Parthia was not an empire like Persia; it was too loosely organized for that. Mithridates II (r. 124-87 b. c.) called himself “King of Kings,” a title used by the Persian rulers and even in the twentieth century by the shahs, or rulers, of Iran. He expanded the empire to its furthest extent, bringing it into conflict with Rome in Mesopotamia.
Parthia and Rome, then the two most powerful countries in the Western world, would struggle for the next two centuries. After an agreement in 95 b. c. that established the Euphrates River as its western border, Parthia ceased to expand. In 53 b. c., however, the Parthi-ans dealt Rome a humiliating blow by defeating it in Syria and seizing the Roman standards, or battle flags.
In 20 B. C. the Parthians, by then growing weaker and weaker, returned the standards to Rome. As a token of his thanks, Caesar Augustus gave the Parthian ruler, Phraates IV (fray-AY-teez), a gift of a beautiful Roman slave girl named Musa (MOO-suh). Phraates and Musa had children together, and he agreed to allow them to be educated in Rome; but when her son Phraates V had come of age, Musa had his father murdered. Nor was this the most outrageous thing Musa did: once she had made her son king, she married him. Portraits of this strange couple appeared side-by-side on Parthian coins.
That Musa would marry her son was just further evidence that Parthia was rapidly spiraling to its downfall. In spite of this, the arts in Parthia, which skillfully combined Western and Eastern ideas, were flourishing. As time went on, some Parthian leaders still remained faithful to the traditions of the West (that is, Greece and Rome), whereas others rejected these traditions. One king, for instance, upon ordering his portrait for a coin, required that he be portrayed from the front, a break with the Greek and Roman tradition of depicting rulers from the side.
By A. D. 35, differences of opinion over the future of Parthia's relations with the West led to open conflict as the city of Seleucia (suh-LOO-shuh), former capital of the Seleucids, attempted to break away and establish a Hellenized kingdom. In fact, Greek ways were on the decline, but so was Parthia itself. It came to an end with the Romans' destruction of a later Parthian capital, Ctesiphon (TES-i-fahn), in a. d. 165.
World History
