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Mithradates II and his Successors: A Study of the Parthian Crisis 90-70 B.C.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

K. Walton Dobbins
K. Walton Dobbins*
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
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Extract

The period in Parthian history between Mithradates II and Phraates 111 is one about which very little is known. Events in West Asia were in turmoil with Rome's involvement becoming ever larger, but Parthia took little or no part in the wars between Rome and the allies, Pontus and Armenia. The reason for Parthia's inactivity can only be guessed. After a summary of recent developments in the understanding of early Parthian history we will give a reconstruction of events in Parthia and her non-involvement in West Asian affairs between 90 and 70 B.C. This is only one combination of possible explanations for the several problems.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 8 , 1974 , pp. 63 - 79
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 1974

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References

1 Works referred to in this article in the style ‘Sellwood, 1971’, ‘LeRider. 1965’ are fully described in n. 9. The following summary of Arsakid beginnings is mainly based on three papers by Wolski, : ‘The Decay of the Iranian Empire of the Seleucids and the Chronology of Parthian Beginnings’, Berytus 12 (1956-1957), 35–52Google Scholar; ‘L'historicité d'Arsace Ier’, Historia 8 (1959), 222-38Google Scholar; ‘Arsace 11 et la genealogie des premiers Arsacides’, ibid. 11 (1962), 138-45.

2 See Neusner, J., ‘Parthian Political Ideology’, Iranica Antiqua 3 (1963), 40–59Google Scholar. The difficulty of modern scholarship in detecting and grasping the full import and pervasiveness of this campaign is testimony to the success of the Parthians in rewriting their history.

3 The invasion of Parthia was apparently in 238, soon after the rebellion of Diodotos which may not have been complete yet. Without proposing a direct causal relationship between these two events we would like to point out their complementary nature. As long as Bactria remained in the Seleukid orbit the independent, rebellious province of Parthia had limited scope for development. It was not a particularly prosperous region. In one aspect of its economy the province under the Seleukids received relatively little benefit from trade routes because Bactria commanded all the major routes from Central Asia and India at points where they entered the empire. Bactria played a large role in the collection of revenue from the traffic on these ways, and Bactria received sizeable expenditures because, as a frontier province and an important commercial link, its defence was maintained. Troops paid in large issues of silver coinage from the mint at Bactria added to the prosperity of the province. By contrast coins from the Seleukid mint of Hekatompylos in Parthia are known in small quantities. An independent Parthia could tax traffic on its routes between Seleukid Bactria and Seleukid Iran, but merchants could avoid this added cost by taking a more southerly route. Without a monopoly over major east-west trading Parthia could not finance a strong military establishment. The rebellion of Bactria, however, reduced the likelihood of the reconquest of Parthia by the Seleukids, and as Bactria had an efficient war-machine and could withstand a large Scythian force, the Parni overran the relatively vulnerable province of Parthia. This in turn led to the further isolation of Bactria from the Hellenistic West and improved that province's chances for remaining independent during the next thirty years. But the deciding factor was that all the revenues now remained in Bactria rather than being sent to the Seleukid court, and the threat of the Parni in Parthia ensured that it would be put into military strength.

4 Abgarians, M.T. and Sellwood, D.G., Numismatic Chronicle, ser. 7, 11 (1971), 103-19Google Scholar.

6 This information was kindly communicated to me by Dr K.H.J. Gardiner, Canberra. As with these tribes, the chieftainship of the Parni was military in origin, and in such a system authority necessarily passed to an adult rather than to a child.

