Rome Parthia and the Politics of Peace

The Origins of War in the Ancient

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Rome, Parthia, and the Politics of
Peace

This volume offers an informed survey of the problematic

relationship between the ancient empires of Rome and Parthia from
c. 96/95 BCE to 224 CE. Schlude explores the rhythms of this
relationship and invites its readers to reconsider the past and our
relationship with it.
Some have looked to this confrontation to help explain the roots
of the long-lived conflict between the West and the Middle East. It is
a reading symptomatic of most scholarship on the subject, which
emphasizes fundamental incompatibility and bellicosity in Roman–
Parthian relations. Rather than focusing on the relationship as a
series of conflicts, Rome, Parthia, and the Politics of Peace responds
to this common misconception by highlighting instead the more
cooperative elements in the relationship and shows how a
reconciliation of these two perspectives is possible. There was, in
fact, a cyclical pattern in the Roman–Parthian interaction, where a
reality of peace and collaboration became overshadowed by images
of aggressive posturing projected by powerful Roman statesmen and
emperors for a domestic population conditioned to expect conflict.
The result was the eventual realization of these images by later
Roman opportunists who, unsatisfied with imagined war, sought
active conflict with Parthia.
Rome, Parthia, and the Politics of Peace is a fascinating new study
of these two superpowers that will be of interest not only to
students of Rome and the Near East but also to anyone with an
interest in diplomatic relations and conflict in the ancient world and
today.

Jason M. Schlude is Associate Professor of Classics and Chair of

the Department of Languages and Cultures at the College of Saint
Benedict and Saint John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota, USA. A
former Getty Scholar at the Getty Research Institute and Villa, he is
a specialist on the Roman Near East; has published on Roman–
Parthian relations in journals including Latomus, Athenaeum, and
Anabasis; and is coeditor of Arsacids, Romans, and Local Elites:
Cross-Cultural Interactions of the Parthian Empire (2017).
Routledge Studies in Ancient History

Titles include:

The Popes and the Church of Rome in Late Antiquity

John Moorhead

The Plight of Rome in the Fifth Century AD

Mark Merrony

Geopolitics in Late Antiquity

The Fate of Superpowers from China to Rome
Hyun Jin Kim

Image and Reality of Roman Imperial War in the Third Century AD

The Impact of War
Lukas de Blois

Sallust’s Histories and Triumviral Historiography

Confronting the End of History
Jennifer Gerrish

A History of the Pyrrhic War

Patrick Alan Kent

Rome, Parthia, and the Politics of Peace

The Origins of War in the Ancient Middle East
Jason M. Schlude

www.routledge.com/classicalstudies/series/RSANHIST
Rome, Parthia, and the
Politics of Peace
The Origins of War in the Ancient
Middle East

Jason M. Schlude
First published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2020 Jason M. Schlude

The right of Jason M. Schlude to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered

trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to
infringe.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record has been requested for this book

ISBN: 978-0-815-35370-6 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-351-13571-9 (ebk)

Typeset in Sabon
by codeMantra
For Kat, Hen, and Gus,
with love and gratitude
Contents

List of maps and figures

Acknowledgments
Maps

Introduction

1 Rome and Parthia meet: from Sulla to Lucullus

2 Empires with a boundary: Pompey and Phraates III

3 An opportunist strikes: Crassus and the battle of Carrhae

4 Parthian–Roman fallout: Orodes II and Mark Antony in the Near

East

5 A diplomatic restart: Augustus, Phraates IV, and Phraates V

6 Instability at home and abroad: diplomacy and war under the

Julio-Claudians

7 Legions on the Euphrates: the Parthian policy of the Flavians

8 The model of Trajan: the final stage for Rome and Parthia

Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
Maps and figures

Maps
1 Eastern Roman Empire in the 2nd century CE. Ancient World
Mapping Center © 2020 (awmc.unc.edu). Used by permission
2 Parthian Empire. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Parther_reich.jpg)
3 Armenia and its environs c. 50 CE. Courtesy of Cplakidas
(Wikimedia Commons,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Roman_East_50-
en.svg)

