The Parthians
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Hello, Tristan Hughes here. And just quickly before we dive into this episode, I wanted to ask you, our Brilliant listeners, well, I wanted to ask you a favour.

If you enjoy The Ancients, and I really hope that you do, it would be so wonderful if you would vote for us in the Listener's Choice Award at this year's Podcast Awards. You can do so simply by going to the website, britishpodcastawards.com forward slash voting. There's a link to it in the episode description too. Now, enough of all that. Let's go on with today's episode of The Ancients.

It's the beginning of the first century BC and the Roman Republic, which by this stage already controls much of the Mediterranean, is expanding east into present-day Turkey and Syria. Over the previous decades they've successfully toppled the rich successor kingdoms of Alexander the Great in Greece and Anatolia.

But now they're approaching the borders of another expanding power who had also overcome their own seismic challenges to take over large swathes of what is today the Middle East. The stage was set for a great clash of superpowers.

It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's episode we are exploring another extraordinary people of the ancient world that forged a large empire and became one of the great enemies of Rome: the Parthians. Establishing themselves in Persia and Mesopotamia, the Parthians would come to blows with the Romans over and over again for more than 200 years.

So who exactly were the Parthians? What's the story of their origins? What sources do we have for them? And how did they become this great power in the Middle East, toppling the superpower that dominated the lands before them, the Seleucid Empire, this massive Hellenistic successor kingdom of Alexander the Great? To explain this and much more, our guest is Dr. Adrian Goldsworthy, who has recently written a book all about the Parthians and

and their great rivalry with Rome. Adrian, he's been on the podcast a few times before. He's talked about Alexander the Great and his first battles against the Persian Empire. But he's also been on to talk about Hannibal Barca and his rise to power and his early fights against the Romans. Now he's back to talk all things Parthians. We recorded this episode in person a couple of months back and I really do hope you enjoy.

Adrian, it is wonderful to have you on the podcast again. Thanks for inviting me. You're more than welcome. And we are doing it in person in your kitchen in South Wales. Lovely, lovely view outside as well. To talk about a people who lived very, very far away from where we are now, the Parthians, they were one of the greatest enemies the Romans ever faced.

Yes, the problem is they don't get much attention because they didn't leave their own story, their own version of events. So you've got this group that appear as the enemies of the Romans. And, you know, people who are interested in the Romans might know about the defeat of Crassus, the ally of Pompey and Caesar, gets himself killed by the Parthians. Various other expeditions, big disasters.

some successes, and this power. It's the only large state that the Romans have contact with and have a border with for centuries. Because when you think places like Carthage have gone in the second century BC, something that was organized, civilized, in some ways more sophisticated than you, at least when you start,

And the Romans have defeated them. They've absorbed them. Nearly everywhere else, they're dealing with much smaller political groupings with local kings, chieftains, tribal groups, cities. Occasionally, you get somewhere like Dacia on the Danube that coalesces into quite a power for a while. But it's not the same as an empire that is stretching from...

the Tigris over to modern-day Afghanistan, sometimes into northern India, up to the Caspian Sea. And the Parthians control this for more than 400 years. So although they're not famous today, they're not as well remembered as they should be. They are one of the great success stories of the ancient world. And

and one of the problems is they're supplanted by another dynasty, the Sasanians, who come along later, who do their very best to muddy the record about the achievements of their predecessors, because they're obviously emphasizing, well, look, we're the legitimate...

kings we ought to rule so therefore they actually if you look at the medieval sources that come through the armenian the arabic tradition you'll actually find that the number of parthian kings is reduced and the length of the dynasty is almost halved so they reduce it to about two centuries instead of four and a half just as this sort of quietly rubbishing your predecessors so we don't get anything from that point of view i mean the sassanians

haven't left as much of a trace of themselves as we would like, but they're something. The Parthians, there is incredibly little and really nothing from their point of view and saying, this is why we did it. This is what this particular king of kings wanted to do. We always get somebody else looking at them from outside and saying, this is what they're up to.

And who are these other people who are writing about the Parthians? Is it just the Greeks and Romans or the Sanians too? It's predominantly the Greeks and Romans. There's something in the later tradition as it reaches the Arabic historians that will come later. But you've also got one of the most interesting little sort of sub-passages we have is from the Jewish historian Josephus.

because there's a huge Jewish population in Babylonia. And you have Greek cities like Seleucia on the Tigris as well that have a big Jewish community. And he talks about how every year until the rebellion that led to the destruction of the temple, pilgrims would come with their offerings to the temple in Jerusalem from outside the Roman Empire in these big armed caravans. And neither empire is bothered by this. So it's, again, reminding ourselves that there are communities that cross these borders.

And in this case, it does have the tradition. So you hear, you know, very little is known about Musa, the Italian slave girl who's given to a Parthian king of Kings by Augustus and ends up as the queen and the mother of the heir. And possibly, you know, depending on the source, murders her husband. And she's the only woman ever to appear on a Parthian coin with her son's head on the other side. And, you know, just what an Italian slave means. But

Josephus clearly didn't like her, so what little he says is not terribly flattering, but at least it gives us a glimpse of someone who otherwise would be a name on a coin and a few fragments from elsewhere.

But he tells this wonderful story about these Jewish apprentices who run from their master, set up as bandits, and become so successful that the Parthian king of kings actually recognizes them as the local authority because his own local noblemen have failed to deal with them. So it's sort of this compromise thing. Okay, you run it for me, but I'm the boss. You pay me what I want. And it goes badly wrong because one of the brothers falls in love with the wife of a Parthian nobleman. You get all this. It's real soap opera stuff, but it's

It's fascinating because you get a glimpse of life inside a province of the Parthian Empire.

that isn't really about anything the Romans are doing. And it's to do with how there's tension between the Jewish community and other communities in the same area, that as this banditry increased, you know, how does that go? They win several encounters because they fight on the Sabbath and the enemy don't expect them to, and this sort of thing, which is a theme Josephus has put in elsewhere. But nevertheless, it seems to make sense that they're underestimated. So,

Again, you get detailed glimpses like that, and you'll get little fragments. You'll get a few inscriptions. You'll get some traces of court seals from documents made from clay. When the documents are burnt in a building, the clay gets baked hard. It's just like the, you know, Linear A and Linear B, Minnow and Mycenaean stuff. It's the same principle. That survives because it just becomes very hard.