7 Debevoise, N.C., A Political History of Parthia (Chicago, 1938), p. 29Google Scholar.

8 See Rawlinson, G., The Sixth Oriental Monarchy (London, 1873), p. 85Google Scholar.

9 Our interpretation of the evidence differs from the results of earlier studies in many respects. The reader is referred especially to the following works: Numismatic evidence: LeRider, G., Suse sous les Séleucides et les Parthes (Paris, 1965)Google Scholar; Sellwood, D.G., ‘The Parthian Coins of Gotarzes I, Orodes I, and Sinatruces’, Numismatic Chronicle, ser. 7, 2 (1962), 73–89Google Scholar; ‘Wroth's Unknown Parthian King’, ibid. 5 (1965), 113-35; ‘The Parthian Dark Age in the light of “Susa”’, Numismatic Circular 75 (1967), 293-4Google Scholar; “A Small Hoard of Parthian Drachms’, Seaby's, Coin and Medal Bulletin (1969), 228-32Google Scholar; An Introduction to the Coinage of Parthia (London, 1971)Google Scholar; Simonetta, A.M., ‘Notes on the Parthian and IndoParthian Issues of the First Century B.C.’, in Congres International de Numismatique Paris 1953 (Paris, 1957), ii, 111-21Google Scholar; ‘Some Remarks on the Arsacid Coinage of the Period 90-57 B.C.’, Numismatic Chronicle, ser. 7, 6 (1966), 15–40Google Scholar. Epigraphic material: Bickerman, E.J., ‘The Parthian Ostracon no. 1760 from Nisa’, Bibliotheca Orientalis 23 (1966), 15–17Google Scholar; Chaumont, M.-L., ‘Les Ostraca de Nisa: Nouvelle Contribution à l'histoire des Arsacides’, Journal Asiatique 256 (1968), 11–35Google Scholar; Minns, E., ‘Parchments of the Parthian Period from Avroman’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 35 (1915), 22–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rostovtzeff, M.I. and Welles, C.B., ‘A Parchment Contract of Loan from Dura-Europos on the Euphrates’, Yale Classical Studies 2 (1931), 3–78Google Scholar.

10 Coins of this king are listed in Sellwood, 1971, types 31/1-20. For the Susa annual issues see LeRider, 1965, pp. 85-100, 389; and Sellwood, 1967, 293 f.

11 See Minns, 1915, 34-6, and Simonetta, 1966, 18-20, for all the tablets mentioned herein. Minns' translations have since been corrected.

12 Bickerman, 1966, reads the ostracon as identifying the king as the grandson of Phriapatius (not the king of that name), and Chaumont, 1968, 16, makes him the nephew of the son of Arsakes.

13 No. 307; see Chaumont, 1968, 16.

14 The Behistun inscription, according to Herzfeld, E., Am Tor von Asien (Berlin, 1920), pp. 35 ff.Google Scholar, names a Gotarzes with this office and the Great King Mithradates. The inscription was apparently drafted before Mithradates adopted the title ‘king of kings’ in 110/09 B.C.

15 Namely his sovereignty over the ancient kingdoms of Persia, Adiabene, etc.

16 Sellwood, 1971, coin type 49.

17 Strabo xi 14.15: Plutarch, , Lucullus 14, 21, 26Google Scholar;Isidore of Charax, Stathmoi Parth. 6.

18 Not shortly before the battle, as stated by Debevoise, op. cit., p. 70. Cf. Memnon, fr. lviii 2; Dio xxxvi 1; Appian, , Mithr. 87Google Scholar; Plutarch, , Luc. 30Google Scholar.

19 Memnon. fr. xliii 2.

20 Babylonian tablets of King of Kings Arsakes, i.e. Mithradates, are dated from 110/09 to 91/0 B.C. While Babylon was probably in Gotarzes' realm, scribes there continued to date records in the reign of the senior monarch. One tablet, date lost, which reads ‘Arsakes whose name is Gotarzes’, distinguishes their lord from his father.

20a Op. cit. [n. 9 above] (1966), 16 ff.

21 Sellwood, 1971, types 33/1-15.

22 Sellwood, 1971, types 30/2, 3, 6, 9. 11-24, 29-35.

23 Minns, 1915, 22 ff.

24 The title euergetes, however, occurs on the last tetradrachm issued by Mithradates (Sellwood, 1971, type 32/1 ) before Gotarzes began striking at Seleukeia in 96/5 B.C.

25 Josephus, , Ant. xiii 384-6Google Scholar.

26 The dating formula of the Avroman parchment lists Aryozate surnamed Automa, daughter of the Great King Tigranes and his wife, as Mithradates' queen between his sister-wives, Siake and Azate. The marriage of Mithradates to a daughter of Tigranes might have been contracted as part of an alliance between the two kings to restore the Parthian monarch. Aryozate's place in the list between the two sister-queens may be instructive. The first queen in priority should be named first. It seems that Mithradates gave Tigranes' daughter second place, likely at the expense of Azate. But perhaps Siake was too influential in the royal family to be removed as first queen for the sake of an alliance, or Arsakid custom required that position to be held by a princess of the immediate family.

