In Artabanus’ life-time the second place in the empire had been held by one Gotarzes, who appears to have been his colleague in the upper satrapies, and perhaps his lieutenant in his flight to Adiabene. But there is monumental evidence that he was not, as Josephus says and Tacitus implies, Artabanus’ son (except by adoption), and so we find that the succession first fell to Vardanes, who coined money in September, 40 A.D. But in 41 A.D., Gotarzes gave Vardanes an opportunity to return; in two days he rode 345 miles, and taking his rival by surprise he forced him to flee, and occupied the lower satrapies, where he coined regularly from July, 42 A.D., onwards. The renewal of civil war enabled the emperor Claudius, with the aid of the Iberians, to drive the Parthian satrap Demonax from Armenia and reseat Mithridates on the throne. Meantime Gotarzes and Vardanes were face to face in the plain of western or Parthian Bactria, but an attempt on the life of the latter having been disclosed by his foe they made peace, and Gotarzes withdrew to Hyrcania; while Vardanes, confirmed in his empire, returned to Seleucia and took it in 43 A.D. after a siege of seven years. That Vardanes was a great king is plain from the high praise of Tacitus and the attention which the greatest of Roman historians bestows on a reign which had no direct relations to Rome. Vardanes, whose last coin is of August, 45 A.D., was murdered while hunting--a victim, we are told, to the hatred produced by his severity to his subjects. But in judging of the charges brought against him and his two predecessors, we must remember that the rise of a new dynasty like that of Artabanus is always accompanied by deeds of violence, and that the oppressed subjects are simply the utterly unruly Parthian nobles who had lost all discipline in the long civil wars, and could only be controlled by force.