So you get glimpses of it. You know, there's a Greek city talks about the king of kings making a ruling on regulations for who can be magistrate and how often you can hold the office. All the sort of stuff we're very familiar with Roman emperors doing in the Greek provinces and before that Roman governors. And again, the city decides, well, let's set up an inscription so everybody knows this is what we've done. And also that we were important enough that the ruler takes an interest in us.

But in terms of quantity, it's far, far less than you get from the room. So the independent Parthian voice is effectively lost, and we're piecing it together from these glimpses from more or less hostile, sometimes fairly favorable, but nevertheless, outside sources.

What I really like about that, though, is the fact that, you know, the story of the Parthians is so much more than just the occasional conflict with the Roman. Of course, that is a big part of their story. But today, let's really kind of explore the people of the Parthians, what we know about them. And I am a Hellenistic historian, first and foremost. So I do want to talk about the origins, first of all, because this is a very fun area of history for me. I mean,

Adrian, let's talk about where the Parthians themselves come from, the origins of the kingdom, because it's not the area of like Iran or Iraq. I will, but I'll just, before I do that, I'll point out one thing that's easy to forget, because when we talk about them and the Romans, we concentrate on the wars. But when you actually look, there's a first encounter with Crassus, goes horribly wrong, turns into a war, Mark Antony's campaign, before that Parthian invasion of Syria, Judea, that area, and then

Under Augustus, there's lots of aggressive diplomacy. There's a prolonged, almost proxy war under Nero. But most of the first century, there's peace between these two empires. And the second century, there are three great wars. But even if you extend those as long as possible, 90% of the time, these two empires are at peace. So while you see them as great rivals and enemies, they don't actually fight very often.

puts it into perspective when you think that way. Because the sources for the Parthians are poor and we only see them when they're dealing with the Romans, that's usually because they're fighting the Romans, though not actually quite as much as we think even in those sources. So anyway, so that's just a minor thing. But it's something that, again, went click in my head as I was doing the book because I hadn't thought that way. But you go back, of course, and this is the world that has been reshaped by Alexander the Great. And even though Alexander's empire only lasts for,

a few years before his death, and then it's the fragmentation and the wars of the successors. You have the Seleucid Empire that takes a large part of what will become the Parthian Empire. And the roots of Parthian rule do have a lot to do with the Seleucids. Because under the more successful kings, they're

for a while at least keep the territory into northern India. They keep Afghanistan, Bactria, all these regions. And they've gone right the way to the Mediterranean as well. But the big preoccupation for all the successor kings is that deep down you feel each one of them thinks, well, I could be Alexander. I could just, all I need is one more victory and then maybe another one after that.

They devote so much effort. It's very interesting. When you think the famous cities of the Seleucids are Seleucia on the Tigris and Antioch. Antioch, smack bang on the Mediterranean. It's not in the middle of your empire where it would be most convenient. You know, when you think the Achaemenid Persians, where, yes, they move around, but where they're based. They have several palaces so that you can move at different seasons. And this is the same pattern that the Parthians and the Sasanians will do.

And A, it's comfortable because there are some places you don't want to be in winter and you definitely don't want to be in summer. But it's also, this is an area that unlike the Roman Empire is not so densely populated. There are the big cities and there are quite a lot of them, but there are areas in Eastern Iran of today where the population is much more dispersed. It's substantial. It all has to do with rainfall patterns and just how you can support people. So,

In size, the Seleucid Empire and later the Parthian Empire will be much smaller than the Roman, but its population is significantly smaller, again, in greater proportion because it's that sort of land. It's big, it's huge, but... So the Seleucids, you can just see their interest. There's always that focus on, well, I don't trust the Ptolemies, and I don't trust the Antigonids, and whoever it might be, and then when these little sort of whippersnapper kingdoms appear in Asia Minor, then, you know, we don't hold with that at all.

So you have an empire that is struggling. I mean, you get the sense that Alexander stretches Macedonian resources really thinly. Because yes, you have all these Alexandries, all these cities that are settled in various places, and these colonies set up of your Greeks, your Macedonian troops. You don't have infinite manpower.

and they don't have quite the genius that the Romans will show of absorbing people. You know, you look at the Ptolemies in Egypt now, okay, the Egyptians are probably coming along and thinking, well, who are these newcomers? Who cares about this culture? But you have that distinct two systems of law, effectively sort of parallel, almost apartheid cultures that go right the way through to the end, and to a great extent, continue under the Roman period. You know, it's just taken on.

Seleucus was, of course, the only one of the successors not to repudiate the Asian life he's given by Alexander. So there's an element of integration you feel there, or at least willingness, whether that's personally. And of course, you know, we'll name cities after her. But on the whole, you've got these colonies established, but in the main, you are dealing with a population that had come to terms with the Achaemenid Persians before and comes to terms with you and has their local nobility.

