[66] The beginning of the Ursinian excerpt of Dio, lxxv. 1, 2, is confused. Οἱ Ὀρροηνοὶ, it is said, καὶ οἱ Ἀδιαβηνοὶ ἀποστάντες καὶ Νίσιβιν πολιορκοῦντες καὶ ἡττηθέντες ὑπὸ Σεουήρου ἐπρεσβεύσαντο πρὸς αὐτὸν μετὰ τὸν τοῦ Νίγρου θάνατον. Osrhoene was then Roman, Adiabene Parthian; from whom did the two districts revolt? and whose side did the Nisibenes take? That their opponents were defeated by Severus before the sending of the embassy is inconsistent with the course of the narrative; for the latter makes war upon them because their envoys make unsatisfactory offers to him. Probably the supporting of Niger by subjects of the Parthians and their concert with Niger’s Roman partisan are now strictly apprehended as a revolt from Severus; the circumstance that the people afterwards maintain that they had intended rather to support Severus, is clearly indicated as a makeshift. The Nisibenes may have refused to co-operate, and therefore have been attacked by the adherents of Niger. Thus is explained what is clear from the extract given by Xiphilinus from Dio, lxxv. 2, that the left bank of the Euphrates was for Severus an enemy’s land, but not Nisibis; therefore the town need not have been Roman at that time; on the contrary, according to all indications, it was only made Roman by Severus.
[67] As the wars against the Arabians and the Adiabenians were in fact directed against the Parthians, it was natural that the titles Parthicus, Arabicus, and Parthicus Adiabenicus, should on that account be conferred on the emperor; they are also so found, but usually Parthicus is omitted, evidently because, as the biographer of Severus says (c. 9), excusavit Parthicum nomen, ne Parthos lacesseret. With this agrees the notice certainly belonging to the year 195 in Dio, lxxv. 9, 6, as to the peaceful agreement with the Parthians and the cession of a portion of Armenia to them.
[68] That Armenia also fell into their power is indicated by Herodian, v. 9, 2; no doubt his representation is warped and defective.
[69] When at the peace in 218 the old relation between Rome and Armenia was renewed, the king of Armenia gave himself the prospect of a renewal of the Roman annual moneys (Dio, lxxviii. 27: τοῦ Τιριδάτου τὸ ἀργύριον ὃ κατ' ἔτος παρὰ τῶν Ῥωμαίων εὑρίσκετο ἐλπίσαντος λήψεσθαι). Payment of tribute proper by the Romans to the Armenians is excluded for the period of Severus and the time before Severus, and by no means agrees with the words of Dio; the connection must be what we have indicated. In the fourth and fifth centuries the fortress of Biriparach in the Caucasus, which barred the Dariel pass, was maintained by the Persians, who played the part of masters here after the peace of 364, with a Roman contribution, and this was likewise conceived as payment of tribute (Lydus, de Mag. iii. 52, 53; Priscus, fr. 31, Mull.).
[70] Artaxares names his father Papacus in the inscription, quoted at p. 83, note 1, king; how it is to be reconciled with this, that not merely does the native legend (in Agathias ii. 27) make Pabek a shoemaker, but also the contemporary Dio (if in reality Zonaras, xii. 15, has borrowed these words from him) names Artaxares ἐξ ἀφανῶν καὶ ἀδόξων, we do not know. Naturally the Roman authors take the side of the weak legitimate Arsacid against the dangerous usurper.
[71] Strabo (under Tiberius) xv. 3, 24: νῦν δ' ἤδη καθ' αὐτοὺς συνεστῶτες οἱ Πέρσαι βασιλέας ἔχουσιν ὑπηκόους ἑτέροις βασιλεῦσι, πρότερον μὲν Μακεδόσι, νῦν δὲ Παρθυαίοις.
[72] When Nöldeke says (Tabari, p. 449), “The subjection of the chief lands of the monarchy directly to the crown formed the chief distinction of the Sassanid kingdom from the Arsacid, which had real kings in its various provinces,” the power of the great-kingdom beyond doubt is thoroughly dependent on the personality of the possessor, and under the first Sassanids must have been much stronger than under the last decayed Arsacids. But a contrast in principle is not discoverable. From Mithradates I., the proper founder of the dynasty, onward the Arsacid ruler names himself “king of kings,” just as did subsequently the Sassanid, while Alexander the Great and the Seleucids never bore this title. Even under them individual vassal-kings ruled, e.g. in Persis (p. 81, note 2); but the vassal-kingdom was not then the regular form of imperial administration, and the Greek rulers did not name themselves according to it, any more than the Caesars assumed the title of great-king on account of Cappadocia or Numidia. The satraps of the Arsacid state were essentially the Marzbans of the Sassanids. Perhaps rather the great imperial offices, which in the Sassanid polity correspond to the supreme administrative posts of the Diocletiano-Constantinian constitution, and probably were the model for the latter, were wanting to the Arsacid state; then certainly the two would be related to each other much as the imperial organisation of Augustus to that of Constantine. But we know too little of the Arsacid organisation to affirm this with certainty.
[73] According to the Persian records of the last Sassanid period preserved in the Arabic chronicle of Tabari Ardashir, after he has cut off with his own hand the head of Ardawan and has assumed the title Shahan-shah, king of kings, conquers first Hamadhan (Ecbatana) in Great Media, then Aderbijan (Atropatene), Armenia, Mosul (Adiabene); and further Suristan or Sawad (Babylonia). Thence he returns to Istachr unto his Persian home, and then starting afresh conquers Sagistan, Gurgan (Hyrcania), Abrashahr (Nisapur in the Parthian land), Merv (Margiane), Balkh (Bactra), and Charizm (Khiva) up to the extreme limits of Chorasan. “After he had killed many people and had sent their heads to the fire-temple of Anahedh (in Istachr), he returned from Merv to Pars and settled in Gor” (Feruzabad). How much of this is legend, we do not know (comp. Nöldeke, Tabari, p. 17, 116).
[74] The title runs in Greek (C. I. Gr. 4675), Μάσδασνος (Mazda-servant, treated as a proper name) θεὸς Ἀρταξάρης βασιλεὺς βασιλέων Ἀριανῶν ἐκ γένους θεῶν; with which closely agrees the title of his son Sapor I. (ib. 4676), only that after Ἀριανῶν there is inserted καὶ Ἀναριανῶν, and so the extension of the rule to foreign lands is brought into prominence. In the title of the Arsacids, so far as it is clear from the Greek and Persian legends of coins, θεός, βασιλεὺς βασιλέων, θεοπάτωρ (= ἐκ γένους θεῶν) recur, whereas there is no prominence given to the Arians and, significantly, to the "Mazda-servant"; by their side appear numerous other titles borrowed from the Syrian kings, such as ἐπιφάνης, δίκαιος, νικάτωρ, also the Roman αὐτοκράτωρ.
[75] Frawardin, Ardhbehesht, etc. (Ideler, Chronologie, ii. 515). It is remarkable that essentially the same names of the months have maintained themselves in the provincial calendar of the Roman province Cappadocia (Ideler, i. 443); they must proceed from the time when it was a Persian satrapy.