[6] A royal cup-bearer, who is at the same time general, is mentioned in Josephus, _Arch._ xiv. 13, 7 = _Bell. Jud._ i. 13, 1. Similar court offices are of frequent occurrence in the states of the Diadochi. [7] Tacitus, _Ann._ xv. 2, 31. If, according to the preface of Agathangelos (p. 109, Langlois), at the time of the Arsacids the oldest and ablest prince bore rule over the country, and the three standing next to him were kings of the Armenians, of the Indians, and of the Massagetae, there is here perhaps at bottom the same arrangement. That the Partho-Indian empire, if it was combined with the main land, was likewise regarded as an appanage for the second son, is very probable. [8] These are doubtless meant by Justinus (xli. 2, 2), _proximus maiestati regum praepositorum ordo est; ex hoc duces in bello, ex hoc in pace rectores habent_. The native name is preserved by the gloss in Hesychius, βίσταξ ὁ βασιλεὺς παρὰ Πέρσαις. If in Ammianus, xxiii. 6, 14, the presidents of the Persian _regiones_ are called _vitaxae_ (read _vistaxae_), _id est magistri equitum et reges et satrapae_, he has awkwardly referred what is Persian to all Inner Asia (comp. _Hermes_, xvi. 613); we may add that the designation “leaders of horsemen” for these viceroys may relate to the fact that they, like the Roman governors, united in themselves the highest civil and the supreme military power, and the army of the Parthians consisted preponderantly of cavalry. [9] This we learn from the title σατράπης τῶν σατραπῶν, attributed to one Gotarzes in the inscription of Kermanschahân in Kurdistan (_C. I. Gr._ 4674). It cannot be assigned to the Arsacid king of the same name as such; but perhaps there may be designated by it, as Olshausen (_Monatsbericht der Berliner Akademie_, 1878, p. 179) conjectures, that position which belonged to him after his renouncing of the great-kingdom (Tacitus, _Ann._ xi. 9). [10] Still later a troop of horse in the Parthian army is called that “of the free:” Josephus, _Arch._ xiv. 13, 5 = _Bell. Jud._ i. 13, 3. [11] The oldest known coin with Pahlavi writing was struck in Claudius’s time under Vologasus I.; it is bilingual, and gives to the king in Greek his full title, but only the name Arsaces, in Iranian merely the native individual name shortened (_Vol._). [12] Usually this is restricted to the large silver money, and the small silver and most of the copper are regarded as of royal coinage. But by this view a singular secondary part in coinage is assigned to the great-king. More correctly perhaps the former coinage is conceived of as predominantly destined for dealings abroad, the latter as predominantly for internal intercourse; the diversities subsisting between the two kinds are also explained in this way. [13] The first ruler that bears it is Phraapates about 188 B.C. (Percy Gardner, _Parthian Coinage_, p. 27).