And there is a tendency, you know, Antiochus III, Antiochus the Great is remembered as one of the great successes. He gets beaten by the Romans, but he does well in the East and all this thing. But he is... rushing is the wrong word, but he has to go from one edge of the empire to the other to fight different wars, put out various fires. It's always a stretch. This is not...

an empire that can do anything too quickly simply because of geography. You haven't even got the advantage of a Mediterranean Sea in the middle so that you can transport some things and some people at the right time of year anyway relatively quickly. And you don't have the road system because you don't have the population to support it and demand it. You have aspects of this, and the communications are good. So the Seleucids struggle to hold it all together and inevitably are wasting time

resources fighting each other. I mean, again, Polybius gives us the big account, but you've got Rephia in 217 BC, huge battle, some of the largest armies any of these kingdoms will ever feel fighting against each other. And whoever wins, you're all losing, really. It still has an element of civil war about it, even though it's between different dynasties. So you get in the later third century BC, it starts, and then into the second century,

groups that start to feel on the fringes, that either feel neglected by the Seleucids or are simply ambitious. Local leaders who think, well, I can start to do things my own way. And you'll get these breakaway kingdoms, Bactria being a prime example, that mint their own coins. The Parthians are part of this same pattern. You're getting these rebellions against the Seleucids that start to succeed. And the more you get, obviously, the harder it is for the Seleucids to stamp everything out.

The Parthians begin as a group that have apparently come from outside, from the steppes. There are nomadic people that come in, although there is a possibility that Arsace is the sort of founder of the dynasty. If you read the sources, one way you could see him as actually descended from local nobility. And given that there seems to be a lot of pattern into marriage,

as with diplomacy in the ancient world in general, there's a fair chance he's got some connections. But of course, the Parthians' name, Parthian province, again, in the northeast of the Seleucid Empire, the Parthians who appear in Herodotus as part of the big army that comes with Xerxes, are the people who live there. The Parthian dynasty is founded by people who come in from outside and take over

But how many of them really are there? And how quickly are the Parthians being, yes, the descendants of some of these invaders, but also a lot of locals who backed you and become your army? So there is one sort of school of thought that sees the Parthians as always at heart nomads. You know, they don't settle down. They always fight in the way that's best in the step. So...

yeah, if the enemy's doing well, you gallop away. Why die for a piece of grassland when there's thousands more miles of it out there? There's no value to it. So they come in, they rebel, and they're successful. But I think it's too simple to see them as always staying and rigidly controlled by this nomadic aristocracy and royal family. I mean, it's one thing at that time for this province to rebel and to kind of break away from this elusive empire, right?

It's another thing for that small kingdom to then assert its independence, retain its independence from what is the superpower of that place, which is the Seleucid Empire. The next stage is, the big question is, how does the Parthian, this emergent kingdom, go from this small area of land near the Caspian Sea into ultimately overcoming the big beast that is the Seleucid Empire? It's obviously a mixture of things. I mean, there has to be a military element. These are clearly...

capable leaders with good forces that they can control and activate well, and they can increase them. It doesn't dilute it as they recruit more and more locals. So that's part of it. It helps that the Seleucids are overstretched all the time. But the Parthians are the big winners in this competition, but they're not the only players early on. You mentioned Andragoras before. You've got the Kingdom Down by the Gulf. You've got others that rebel, get their independence, and then...

If you just stay as you are, if you basically say, well, this is it, that's my bit, keep off, the Seleucids are going to come and get you at some point. So there's almost an element where you have to keep expanding because you've got to be, you've got to make yourself as dangerous as possible, but that in turn attracts more attention. So some of these rebels will fail, they'll get defeated.

And the Seleucids make a big effort in the middle of the 2nd century BC and do overrun. Because the Parthians have expanded from Parthia. They go to Hycania, places like that. They start to expand towards the sort of heartlands of the old Achaemenid Empire. They're coming into, again, the wealthier areas. The really rich, yeah, the treasuries. Which, of course, boosts their funds and allows them to recruit more people. And, you know, you do feel there are probably aristocrats that have

sense the way the wind's blowing each time and have transferred, they've decided in the end, okay, we'll stick with this Alexander bloke. Okay, we'll stick with these Seleucids for the meanwhile. And then we'll, yeah, this will do. If you're treated well enough, if you're made rich enough, if you're flattered enough, if you're given enough local autonomy, it's again, it's worth remembering that the Parthian king will be eventually anyway. I mean, they go through a sort of gradation of the titles they use, but they end up as king of kings.

The basic nature of the empire is that you rule lots of other kingdoms. And there are lesser kings and then usually even smaller local ones below them as well, who, I mean, we often use feudal and those sorts of terms. The problem is the medievalists get all worked up and they're no longer sure quite what they mean by that and all this. It doesn't mean what I was taught at school all those years ago, a nice simple little chart of, you know, what you have to do going upwards and what obligations they have coming down to you as well.

The Parthians are successful, but they do nearly lose. I mean, the Seleucids form a big army. They hire lots of mercenaries. Again, that's one of the problems. You get this pattern of Seleucid campaigns beginning with confiscating sort of temple treasures and this sort of thing. They just don't have the cash anymore. And they can't maintain a big enough permanent army anymore.

to achieve what they want, so you've got to hire people for the duration, but that's then risky because you're not sure how reliable they are, but also it's very expensive. And if you don't win quickly, or if you lose, even worse. So you have these ones where the Parthians get beaten. It's one of the many frustrating things is that we never get a detailed account of the Parthians losing a battle.

largely because we don't get to cancel the Parthians' fighting battles. We have Karhai, 53 BC, that becomes the archetype

But it's the first encounter is probably atypical on both sides. And there are lots of question marks about what's going on there as well. There's the theory that, well, the Parthians sort of let the Seleucids advance, wear them out. They're thinking like steppe nomads. And then there are lots of rebellions around when the Seleucid winter and their garrisons start misbehaving and the mercenaries, you know, play up and all this sort of thing. Lots of rebellions crop up everywhere. And in the next campaign, they defeat Seleucids.

It is a striking thing. They kill one Seleucid king, they capture another. The Sasanians will capture a Roman emperor. Parthians never kill or capture one, nor do they get the equivalent. Lots of Parthian princes will go and live in Rome. The Romans don't do the same thing.

