6. Artabanus III. reigned a short time in A.D. 80 (on a coin of this year he calls himself Arsaces Artabanus) and the following years, and supported a pretender who rose in Asia Minor under the name of Nero (Zonaras xi. 18), but could not maintain himself against Pacorus II.
7. Artabanus IV., the last Parthian king, younger son of Vologaeses IV., who died A.D. 209. He rebelled against his brother Vologaeses V. (Dio Cass. vii. 12), and soon obtained the upper hand, although Vologaeses V. maintained himself in a part of Babylonia till about A.D. 222. The emperor Caracalla, wishing to make use of this civil war for a conquest of the East in imitation of his idol, Alexander the Great, attacked the Parthians in 216. He crossed the Tigris, destroyed the towns and spoiled the tombs of Arbela; but when Artabanus advanced at the head of an army, he retired to Carrhae. There he was murdered by Macrinus in April 217. Macrinus was defeated at Nisibis and concluded a peace with Artabanus, in which he gave up all the Roman conquests, restored the booty, and paid a heavy contribution to the Parthians (Dio Cass. lxxviii. 26 f.). But at the same time, the Persian dynast Ardashir (q.v.) had already begun his conquests in Persia and Carmania. When Artabanus tried to subdue him his troops were defeated. The war lasted several years; at last Artabanus himself was vanquished and killed (A.D. 226), and the rule of the Arsacids came to an end.
See further [Persia]: History, § ancient, and works there quoted.
(Ed. M.)
ART AND PART, a term used in Scots law to denote the aiding or abetting in the perpetration of a crime,—the being an accessory before or at the perpetration of the crime. There is no such offence recognized in Scotland as that of being an accessory after the fact.
ARTAPHERNES, more correctly Artaphrenes, brother of Darius Hystaspis, and satrap of Sardis. It was he who received the embassy from Athens sent probably by Cleisthenes (q.v.) in 507 B.C., and subsequently warned the Athenians to receive back the “tyrant” Hippias. Subsequently he took an important part in suppressing the Ionian revolt (see [Ionia], [Aristagoras], [Histiaeus]), and after the war compelled the cities to make agreements by which all differences were to be settled by reference. He also measured out their territories in parasangs and assessed their tributes accordingly (Herod, vi. 42). In 492 he was superseded in his satrapy by Mardonius (Herodotus v. 25, 30-32, 35, &c.; Diod. Sic. x. 25). His son, of the same name, was appointed (490), together with Datis, to take command of the expedition sent by Darius to punish Athens and Eretria for their share in the Ionian revolt. After the defeat of Marathon he returned to Asia. In the expedition of Xerxes, ten years later, he was in command of the Lydians and Mysians (Herod, vi. 94, 119; vii. 74, Aesch. Persae, 21).
Aeschylus in his list of Persian kings (Persae, 775 ff.), which is quite unhistorical, mentions two kings with the name Artaphrenes, who may have been developed out of these two Persian commanders.
(Ed. M.)