27 Sellwood, 1971, types 30/12-17.

28 Ibid, types 36/1-20, 37/1.

29 Ibid, type 37/1.

30 Macr. 15.

31 Photius, , Bibl. cod. 97Google Scholar.

32 See Debevoise, op. cit., p. 42.

32a Op. cit. [n. 9 above] (1962), 81 n.

33 Lucian says he ‘was restored’ to his country. This verb can signify his release from banishment or exile or from captivity.

34 Sellwood, 1971, types 30/1, 4, 5. 7, 8, 10, 25-9: and 35/1-15.

35 As suggested by Rawlinson, op. cit., p. 139 n.

36 See Phlegon, loc. cit.; and tetradrachms, Sellwood, 1971, type 39/1.

37 Sellwood, 1971, types 91/1-11. Countermarked drachms of Gotarzes I Autokrator Philopator and Orodes I Theopator Nikator (types 91/1-2) were probably mistaken for drachms of Phraates III (all these types have the king's bust with a tiara) and counterstruck inadvertently.

38 See our paper ‘The Question of the Imitation Hermaios Coinage’, East and West 20 (1970), 317 f.Google Scholar, and references there.

39 Sellwood, 1971, types 91/9-11.

40 ‘The Commerce of Kapisene and Gandhara after the fall of Indo-Greek Rule’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 14 (1971), 286–302CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and see East and West 20 (1970), 307-26Google Scholar. We, of course, no longer hold to either arrangement of the Arsakid coinage of 90-70 B.C. mentioned in these papers.

41 East and West 20 (1970), 324-6Google Scholar, monogram-types 3-6, 14-16 and 20-6.

42 Ibid, monogram-types 7-11, 17-19, 22 (second usage), 27, 28.

43 The Indian weight standard of some of the imitation countermarked drachms reflects the local usage and does not constitute an independent coinage. See Mukherjee, B.N., An Agrippan Source — A Study in Indo-Parthian History (Calcutta, 1969), pp. 79 fGoogle Scholar.

44 The reintroduction of imitation Hermaios coins around 10 B.C. was due mainly to conquests in the kingdom of Azes II, and this operation may have been led by the Parthians.

45 JESHO 14 (1971), 292Google Scholar, map 2. The date for the beginning of the Vonones coinage should be after Mithradates II adopted the imperial title in 110/09 B.C.

46 Cultural History of Persia (London, 1962), p. 294Google Scholar.

47 Kotwal, F.M.P., The Supplementary Texts to the Sayest ne-Sayest (Copenhagen, 1969), p. 177.942Google Scholar.

48 Compare the Bactrian Oanindo (‘victorious’), from vanainti (Maricq, A., Journal Asiatique 246 [1958], 355Google Scholar), or from van from *vanayant(a) (Humbach, H., Die Kuniska-lnschrift von Surkh-Kotal [Wiesbaden, 1960], p. 18Google Scholar).

49 The star ornament used on coins of Mithradates II in his king of kings period and on coins of Gotarzes and Arsakes Philopator is, from this explanation of ‘Vonones’, the star Vega and represents that god or name on his Parthian coinage, while the name itself was put on the satrapal coinage in Sakastan.

50 JESHO 14 (1971), 296Google Scholar, map 5.

51 Strabo ii 8.2.

52 Justin xli-xlii.

53 Communication from Prof. H.W. Bailey, 23/8/74. Sakarauka may be compared with the Chinese Sai-wang, ‘Saka-King’.

54 Stathmoi Parth. 18.

55 See JESHO 14 (1971)Google Scholar, maps 1-4.

56 All coins of Azes 1 as sole king have this title, and it is believed that the well-known era of 58/7 B.C., the Vikrama Era, is reckoned from his accession. See our discussion of this problem in ‘Eras of Gandhara’, Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia 7 (1970), 23–36Google Scholar.

57 Sellwood, 1971, Mithradates III types 41/2-17; Orodes 11 type 42.

58 See JESHO 14 (1971), 301Google Scholar, map 7.

59 A similar dispute between advocates of fraternal and patrilineal succession is described in Dr Gardiner's forthcoming study of the Samguk-sagi, a history of early Korea.