But the Seleucid, you know, one of them is kept as a hostage for a very long time. He's given Parthian wife and family and, you know, makes one breakaway attempt, nearly gets it, gets pulled back on the border. And then because his brother is doing well, they release him only for the war to actually, they win, they defeat him. And now they've got this damn Seleucid they did have as a prisoner. He's back in charge. Although, of course, being a Seleucid, he soon gets distracted by the Ptolemies and goes off to threaten them. But the

But the Parthian rise wasn't inevitable, and they need the luck of any successful power. But there's a lot of the ambition, the skill, both military and diplomatic, and that knack for making other people accept your rule. Because this is, again, it comes back to King of Kings. There are lots of local authorities, or the bit about the Jewish bandits we were talking about earlier, where they become recognized as

You can't control and run things in a day-to-day basis. The area doesn't allow you to do that, and you don't have the administrative machinery communications to do it. So you need to persuade enough people that, yeah, it's worth supporting you. And that's

Basically speaking, what they do, and there's aspects. I mean, you look at the iconography of their coins that are coming out, and a lot of it is very Hellenistic. But that's in part because the places minting the coins tend to be the Greek cities, and that's the tradition they're drawing upon. But it's also, you're allowing them to continue just as they have under various other overlords, and as they will under the Romans.

they run their day-to-day affairs. You know, a Greek city remains a Greek city with Greek law, Greek culture, the same cults, the same festivals you've always had. It's just that you pay tax and you owe loyalty to a Parthian king of kings now. I mean, the Parthians will build Ctesiphon as a royal city right next to Seleucia rather than occupying it directly. But again, it's not as if it's, you know, they don't leave it completely independent, but nevertheless, they do their own thing nearby. And later, another city will be added as well.

So you have periods of success and you get particular kings who are clearly lucky, but also able, but also ambitious. The Parthians manage this thing quite early on that some other dynasties do where they convince everybody that the only person who can be king of kings is somebody of the blood. The Ptolemies do it in Egypt. It's odd that no aristocrat thinks, "Yeah, I could do that."

So it's an interesting thing, because you get rivals, but they're all from within your extended family. But because of polygamy and because of the harem, the problem in your extended family is very big. So you get these periods of civil war, but that seems to be something that develops later.

Perhaps again, there's that sense which is too risky early on. Or the leaders are so formidable that you don't want to mess with them. So you have this expansion and control. But one of the interesting things is if you look at the Seleucids, the big difference between their empire and the Parthians is that they go right to the Mediterranean. And if you look at the communities of those areas, it's basically Hellenistic cities.

And you'd actually think that the logic is that one empire should control Antioch to Seleucia. And in fact, the border will fall between the two and we'll stay there and move back and forwards a bit or steadily forwards really under the Romans. But it never, even that you've got a big Jewish community, you know, you've got one in Alexandria, but that's all part of the Roman empire. You've got this one in Babylonia that isn't, and it doesn't seem to matter.

I was going to talk about this later, but come on, let's kind of explore this now. The river Euphrates, early on in Parthian history, I mean, in Seleucid history, Alexander the Accumulator, it's never really seen as a boundary, as a border, but it becomes a border. It almost feels quite unexpected that this river then becomes a boundary between the two great empires that are Roman Parthia. Yes, I mean, it first appears in the sources in 1st century BC with the contact with Pompey.

and the claim that they want, you know, the Romans sort of acknowledge this. And it's a little bit like the Ebro Treaty of the 3rd century BC that precedes the Second Punic War. The thing we tend to forget is that in the 1st century BC, particularly in the first half of it, the Parthians are going through this chaotic period. It seems to be one of their first big periods of internal strife, civil war. And the big player is Armenia.

To some extent with Pontus as well, obviously, further on, you've got famously Mithridates of Pontus. But we forget that he allies with Tigranes of Armenia, and he has been a hostage in the Parthian court, but the situation is reversed. He goes back and creates this much of the area that again will either be Roman province or be Parthian again.

That's the dominant power. The Parthians are almost in retreat. So a sense of negotiating at that stage when they don't really, you know, again, we know what's going to happen. We know the Romans are going to turn up and stay for centuries, but nobody else does in a region where power has been very fluid for several generations.

So you have to think there's probably a gradual sense. The Romans, I suspect, if you look, they're quite happy for someone else to say they won't come any further than a boundary. But I don't think the Romans impose the same restriction on themselves because they don't see other people as equals. And some of that early diplomacy is interesting, although it's very poorly recorded. But you have this move towards the Euphrates becoming the boundary. It's partly convenient. This is where it will end up.

We do forget that the Romans are quite reluctant to annex territory and rule it directly. And Pompey's big eastern settlement, yes, you create a province of Syria, but it isn't that big at this point. There is still this

almost the Parthian way of doing things of let's have all these allied kings. You know, they can run it. Keep these dynasts locally. They will do it. We don't have to bother. We really don't want to be troubled with garrisoning these, with sending governors out, with spending money and effort. Can't they deal with their own things? And this is a big, big factor in all the politics at any stage in this period, because there is a

again, a tendency to see the two big empires as the main players, and then you become either anti-Parthian or pro-Parthian, anti-Roman, pro-Roman.

Most of these local leaders are out for themselves. And, you know, when you get a detailed account of the struggle for Armenia, which begins as an internal power struggle, and then who's backing the Parthian king's brother becomes ruler there, and the Romans don't like the way they've gone about this. But when the Romans get their nominee and manage to install him, he then goes off and fights his own private war against another king who's part of the Parthian empire, which

It's clearly not anything that anyone outside wants to happen at all. But again, he's doing that. And we forget, you know, you look at Herod the Great's career earlier on. He fights his own wars. Yes, he's an ally of Rome, but not just that.

