A Manual of Ancient History

by M. E. Thalheimer

Ariarathes V. (B. C. 131-96) presents the sole example of a “blameless prince” in the three centuries following Alexander. No act of deceit or cruelty is recorded against him. Cappadocia, under his reign, became a celebrated abode of philosophy, under the patronage and example of the king. With Ariarathes VIII., the royal Persian line became extinct, and the Cappadocians chose a new sovereign in Ariobarza´nes I. (B. C. 93-64). This king was three times driven out of his dominions by the sovereigns of Armenia and Pontus, and three times reinstated by the Romans. The last king, Archelaus (B. C. 36-A. D. 17), was summoned by Tibe´rius to Rome, where he died, and his kingdom became a Roman province.

IX. Armenia.

97. Armenia was included in the kingdom of the Seleucidæ, from the battle of Ipsus to that of Magnesia, B. C. 190. Two generals of Antiochus III. then revolted against him, and set up the kingdoms of Armenia Major on the east, and Armenia Minor on the west of the Euphrates. The greatest king of Armenia Major was Tigranes I. (B. C. 96-55), who not only gained important victories from the Parthian monarch, but conquered all Syria, and held it fourteen years. He incurred the vengeance of Rome in various ways, but chiefly by sustaining his father-in-law, Mithridates, in his wars against the Republic. He suffered several calamitous defeats, with the loss of his capital, Tigran´ocer´ta.

In 67 B. C., the disaffection of the Roman troops gave the two kings the opportunity to recover much of what they had lost. The appearance of the great Pompey upon the scene again turned the tide. The young Tigranes rebelled against his father, with the aid of Parthia and Rome. The king surrendered all his conquests, retaining only his hereditary kingdom of the Greater Armenia. His son, Artavas´des I. (B. C. 55-34), aided the expedition of Crassus against the Parthians; but having afterward offended Antony, he was taken prisoner and put to death by order of Cleopatra. Artaxias, his son, ordered a massacre of all the Romans in Armenia. In 19 B. C., he was himself murdered by his own relations. The remaining kings were sovereigns only in name, being set up or displaced alternately by the Romans and Parthians, until Armenia was absorbed by the former, A. D. 114. Armenia Minor was usually a dependency of some neighboring kingdom, from the time of Mithridates to that of Vespa´sian (A. D. 69-79), when it, too, became a Roman province.

X. Bactria.

98. Bactria was a part of the Syrian empire from 305 to 255 B. C. Diodotus, the satrap, then made himself independent, and established a new Greek kingdom, the most easterly of all the scattered fragments of Alexander’s conquests. Euthydemus, the third king, was a native of Magnesia, and a usurper (B. C. 222-200). His son Demetrius made many victorious campaigns, extending over Afghanistan and into India (B. C. 200-180). He lost a part of his native dominions to a rebel, Eucrat´ides, who reigned north of the Pa´ropam´isus range during the life of Demetrius, and after his death, over the whole country. He, too, carried on Indian wars with great energy and success. Under his son, Heli´ocles (B. C. 160-150), the Bactrian kingdom rapidly declined, being invaded by the Parthian kings on the west, and the Tartar tribes from the north.

XI. Parthian Empire of the Arsacidæ.

99. The Parthians established their independence about B. C. 250, under the lead of the Scythian Arsaces. The people were of the same race with the modern Turks—treacherous in war, indolent and unaspiring in peace, rude in arts and barbarous in manners. Their warlike hardihood, however, gave the Romans a more troublesome resistance than they encountered in any other portion of Alexander’s former empire; and the dominion of the Arsacidæ lasted nearly 500 years, until it was overthrown by the new Persian kingdom, A. D. 226. The greatness of the Parthian empire dates from Mithridates, who is also called Arsaces VI., B. C. 174-136. The neighboring kingdom of Bactria, with its Greek monarchs and its higher civilization, had hitherto maintained the ascendency; but while these kings were absorbed in their Indian conquests, Mithridates seized upon several of their provinces, and eventually absorbed their whole dominion.

Coin of Arsaces III., twice the size of original.