PARTI. — A people of the Iranian group, inhabiting the region between the Caspian and the central Persian desert (the northern part of present-day Horāsān): the Parthava of Darius’s inscriptions, the Παρθωσία of the Greeks. They entered
history in the 3rd century B.C., from the remnants of the great Empire of Alexander, which had succeeded the Persian one. The P. identified themselves, at least in part, with the Persians (v.), and the Roman writers of the Empire regarded them as such. The first king, Arsaces, having killed (248–247 B.C.) the satrap Andragoras, representative of the Seleucids of Syria, founded the Parthian Kingdom, initiating the Arsacid dynasty, which directed its fortunes until A.D. 224.
The repeated attempts of the Seleucids to subjugate the young Kingdom, or at least to restrain its westward conquering drive (already Seleucus II in 238 B.C.), were in vain, especially under Mithridates, brother and successor of Phraates I, who during his long reign (174–136 B.C.) conquered Media, Elymais, Persia, and Babylonia, annexed Adiabene (Assyria), and in 142 was proclaimed “king of kings,” the ancient title of the Persian emperors. Antiochus IV Epiphanes (164 B.C.) died on an expedition against the P.; in another, Demetrius II (140 B.C.) was defeated and taken prisoner. In 130 B.C. Antiochus VII attacked Phraates II, son and successor of Mithridates, in order to free his brother Demetrius and drive the P. from the eastern provinces of the Kingdom; after his initial successes and Demetrius’s liberation, in 129, while he was wintering at Ecbatana and his troops were somewhat dispersed, he was defeated and killed by the P.; during this campaign Antiochus was aided by a Jewish contingent commanded by John Hyrcanus himself, who immediately afterward returned to Jerusalem. During the fratricidal war between Antiochus VIII and Antiochus IX (111–95 B.C.), the P. advanced toward the Mediterranean. Under Phraates II (64–57 B.C.) they came into contact with the Roman armies, which they would always boldly withstand, commanded by able commanders-in-chief, whom they called suren. Under Orodes II (56–37 B.C.), son of the preceding king, the P. inflicted on the Romans of Crassus, proconsul of Syria, who lost his life there, the severe defeat of Carrhae (53 B.C.), capturing the standards and numerous prisoners; at that time they controlled all Mesopotamia and transferred their capital to Ctesiphon. In 50 B.C., after the suren had been suppressed through the king’s jealousy and the prince Pacorus had been killed in battle, the P. retreated to the Euphrates. Soon, however, during the civil wars convulsing Rome, the P. advanced threateningly: an army led by Q. Labienus invaded Asia Minor, while another, commanded by the king’s eldest son, Pacorus, and by the satrap Barzapharnes, invaded Syria-Palestine (40 B.C.), while Antony abandoned the legions to follow Cleopatra to Egypt. Antigonus (v.), the last of the Hasmoneans, used the P., masters of Galilee, to dispossess Hyrcanus, who remained a prisoner of the P. in Babylon for some time, while Herod fled and obtained the kingdom and the high priesthood (40–37 B.C.). But in 39 B.C. P. Ventidius drove the P. back among the passes of the Taurus and expelled them from Syria, defeating them decisively in September 38 B.C. With Roman assistance, Herod was thus able to win (37 B.C.) the kingdom given to him in 40 by Antony and Octavian. Antony’s campaign against the P. (36 B.C.) having come to nothing at its outset, a peaceful interlude followed. Phraates IV, Orodes’s successor, sent Augustus (20 B.C.) the Roman standards captured from Crassus, returned the prisoners, and had his own sons educated at Rome. Under Artabanus III (A.D. 10–40), hostilities resumed on account of Armenia. Tiberius sent Germanicus to support his protégé Zeno against the P. Later, Vologases I placed his brother Tiridates on the Armenian throne, and the latter refused to request Rome’s investiture. Nero sent Domitius Corbulo (A.D. 59), who defeated Tiridates and occupied all Armenia; but Vologases I attacked and routed the Romans, who had been left under the command of Caesennius Paetus. Only Corbulo’s return (A.D. 62) enabled the Romans to impose honorable conditions (63).
Thus in A.D. 66 Tiridates, with his sons and accompanied by 3,000 horsemen, went to Rome, where Nero, with solemn pomp in the Forum, granted him the investiture of the Kingdom of Armenia. The journey was not made by sea because, being Zoroastrians (“magi”), they were prevented from doing so by religious scruples (Tacitus, Ann., 15, 29; Pliny, Nat. hist., 30, 2, 16; Cassius Dio, Hist. Rom., 63, 5). The investiture
marked the beginning of a Parthian dynasty in Armenia, which lasted 362 years. It is incomprehensible how it could have been suggested (E. Klostermann, E. Herzfeld) that the account of this journey, with the ceremony of the investiture, inspired the Gospel narrative of the Magi’s coming to Bethlehem. Even setting aside the chronological difficulty, there is not a single element that could establish or explain such an influence (G. Messina, I Magi a Betlemme, Rome 1933, pp. 6 ff.).
Act. 2, 9 speaks of a Jewish diaspora in Parthia; and one may think of the presence of converts to Christianity returning from the extraordinary Pentecost they had witnessed. The campaigns against the P. (114–116) of the emperor Trajan (“the Parthian”) are famous; while he was at Ctesiphon, the revolt of the Jews in Mesopotamia broke out and was energetically suppressed by L. Quietus. But Trajan too was forced to withdraw and died in Cilicia. The campaigns of Marcus Aurelius and Septimius Severus had the same outcome; the latter sacked Ctesiphon in A.D. 199. During these wars, for political reasons, the P. favorably received many Christians who fled the Empire because of the persecutions. Precisely the opposite would occur after the Church’s legal recognition by Constantine: the Sassanid dynasty, dominated by the magi, would ferociously persecute Christians.
The final splendor of the Arsacid dynasty came under Artabanus V; while Caracalla was marching against him, he was killed at Edessa (A.D. 214), and the army, then led by Macrinus, was twice defeated and forced to make peace. The rebellion of Ardashir (A.D. 224), a Persian who occupied Ctesiphon, initiated the new Persian dynasty called Sassanid, after Sāsān, the grandfather of Ardashir.