And, you know, he will write as well and negotiate with the Parthian king of kings about the rights of the Jewish community in Babylonia, you know, as basically a patron for them, which is that, again, that Hellenistic tradition or earlier Greek tradition of when you've got a dispute, try and find someone to speak up for you or sort of ask for a third party arbitrator. There's that very long tradition and they're still doing this. It doesn't matter which empire they're in, which kingdom they're in. So you have to think of this as a patchwork of

powers of kingdoms, they're often not so fixed in regional terms because...

We can see it more clearly with the Romans, but it's probably there with the Parthians as well. You can appoint someone you like and give him land that wasn't necessarily part of one united kingdom in the first place. And a lot of places like Armenia are incredibly difficult to control, even for the kings of Armenia, because your aristocracy is fiercely independent and geographically it's got lots of strongholds in places it's hard to reach. So...

There's a lot more going on. It isn't just about the great powers. In fact, you suspect a lot of the time the great powers just don't want to get involved because they've got enough problems of their own elsewhere. And if they haven't, they just want to, well, let's, you know, things are chugging along. Let's just keep with that. And they get dragged into it. There are so many rivalries. It's interesting how often, again, you see it more fully from the Roman side, but there will be a coup or a murder in one of the allied kingdoms.

or a war against the neighbor and you take territory. And the leader obviously thinks that, yeah, the Romans didn't let me, didn't say I could do this, but I could probably persuade them. It'll be okay. Look, if I show that I'm a good loyal ally to them, then who's, you know, they're not going to care. They didn't like him either. They'll deal, they're practical people.

And there is a strong element within that. A lot of people do get away with things that wouldn't make sense if you saw them simply as a province or part of this empire. It's a lot looser than all of that. It is really interesting, like, those client kingdoms that straddle the Parthian-Roman border. And, like, you mentioned Herod, of course, him rising to become the king, he has to oust the

initially Parthian-backed rebel Antigonus, doesn't he? So it's really interesting how... Are they kind of proxy wars you sometimes get between the two, where they're kind of vying for influence over these regions? I think they are to some extent, but again, that's to see it purely from the imperial point of view. And you remove the sort of active status of the individuals involved, because the Parthians have helped Labienus, the son of the famous Labienus,

with a Roman army in what he's saying is a Roman civil war, but no Parthian troops seem to go into Asia Minor. They seem to stop. They'll go to Syria, they'll go to Seleucid territory, and even the force they send down to occupy Jerusalem is a few hundred men. It's not big, but there is pressure on them from allies or people who want to be allies saying, help me. And it comes back to a lot of ancient power politics works on the basis that if you're a good friend,

People will pay you respect. They'll be nice to you. They'll do what you want. But you've got to justify that by protecting them or helping them. Another thing that struck me that hadn't struck me before, looking at Crassus and those early campaigns, is how similar it is to Caesar's campaigns in Gaul.

Where, yes, he's telling the story that, oh, I had to go and occupy here and conquer here because I was invited in. But usually there are political disputes in these areas between one tribe or another or factions within the same tribe where somebody isn't doing well. So to improve their own position, they say, well, there's a big strong foreigner over there. If he helped me.

I could win. And I'll give him some stuff. You know, an interesting thing, the Jewish leader that the Parthians support is obliged to supply the Parthian king of kings with women for the harem from, again, noble families, presumably from the royal line. It's partly sort of get rid of potential rivals or people who might produce potential rivals. But they're seeing it very much within the pattern of how dynastic politics works at all the levels. You know, this is sort of steps down and tears down because they don't make...

any great effort. When Herod will go with Roman back again, his rivals have got Parthian backing, so he needs another big chunky friend from outside, so he gets the Romans to do it. It's the pattern again and again, and it's these local ambitions that drag the others in who think, yeah, fair enough, we'll get some money out of this, we'll get some power. And if we say no, will anybody ask us again when we might more actively want to do it? So there are laws on both sides that means

Much of this is not really planned by anybody. It just develops. It's on the fly. A lot of imperialism in the Roman period, and Greek as well, there's a willingness to do it. There's a willingness to gain. But it's very much a, "Oh, here's a good chance. Let's do this." Rather than setting out and thinking, "How am I going to do this? What's my sort of 10-year, 20-year, 50-year plan to do this?" It's far more opportunistic because you've usually got so many other things on the boil or going on. It's reactive in a sense.

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I want to kind of keep on the Parthian perspective and not get too kind of sucked into all of the wars with Rome. However, it is obviously a key part of the story. But trying to get into the mindset, let's say a Parthian noble. You're not the king of kings, but obviously you're very proud of the nation. And you know the story about how over the past, let's say if we're at the beginning of the first century BC, 150 years, this kingdom has risen, has toppled the Seleucid Empire. He's now in control of these massive cities in Mesopotamia, like Babylon and Seleucia and Ctesiphon, as you mentioned.

So it's thriving, but it's also been expanding a lot recently. And now it's come into conflict with this other expanding power in the West. Do we know how the Parthians viewed the Romans? I mean, is there jealousy or is there anger? Is there distaste? I mean, do we know anything about that? Again, we've really got to see it from the Roman sources. But the thing to remember is that when they meet, they're both expanding. They are very similar.

And they've also got used to being the sort of biggest, toughest kid on the block. Rome's had its, you know, recent defeats. You've had all the problems with Pontus, and you've recovered. It's had its civil wars, its first outbreak of that. Parthia has had its own civil wars. It's had Armenia proving strong and a challenge for a while.

But they emerge not really knowing the other. I mean, it's interesting. When you think of a few generations before, you would have had Parthian noblemen who'd fought the Seleucids. So they know what it's like to deal with an army that relies quite heavily on close-order heavy infantry. Not the same as a Roman legionary, but rather closer than the emphasis on horsemen, which is very much your way of fighting. You probably do have infantry, probably far more of them than get mentioned in the sources, but the prestigious element, the bit you're going to win the battle with...

are your cataphracts, particularly your horse archers that capture the imagination of the Romans. So you've got generations that have got used to fighting people who fight much more like you in the same way the Romans have never dealt with this sort of problem before. So I think there's, the problem is you get a story like this when the first encounter is when Sulla, the fellow who'll go on to lead the first Roman civil war, marches legions on Rome in 88 BC, become dictator a few years later.

