At this time the political horizon of Parthia was very wide, and its intercourse with the farthest East was livelier than at any other date. In 90 A.D. the Yue-chi had come to war with the governor of Chinese Tatary and been reduced to vassalship: in 94 A.D. a Chinese expedition slew their king, and advancing to the “North Sea” (Lake Aral) subdued fifty kingdoms. The Tochari, one sees, like the Greeks before them, had neglected the lands north of the Hindu-Kush in their designs on India; even of Ooemo-Kadphises no coins are found north of that range. In 97 A.D. Chinese envoys directed to Rome actually reached the Mediterranean, but were dissuaded from going further from Parthian accounts of the terrors of the sea voyage; and in 101 A.D. Muon-kiu, king of An-si (Parthians), sent lions and gazelles to the emperor of China. Muon-kiu reigned in Ho-to--_i.e._, Carta or Zadracarta in Hyrcania; he was therefore a king of the Hyrcanians, who also held the old Parthian lands east of the Caspian Gate, and may be identical with a king, rival to Pacorus, who struck copper coins in 107 and 108 A.D., if the latter is not identical with the later monarch Osroes. But at any rate the representative of the Parthian power in the West was still Pacorus II, who in 110 A.D. sold the crown of Edessa to Abgar VII, bar Izat, and died soon after, making way for his brother Osroes, who had to reckon with two rivals--Volagases II from 112 A.D. onwards, and Meherdates (Mithridates) VI. The latter was a brother of Osroes, and so probably was the former. None of the three was strong enough to conquer the others, and continual war went on between them till Osroes was foolish enough to provoke Roman intervention by taking Armenia from Exedares, son of Pacorus, to whose appointment Rome had not objected, and transferring it to another son of Pacorus called Parthamasiris. THE ROMANS INTERVENE