fermented throughout the whole rule of the Arsacids, till it at length brought about their fall. But the rule of the Arsacids may not on that account be conceived as a foreign rule. No privileges were conceded to the Parthian stock and to the Parthian province. It is true that the Parthian town Hecatompylos is named as residence of the Arsacids; but they chiefly sojourned in summer at Ecbatana (Hamadan), or else at Rhagae like the Achaemenids, in winter, as already stated, in the camp-town of Ctesiphon, or else in Babylon on the extreme western border of the empire. The hereditary burial-place continued in the Parthian town Nisaea; but subsequently Arbela in Assyria served for that purpose more frequently. The poor and remote native province of the Parthians was in no way suited for the luxurious court-life, and the important relations to the West, especially of the later Arsacids. The chief country continued even now to be Media, just as under the Achaemenids. Although the Arsacids might be of Scythian descent, not so much depended on what they were as on what they desired to be; and they regarded and professed themselves throughout as the successors of Cyrus and of Darius. As the seven Persian family-princes had set aside the false Achaemenid, and had restored the legitimate rule by the elevation of Darius, so needs must other seven have overthrown the Macedonian foreign yoke and placed king Arsaces on the throne. With this patriotic fiction must further be connected the circumstance that a Bactrian nativity instead of a Scythian was assigned to the first Arsaces. The dress and the etiquette at the court of the Arsacids were those of the Persian court; after king Mithradates I. had extended his rule to the Indus and Tigris, the dynasty exchanged the simple title of king for that of king of kings which the Achaemenids had borne, and the pointed Scythian cap for the high tiara adorned with pearls; on the coins the king carries the bow like Darius. The aristocracy, too, that came into the land with the Arsacids and doubtless became in many ways mixed with the old indigenous one, adopted Persian manners and dress, mostly also Persian names; of the Parthian army which fought with Crassus it is said that the soldiers still wore their hair rough after the Scythian fashion, but the general appeared after the Median manner with the hair parted in the middle and with painted face. [Sidenote: The regal office.]