He is governor, and he intervenes in Cappadocia in a dynastic struggle there. A Parthian envoy hears he's around and comes to see him from the King of Kings, and then meets. Now, the way this is all told by the Roman sources, which are not basically the only detail of the account we get is in Plutarch, who's writing sort of 100 AD or even... So it's

nearly two centuries later, and he's writing a biography of Sulla. The fact we get this description is because this man goes on to do important and dreadful things afterwards. What's supposed to happen is that Sulla sits on a chair and has the King of Cappadocia and the Parthian envoy on either side of him, therefore implying he's senior. And that when the Parthian goes back home, he's executed by the King of Kings because this was an insult.

You have to think, well, how could three people actually do, you know, somebody's got to be in the middle unless you're all very far away. And how much of this is typical Roman political invective? Oh, yes, Sully just goes around insulting people. How much is this also a Greek author thinking, well, this is what these Eastern kings do? You know, they're just barbarians. They're decadent. All kings are bad. These ones particularly so. So they'll be paranoid. They'll murder people.

On the other hand, he is going to tell in his more detailed account of the Soren, or the Sorena, the commander who will defeat Crassus at Carthae, and who's helped the Parthian king of kings win the civil war against his brother, who stormed Seleucia, all this sort of thing. He gets executed for being overmighty. We don't get the details of the Parthian internal politics, the personality clashes as well, the ambitions. We don't know whether this is just

neurotic king of kings or whether Serena really is a threat. We're seeing it from the point of view of Westerners who always have this jaundiced view that, you know, this is what these people are like. That's why they're, you know, they're barbarian, slavish by nature, all this sort of stuff. You've got all that baggage associated with it, which makes it very hard to know, given that this man is only mentioned by Plutarch. We wouldn't know of his existence, assuming he's got the right name. So whether Plutarch actually knew what had happened to this man and whether or not there were probably...

as in the imperial court at Rome and many other dynasties. There were probably lots of ways you could get yourself executed by a king or an emperor that might not necessarily be to do with a diplomatic faux pas. I've got a couple of questions before I unfortunately have to wrap up. I mean, there's so much to talk about, but I mean, how important a symbol was the horse for the Parthians? They're not the nomad kind of group,

And correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought I remembered that before Karai, the Parthian army can sometimes be a bit Hellenistic in that it was largely infantry-based, and then it's a bit of a reform, and then cavalry become much more prominent, and then from then on, Parthian armies are larger. But how important is the horse for Parthian society? Do we know? It's very important, clearly. I mean, before Karai, we don't know what Parthian armies are like. The assumption is...

tends to be particularly again this sense of these are the Parthians they're always like that is that Karhai becomes it's the one Parthian battle where there are detailed accounts you've got quite

quite a long one in Plutarch, which seems quite logical and detailed for one of his battle accounts. You've got the dire one that's much more confused and confusing and talks about woods and things. It seems unlikely. You feel there's an element of the Romans sort of saying basically, oh yeah, you know, we was robbed. It wasn't fair because there's a claim that some of their allies turned and joined the Parthians halfway through. Any great power explaining a disaster tends to sort of imply it was unfair. But actually we know next to nothing, but we assume foreshadowing

from the way they fight the Seleucids, that they are predominantly cavalry then, that they're avoiding. But on the other hand, they've got a phalanx to deal with. They've got combined arms force that the Seleucids represent and that the Roman armies will eventually represent, but they don't get the balance right at first. The thing is, when you think of the Parthian Civil War, where Ctesiphon is stormed by the Sorenn,

Clearly, you know, sieges are not used, you know, cavalry can't do this stuff. When it comes to an assault, you're not doing that on horseback. You might be the dismounted cataphracts and the noblemen who are leading the way as they would. So they can fight dismounted. Dio dismisses their infantry as not worth anything, but mostly bowmen. A lot more infantry will emerge later on in the same way the Sasanians have war elephants, and they appear by the third century AD. Now, in the campaign in Nero's reign,

the Parthian king of kings will ride across a bridge made by captured Roman troops on an elephant. Tacitus tells us that, but is that just an elephant for dignified transport, you know, to look cool? Or are you using more elephants then? The Romans don't mention them if they are, but the sources are so poor.

for the military aspect of it that we're left guessing. But I think the horse is clearly a big deal. Hunting is a big deal. Archery is a big deal. You know, you have on coins the Parthian king of kings will be depicted with an unstrung bow, with holding a bow. Now there are, you know, there are Greek precedents for this. You've sort of modified images of Apollo and images of Seleucid kings and things to get. But that's different. On the other hand, there is a strong tradition of cavalry and horses with the Achaemenid Persians. The Persian influence. So again...

the Nisaian horses, all of this is a sense that some of the best horses in the world come from these royal studs and this area. Again, how much of this is a group of nomads coming into an area and bringing this new idea? Great, you know, fighting on horseback, that's the way to do it. It looks better, it's far more stylish, it's far more effective. How much is it partly that, but also an established nobility that have been raising and perfecting

perfecting their horse stocks for generations, for centuries. Because again, it's something the Seleucids aren't going to stop at all. They're going to encourage. And their armies have more cavalry in proportion usually than the other successor armies because they've got access to these groups.

in the same way that by the time Alexander's in India, the bulk of his troops are not Greek or Macedonian at all. And an awful lot of them are mounted nomadic or irregular groups, horse archers, all sorts that he's picked up along the way because he thought, wow, these blokes are good. And it's better that they're fighting for me rather than left at home getting bored and fighting against me. So there's an element of that with imperial powers as well. Take the people who are your potential enemies and use them against somebody else. So it is a big, big deal for the Parthians. And you get

Again, how much of this is exaggerated outside of tradition, you know, that they eat in the saddle and that, you know, but it's clearly there. And for the Romans, interestingly enough, it's not the cataphract that becomes the sort of quintessential Parthian warrior, it's the horse archer. And the whole idea of the Parthian shot, you know, the man who's galloping away, but turns and shoots back at you.

