century of peace, the relations of the two
empires became once more unsatisfactory.
The voluntary withdrawal of Hadrian from Assyria and Mesopotamia placed
him on amicable terms with Parthia during the whole of his reign.
Chosroes and his successor could not but feel themselves under
obligations to the monarch who, without being forced to it by a defeat,
had restored to Parthia the most valuable of her provinces. On one
occasion alone do we hear of any, even threatened, interruption of
the friendly relations subsisting between the two powers; and then the
misunderstanding, whatever it may have been, was easily rectified and
peace maintained. Hadrian, in A.D. 122, had an interview with Chosroes
on his eastern frontier, and by personal explanations and assurances
averted, we are told, an impending outbreak. Not long afterwards
(A.D. 130, probably) he returned to Chosroes the daughter who had been
captured by Trajan, and at the same time promised the restoration of
the golden throne, on which the Parthians appear to have set a special
value.
It must have been soon after he received back his daughter that Chosroes
died. His latest coins bear a date equivalent to A.D. 128; and the Roman
historians give Volagases II. as king of Parthia in A.D. 133. It
has been generally supposed that this prince was Chosroes’ son, and
succeeded him in the natural course; but the evidence of the Parthian
coins is strong against these suppositions. According to them, Volagases
had been a pretender to the Parthian throne as early as A.D. 78, and had
struck coins both in that year and the following one, about the date of
the accession of Pacorus. His attempt had, however, at that time failed,
and for forty-one years he kept his pretensions in abeyance; but about
A.D. 119 or 120 he appears to have again come forward, and to have
disputed the crown with Chosroes, or reigned contemporaneously with
him over some portion of the Parthian kingdom, till about A.D. 130,
when--probably on the death of Chosroes--he was acknowledged as sole
king by the entire nation. Such is the evidence of the coins, which in
this case are very peculiar, and bear the name of Volagases from first
to last. It seems to follow from them that Chosroes was succeeded, not
by a son, but by a rival, an old claimant of the crown, who cannot have
been much younger than Chosroes himself.