Parthian Empire

Politics and institutions

The Parthian Empire was founded by Arsaces I, chief of the Parni, a nomadic people of the Dahae confederation, who seized the Seleucid province of Parthia around 247 BC. His Arsacid successors took the Achaemenid title King of Kings and ruled a decentralized state in which the great noble houses, especially the Suren and Karen, chose and crowned the monarch. The empire had no fixed capital: Hecatompylos, Nisa, Ecbatana, Seleucia and finally Ctesiphon served as royal seats at different times. Semi-autonomous vassal kingdoms such as Armenia, Elymais, Characene and Persis minted their own coins and fought the high king when they could. Frequent dynastic civil wars weakened the centre more than Roman invasions did, and in 224 Ardashir I of Persis overthrew Artabanus IV and founded the Sasanian Empire.

Economy and finance

Parthian wealth came from agriculture in Mesopotamia and Iran, from the herds of the steppe and from control of the Silk Road. The empire taxed caravans carrying Chinese silk, Indian iron and spices, and Parthian merchants and Sogdian middlemen grew rich on the trade between Han China and Rome. Royal mints at Hecatompylos, Seleucia and Ecbatana struck silver drachmas and tetradrachms, and coin weights stayed remarkably stable for centuries. The fertile Babylonian plain and the Iranian plateau supplied grain, dates, fruit and textiles, while the aristocracy drew income from land and from the caravan tolls. Chinese envoys reached the Arsacid court in 121 BC, opening official trade relations that both empires valued.

Society and culture

Parthian society was a mosaic of Iranian, Greek, Mesopotamian and nomadic elements. The court first cultivated Greek culture and called its kings philhellenes, while later rulers revived Iranian dress, names and Zoroastrian patronage. Greek remained an official language and Aramaic the lingua franca, alongside Parthian, Middle Persian and Akkadian. Religion was plural: Greek and Iranian gods were identified with one another, Mithra and Anahita were widely worshipped, and the Arsacids claimed a special relationship with the gods. Parthian art favoured frontal portraits, rock reliefs and the monumental iwan, an arched audience hall that became a signature of Iranian architecture. Court minstrels recited oral epics that later Persian literature remembered.

Military and frontiers

The Parthian army was a cavalry force without a large standing army. Aristocratic cataphracts wore mail for man and horse and charged with the two-handed kontos lance, while commoner horse archers used composite bows and the feigned retreat known as the Parthian shot. At Carrhae in 53 BC, Surena's 1,000 cataphracts and 9,000 horse archers destroyed a much larger Roman army under Crassus, and the victory made Parthia Rome's most feared eastern rival. The empire rarely besieged cities successfully and relied on vassals and levies for infantry. Its weaknesses were dynastic rivalry and the difficulty of holding the western frontier; Roman emperors repeatedly sacked Ctesiphon, but could not keep Mesopotamia.

Foreign relations

Parthia's foreign policy was dominated by Rome, Armenia and the steppe. The Euphrates became the recognized border with Rome, though both powers competed for influence in Armenia and Mesopotamia for centuries. Parthian envoys negotiated with Augustus, Trajan, Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius; Roman emperors invaded Mesopotamia, and Parthian princes occasionally took refuge in Rome. To the east, the Kushan and Indo-Parthian states buffered the empire, while Han China sought a military alliance against the Xiongnu and settled for trade. Parthian kings also corresponded with the rulers of Characene, Elymais and Persis, whose loyalty was always conditional. The empire's collapse in 224 opened the way for the more centralized Sasanian state.

Legacy and influence

The Parthians left a lasting mark on Iranian and Islamic civilization. Their cavalry, the iwan, frontal relief portraiture and the title King of Kings passed to the Sasanians, and through them to later Persian and Islamic art. The Arsacid family survived in Armenia, Caucasian Iberia and Albania, and Parthian noble houses remained powerful under the Sasanians. Parthian-era trade routes and the Silk Road connections they protected continued to shape the economy of the region. Modern historians regard the Arsacids as the first native Iranian dynasty after the Achaemenids, and their empire as the bridge between the ancient Near East and the Sasanian and Islamic worlds.