Because it confuses you, you know, this idea of going toe-to-toe like a good Greek hoplite and everybody since, and slugging away until, you know, last man standing type of thing. Well, this person's running away, but he's still fighting us. That's just mind-blowing. I can't cope with that. So that's the question. And the images of Parthians you get in Roman art tend to be unarmoured. You'll get later on with the Sasanians more emphasis on the armoured cavalry being dangerous. But there again,

It's very hard to see any evidence for light horse archers in Thessalian armies. So they've changed to become more confrontational, more Roman. With all of these things, the Roman army that meets the Parthians first and the Parthian army that meets the Romans, neither is really designed or practiced at fighting something like the other. And that's why it's so haphazard early on, you know, one side winning and then...

We don't get detailed accounts of them, but the Parthian armies that have invaded Asia Minor and Syria get defeated by Ventidius, Antony's subordinate, in three big battles where they attack uphill against Roman infantry. It's the opposite of this harassing Cahai-type image that we've developed. So the Parthians aren't always playing by the same rules that we expect. But it may also be that could be a sign that

Well, we beat them the first time at Carhai, therefore these people can't be much good. And we are the Arsacid Parthians. We have conquered all the world that's worth having. Each empire tends to think of itself in very much the same way. It has that confidence that we're bound to win just because of who we are. The Romans are over-competent losers at Carhai, then the Parthians do the same thing and lose the next few encounters. But because they're not described in any detail...

It's much harder to say, look at the mechanics of just how and why they did that. So you'll get this, well, you know, your Roman legionary, he just can't face up to horse archer. He's met his match and this is his nemesis. Well,

Apparently not. You know, the Roman armies beat Parthian armies sometimes, and sometimes they lose. It's more complicated than that, but we don't have accounts of it. And because people will often mentally reduce a battle to sort of one soldier fighting another, or a small group in a sort of couple of minutes Hollywood scene, that's not war. War is more complicated. Battles are more complicated. There's lots of other factors. But yes, the horse is clearly...

Part of it, and there may be, but there is this nomadic thread that goes through, but you do have to wonder, you know, 400 years on. And because of the nature of, yes, it's the Parthian royal family and only the someone of the blood can succeed. But because...

A lot of your power base is through intermarriage. You take as wives, but also as concubines, as part of the harem, noblewomen, daughters from all the nobility, all the lesser kings of your empire, some of whom are Parthian appointees, Parthian aristocrats, but some of whom aren't. The language survives, so that's an aspect of it. And assuming it is

Well, it probably is the language of the area they've occupied rather than the area that they came from originally. So it's distinct. There is a Parthian identity that remains distinct and that survives right the way through to the end of the Sasanian dynasty 400 years later and beyond. So, you know, these groups like the Karin and the Miran and Surinam, they do survive for a while under the Arabic rule because, again, they've realized which way the wind's blowing and have done a deal with the new imperial power.

and are accepted. So there are clearly groups and there are sort of systems of loyalty, of power, of control that work in the heartland of the Empire that just last generation after generation. At least people with the same names. I mean, whether you now have been made head of this clan and you were nothing to do with it before, who knows? So that could happen, but there is a sense of continuity. Yeah, it's almost like they follow the same pattern as the Ptolemies and the Seleucids, the Arsaces and the Mithridates, always the same names.

I kind of want to steer away from Rome, but keep on contacts with people outside of the Parthian Empire.

diplomatic connections because of course mesopotamia rich center of the parthian empire they've got contacts with the romans to the west not always fighting them as you've highlighted but of course you've got other really interesting powers like the nabataeans who facilitate trade with the persian gulf and beyond and india you have presumably contacts with the sarka the sidians further north in kazakhstan and that area

But how far do these diplomatic connections go? Do they stretch as far as places like China? They do. I mean, that's one of the most...

fascinating bits of doing that. There are some Chinese records of diplomatic activity where you've had periods where the Chinese empire has been weak and has contracted, but as it starts to expand, it pushes towards the Hindu Kush, it pushes in that area, and it never comes in direct border-to-border contact with the Parthians, but it sends envoys ahead who get to the Parthians who are described. I mean, there are some interesting accounts that are

It's hard to date some of the editions of some of these Chinese texts where they seem to be modified as time goes on. But diplomatic contact is made with the King of Kings. Asasa is, you know, they just call it by the name of the dynasty or a version of that. There is an exchange of gifts, and the Chinese are particularly impressed by ostrich feathers and ostrich eggs. There's also a report on, in each of the communities you go to,

What do they produce? What do they want to buy? There's a commercial element along with the sort of imperial power is, okay, well, what's, you know, how can they be useful to us? And also, can we make a profit from them? So there are lists of, and you know, there's one group in between that are, you know, very tough bargainers. This is one of these comments. But you also have some strange bits in it in that it's one of those natural cultural assumptions. The Chinese assume that the Parthians are producing lots of rice. Right.

Because that's what civilized people will do. And they can see these people have settled cities. And again, it's taking your own standards of this is what a proper culture should be. And then you judge everybody else, just as pretty much every society does, on how close they come to that. Whereas, yeah, there's probably a little bit of rice production, but it's not a big deal. Curiously enough, one of the sources mentions that they have their queens on their coins. And it's presumably from that tiny window where Musa...

is on these things. That's some of the stuff they've brought back. Oh yeah, there we go. Rather than, because that's just a one-off. The Chinese are very dimly aware or become dimly aware of the Roman Empire. And at one point, there is another account that talks about somebody who'd gone into the Parthian Empire and then got down to the Gulf and asked about, well, how far is it to Rome? And it's told, you know, it's sort of

Yes, yes. Don't go that way. Yeah, exactly. And you don't know whether it's they just didn't understand anything. Well, you know, you're sailing around the Horn of Africa or something, and then maybe it would. Or whether they're just saying, hey, we don't want to let people know about this. It's like there's that marvellous story of...

