AEGYPTEN.

[Larger image] (336 kB)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The conception that the Roman and the Parthian empires were two great states standing side by side, and indeed the only ones in existence, dominated the whole Roman East, particularly the frontier-provinces. It meets us palpably in the Apocalypse of John, in which there is a juxtaposition as well of the rider on the white horse with the bow and of the rider on the red horse with the sword (vi. 2, 3) as of the Megistanes and the Chiliarchs (vi. 15, comp. xviii. 23, xix. 18). The closing catastrophe, too, is conceived as a subduing of the Romans by the Parthians bringing back the emperor Nero (ix. 14, xvi. 12) and Armageddon, whatever may be meant by it, as the rendezvous of the Orientals for the collective attack on the West. Certainly the author, writing in the Roman empire, hints these far from patriotic hopes more than he expresses them.

[2] This holds true even in some measure for the chronology. The official historiography of the Sassanids reduces the space between the last Darius and the first Sassanid from 558 to 266 years (Nöldeke, Tabari, p. 1).

[3] The viceroys of Persis are called in their title constantly “Zag Alohin” (at least the American signs correspond to these words, which were presumably in pronunciation expressed in the Persian way), son of God (Mordtmann, Zeitschrift für Numismatik, iv. 155 f.), and to this corresponds the title θεοπάτωρ on the Greek coins of the great-kings. The designation “God” is also found, as with the Seleucids and the Sassanids.—Why a double diadem is attributed to the Arsacids (Herodian, vi. 2, 1) is not cleared up.

[4] Τῶν Παρθυαίων συνέδριόν φησιν (Ποσειδώνιος) εἶναι, says Strabo, xi. 9, 3, p. 515, διττόν, τὸ μὲν συγγενῶν, τὸ δὲ σοφῶν καὶ μάγων, ἐξ ὧν ἀμφοῖν τοὺς βασιλεῖς καθίστασθαι (καθίστησιν in MSS.); Justinus, xvii. 3, 1, Mithridates rex Parthorum ... propter crudelitatem a senatu Parthico regno pellitur.

[5] In Egypt, whose court ceremonial, as doubtless that of all the states of the Diadochi, is based on that ordained by Alexander, and in so far upon that of the Persian empire, the like title seems to have been conferred also personally (Franz, C. I. Gr. iii. 270). That the same occurred with the Arsacids, is possible. Among the Greek-speaking subjects of the Arsacid state the appellation μεγιστᾶνες seems in the original stricter use to denote the members of the seven houses; it is worthy of notice that megistanes and satrapae are associated (Seneca, Ep. 21; Josephus, Arch. xi. 3, 2; xx. 2, 3). The circumstance that in court mourning the Persian king does not invite the megistanes to table (Suetonius, Gai. 5) suggests the conjecture that they had the privilege of taking meals with him. The title τῶν πρώτων φίλων is also found among the Arsacids just as at the Egyptian and Pontic courts (Bull. de corr. Hell. vii. p. 349).