The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6: Parthia: The History, Geography, And Antiquities Of Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, And Sassanian or New Persian Empire; With Maps and Illustrations.Rawlinson, George
History
The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6: Parthia: The History, Geography, And Antiquities Of Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, And Sassanian or New Persian Empire; With Maps and Illustrations.
enemies, he repulsed all foreign invaders and, as against them,
maintained intact the ancient dominions of the Arsacidae. He practically
added Arminia to the Empire. Everywhere success attended him, except
against a domestic foe. Hyrcania seceded during his reign, and it may
be doubted whether Parthia ever afterwards recovered it. An example was
thus set of successful Arian revolt against the hitherto irresistible
Turanians, which may have tended in no slight degree to produce the
insurrection which eventually subverted the Parthian Empire.
The successor of Volagases I. was Pacorus, whom most writers on Parthian
history have regarded as his son. There is, however, no evidence of this
relationship; and the chief reason for regarding Pacorus as belonging
even to the same branch of the Arsacidse with Volagases I. is his youth
at his accession, indicated by the beardless head upon his early coins,
which is no doubt in favor of his having been a near relation of the
preceding king. PLATE III., Fig 1. The Parthian coins show that his
reign continued at least till A.D. 93; it may have lasted considerably
longer, for the earliest date on any coin of Chosroes is AEr. Seleuc.
421, or A.D. 110. The accession of Chosroes has been conjecturally
assigned to A.D. 108, which would allow to Pacorus the long reign of
thirty years. Of this interval it can only be said that, so far as our
knowledge goes, it was almost wholly uneventful. We know absolutely
nothing of this Pacorus except that he gave encouragement to a person
who pretended to be Nero; that he enlarged and beautified Otesiphon;
that he held friendly communications with Decebalus, the great Dacian
chief, who was successively the adversary of Domitian and Trajan; and
that he sold the sovereignty of Osrhoene at a high price to the Edessene
prince who was cotemporary with him. The Pseudo-Nero in question appears
to have taken refuge with the Parthians in the year A.D. 89, and to have
been demanded as an impostor by Domitian. Pacorus was at first inclined
to protect and to even assist him, but after a while was induced to give
him up, probably by a threat of hostilities. The communication with
the Dacian chief was most likely earlier. The Dacians, in one of
those incursions into Maesia which they made during the first years of
Domitian, took captive a certain Callidromus, a Greek, if we may judge
by his name, slave to a Roman of some rank, named Liberius Maximus. This
prisoner Decebalus (we are told) sent as a present to Pacorus, in whose
service and favor he remained for a number of years. This circumstance,
insignificant enough in itself, acquires an interest from the indication
which it gives of intercommunication between the enemies of Rome, even
when they were separated by vast spaces, and might have been thought
to have been wholly ignorant of each other’s existence. Decebalus can
scarcely have been drawn to Pacorus by any other attraction than that
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