I think it's from one of the Greek cities following Phoenician traders sailing around the coast of Spain, in the Atlantic coast. And the man from Gardaise runs himself aground to protect the knowledge of the routes to Britain and tin and this sort of thing. And he's rewarded by his home community because, yep, good man. That's our little market. We don't want anybody horning in on that. And you will get later on competition and attempts to exclude merchants from the Roman Empire.

on the east coast of Africa, but also in Sri Lanka, India. Because again, you've got, through the trade winds, it develops more by the first century and later, but you've got this constant trade using the monsoon to the Red Sea ports of Egypt. You've also got the overland trade. You mentioned the Nabataeans and of course Palmyra

It's interesting, Pliny the Elder talks about Palmyra as next to the empire rather than within it, although it does look, you know, there seems to be an awful lot of Roman influence in government from quite early on. But nevertheless, if you look at their inscriptions, you know, this wealth of, you have all these people celebrated for being the men who presided over and guarded the caravans that go from there into Babylonia, into the Parthian empire and back again. And again, it's like the Jewish pilgrims coming to the temple, right?

Nobody seems bothered by the fact that what you effectively have is an armed column taking goods from one empire to another. It isn't seen as an invasion. It's seen as just, well, this is good for both of us.

There's a lot of cultural exchange, and they are exposed to many ideas in the same way that the empire itself is quite diverse as it has always been. Again, we talk about it as Achaemenid Persia, but the Persians were one group from within it who'd taken over. In a sense, you can actually see the Macedonians as the same, because they'd been on the fringes of the Achaemenid Empire, and suddenly you get this warlord arises and rebels and overthrows us, creates a new dynasty. That sort of pattern. But it means there are lots of, you know, the Babylonians are...

doing things the way they've always done them, whoever was in charge, basically. And the temple cults continue, the record-keeping continues, all of this sort of thing. So there's a good deal of variation and local cultures within that. And then it's very hard to tell. I mean, the trade probably reaches its height in the later first, second centuries AD, but it will continue for centuries afterwards. How often...

any person goes sort of all the way through from the Roman Empire to China and back again, or how many middlemen there are. On the other hand...

You know, you're getting amber from the Baltic, comes through the Roman Empire, ends up in China, becomes insignia of grades within the court. Roman trained slaves, entertainers were popular in China. You know, a novelty thing. And presumably the vice versa, it's not just pepper and spices and things that are coming in. And of course, the extraordinary thing later on where you have Chinese silk,

coming into the Roman Empire being woven again in Syrian workshops and sent back and sold to the Chinese who think that the Romans have a different type of silk to their own. The methods of dyeing and the way it was presented because they think, well, they must have silkworms or something. It's...

All these odd things, and you get glimpses of these stories going on. But there is a lot of exchange, and it is a bigger world. And the Parthians are part of it, because in a sense, they're in this crossroads. And as the Sasanians will later see it, for them, it's the center of the world. And there are these fringe peoples out there who are quite interesting on either side. But again, it's a reminder of they're not so famous, but they are so successful. They control the bulk of this empire for...

350 years. I mean, the Parthian dynasty itself is about 450 years, longer than the Sasanian one that lasts about 400. But between the two, and it is essentially the same empire with a different royal dynasty, some different practices, but basically the same people, they are around for over 800 years. That's pretty good going by any standards. When you think of

The rise and fall of Achaemenid Persians, Medes, Assyrians, you know, all the different empires that have risen and fallen in broadly the same area. It's not always quite the same. Few have, well, none of them have lasted that long. So it's an element maybe having at times at least a strong and stable Rome on one side, China on the other side.

encourages this because it means there's markets you can profit from this and you're wealthy enough to have the manpower, the force to control a region. Or perhaps it just all comes together, the condition is just right.

perhaps the political success is what allows that trading success. We could still talk about so much, but I will have to wrap up here. We've barely scratched the surface, but we have done a good job of kind of giving an overview of the Parthians and their place in ancient history. Adrian, your new book explores all of this, but goes into so much more depth and so much more narrative. It is called? The Eagle and the Lion, or...

Roman Persia in America. And that explores the Parthians and the Sassanians and their interactions with Rome and where they sit in the ancient world in there. From first contact, well, it looks at the origins of each, but mostly from first contact in the first century BC through to the Arab invasions, the collapse of the Sassanian Empire in the 7th century AD, and the shrinking of the Eastern Roman Empire as it is by then to this sort of nub of what had been there before. So the 800 years rivalry, basically, or 7800 years.

quite a lot to cover in the book, I must admit. Well, Adrian, it just goes to me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come back on the podcast today. Happy to do it. Lots of fun. Well, there you go. There was Dr. Adrian Goldsworthy talking about the Parthians, these extraordinary people who were the bane of Rome at certain stages, the victors of great defeats for the Romans, such as the Battle of Cari. But as you heard in this episode,

They're much more than just being these rivals of Rome. And although we know less about them than, say, the Romans, Greeks or Egyptians, more information is starting to come to light from the surviving archaeology in Mesopotamia, places like Iraq and Iran and so on, which is shining more of a light on this extraordinary people of the ancient world. So I hope you enjoyed today's episode.

Last thing from me, wherever you're listening to the podcast, make sure that you are subscribed, that you are following the ancients, so that you don't miss out when we release new episodes twice every week. But that's enough from me, and I will see you in the next episode.

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