Phraates/Tiridates
Phraates did indeed die at the beginning of the campaign against Parthia: Tacitus attributes his death (in Syria) to an illness brought on by his determination to give up the Roman habits of a lifetime in exchange for more traditionally Parthian ones. Tiberius then shifted his support to Tiridates, combining this with a politically-arranged truce between Mithradates and his brother Pharasmenes of Iberia, the aim being to drive Artabanus’s son from the Armenian throne. Lucius Vitellius, now the Syrian governor, was put in general charge of eastern developments.
Beaten in Armenia, threatened with a Roman invasion of Mesopotamia and deserted by almost all his allies, Artabanus fled to the wilds of Scythia where he had family connections. Vitellius entered Parthia proper unopposed, then, having stayed long enough to see Tiridates established – although not yet formally crowned – he led his army back.
This was the point at which things began to go wrong for Tiridates. Several key nobles, unimpressed with him personally and distrusting his Roman background, boycotted the formal coronation ceremony at Ctesiphon and instead made overtures to Artabanus who, gathering what local support he could, immediately marched against the capital. If Tiridates had gone to meet him straight away all might have been well, but first he delayed by laying siege to a fortress where Artabanus kept his treasury and concubines and then allowed himself to be persuaded into a retreat westward beyond the Tigris. In the course of the journey, his army melted away. Finally, giving up all hope of defeating Artabanus in battle, he fled across the border into Syria with a few followers, and thereafter disappears from history.
Artabanus made his peace with Rome, possibly agreeing, as one of the terms, to send a son to the emperor as hostage. After surviving yet another coup and restoration, he died in AD38: whether from natural causes or not the historians do not say.
Mithradates
Mithradates was to have a chequered career. He ruled Armenia until after Tiberius’s death in AD37, but then having fallen out with the new emperor Gaius he was brought back to Rome and imprisoned. He regained his throne under Gaius’s successor Claudius and despite a reputation for cruelty held it until AD51; at which point he was challenged and deposed by his nephew, Radamistus, backed by an army provided by his father Pharasmenes who wanted to divert the lad’s designs on his kingdom. Radamistus persuaded Mithradates to surrender by swearing he would not harm him either by sword or poison. He then had him smothered together with his wife and children under a pile of clothing.
A charming family, the Iberian royals...
The Seleucian Revolt
This happened in AD35, the year the story is set, and probably much for the reasons given. Although only just across the Tigris from the Parthian capital Ctesiphon, the city held out for seven years, for most of which time its defection was largely ignored by the Parthian ‘government’ while life inside its walls continued largely as usual; an indication of how loose the Great King’s control over his subjects really was. After a short siege and various to-ings and fro-ings the city surrendered voluntarily to Artabanus’s brother and successor Vardanes in AD42.
The Magi (‘Magians’)
It may seem odd to find Magi outwith the gold-frankincense-and-myrrh trio, but here they are. They were more or less as I’ve described them: a close-knit, rule-bound, socio-religious sect at least five centuries old, currently growing in influence, who claimed Zoroaster as their founder and whose belief in the balanced opposition of Good and Evil was to become central to the official Parthian (later Persian) religion. Both the Greek and Roman establishments regarded their involvement with astrology and magic – not to mention their ritual use of drugs and other dubious substances – with suspicion and disapproval, albeit, in some cases, prurient fascination: magos (Greek) and magus (Latin) have the secondary meaning in both languages of ‘magician’ – hence of course the English word – and as such usually occur in a pejorative context. As an interesting by-the-way – and, perhaps, as a balance for our traditional Christmas-card image – according to Pliny the Magi were accustomed to apply to their faces ‘a cosmetic ointment made from helianthes’ – sunflower in Greek, but perhaps not our version – ‘lion’s fat, saffron and palm wine,’ which they believed improved their appearance The picture of the Three Wise Men made up to the eyeballs is not one that readily springs to mind, but it’s probably accurate, for all that.
My thanks, as usual, to my wife Rona for helping me find books. I haven’t needed to disturb Roy Pinkerton very much this time, but I’ll add my gratitude to him in any case. Any faults the story has on the factual side – and I’m sure they exist – are completely my responsibility. I hope, if you did notice them, that they didn’t spoil things for you.
Parthian Shot (Marcus Corvinus Book 9) Page 26