Figures
1 Silver drachm of Arsaces I, wearing a bashlyk, with reverse of
Arsaces I seated on a backless throne, holding a bow. Possibly
Nisa, c. 247-211 BCE. Sellwood 2.1 = Sunrise 237. Courtesy of
the Sunrise Collection
2 Silver drachm of Mithridates I, wearing a diadem, with reverse
of Arsaces I seated on an omphalos, holding a bow.
Hecatompylus, 148-132 BCE. Sellwood 11.1. Courtesy of G. R.
Assar
3 Silver drachm of Mithridates II, wearing a tiara, with reverse
of Arsaces seated on a throne and title ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΝ.
 Rhagai, 96/95-93/92 BCE. Sellwood 28.7. Courtesy of G. R.
Assar
4 Aureus of Pompey, with obverse of Africa wearing elephant
skin, and reverse of quadriga carrying Pompey. Rome, 61 BCE.
Roman Republican Coinage 402/1b. Courtesy of the British
Museum
5 Parthian woman and boy on Ara Pacis. Rome, 13 BCE.
Courtesy of Miguel Hermoso Cuesta (Wikimedia Commons,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ara_Pacis_relieve_Ro
ma_01.JPG)
6 Silver drachm of Phraataces, with reverse bust of Musa and
title ΘΕΑΣ ΟΥΡΑΝΙΑΣ ΜΟΥΣΗΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΙΣΣΗΣ. Ecbatana, 2 BCE-
4 CE. Sellwood 58.9. Courtesy of G. R. Assar
7 Denarius of Mark Antony, with reverse bust of Cleopatra and
title CLEOPATRAE REGINAE REGVM FILIORVM REGVM.
Alexandria, 34-32 BCE. Roman Republican Coinage 543/1.
Courtesy of Classical Numismatic Group
8 Provincial bronze of Augustus, with reverse bust of Livia and
title ΘΕΑ ΛΙΒΙΑ. Clazomenae, 27 BCE-14 CE. Roman Provincial
Coinage 2496. Courtesy of Classical Numismatic Group
9 Denarius of Augustus, with reverse of Parthian arch of
Augustus. Rome, 16 BCE. Roman Imperial Coinage 1.359.
Courtesy of Classical Numismatic Group
10 Denarius of Augustus, with obverse bust of Honos and reverse
of a Parthian kneeling and offering a standard. Rome, 19 BCE.
Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum 1.58.
Courtesy of Classical Numismatic Group
11 Augustus of Prima Porta. Rome, marble copy of an original
from c. 20 BCE. Courtesy of Sailko (Wikimedia Commons,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Augusto_di_pirma_p
orta,_inv._2290,_02.JPG)
12 Sesterius of Nero, with reverse of Parthian arch of Nero.
Lugdunum, 62–68 CE. Roman Imperial Coinage 1.393.
Courtesy of Classical Numismatic Group
13 Arch of Titus, with detail of Roman soldiers carrying Jewish
Temple’s spoils. Rome, c. 81 CE. Courtesy of Jebulon
(Wikimedia Commons,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arch_Titus,_relief_Je
rusalem_treasure,_Forum_Romanum,_Rome,_Italy.jpg)
14 Denarius of Septimius Severus, with reverse of emperor
setting out on horseback and legend PROFECTIO AVG(VSTI).
Rome, 197 CE. Roman Imperial Coinage 4.1.106. Courtesy of
Classical Numismatic Group
15 (a and b) Aureus of Lucius Verus, with reverse of emperor on
horse spearing enemy. Rome, 166 CE. Roman Imperial
Coinage 3.567. Münzkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.
Photography by Dirk Sonnenwald
16 Aureus of Trajan, with reverse of trophy flanked by Parthian
captives and legend PARTHIA CAPTA. Rome, 116 CE. Roman
Imperial Coinage 2.324. Courtesy of Classical Numismatic
Group
17 (a and b) Aureus of Septimius Severus and Caracalla, with
reverse of Victory advancing and legend VICTORIA PARTHICA
MAXIMA. Rome, 201 CE. Roman Imperial Coinage 4.1.311.
Courtesy of Numismatica Ars Classica NAC AG (auction 114,
lot 753)
18 (18a and b) Aureus of Hadrian, with obverse bust of divine
Trajan, and reverse of quadriga carrying effigy of Trajan.
Rome, 117–118 CE. Roman Imperial Coinage 2.26. Courtesy
of the British Museum
19 Sestertius of Antoninus Pius, with reverse of Parthia dragging
a bow and quiver and offering a crown. Rome, 139 CE. Roman
Imperial Coinage 3.586. Courtesy of Classical Numismatic
Group
20 Arch of Septimius Severus. Rome, 203 CE. Courtesy of
Rita1234 (Wikimedia Commons,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rome_Forum_Roman
um_Arch_Septimius_Severus.JPG)
21 Arch of Septimius Severus, with detail of Victories in central
spandrels flying with Parthian trophies. Rome, 203 CE.
Courtesy of Daderot (Wikimedia Commons,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arch_of_Septimius_S
everus_-_Rome,_Italy_-_DSC01604.jpg)
22 Arch of Septimius Severus, with detail of the northwest “Great
Panel” depicting siege of Seleucia or Babylon. Rome, 203 CE.
Courtesy of Amphipolis (Wikimedia Commons,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Relief_panel_on_the
_Arch_of_Septimius_Severus_(14636135523).jpg)
23 Arch of Septimius Severus, with detail of a pedestal depicting
a Roman soldier directing a Parthian captive. Rome, 203 CE.
Courtesy of Daderot (Wikimedia Commons,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arch_of_Septimius_S
everus_-_Rome,_Italy_-_DSC01611.jpg)
24 Rock-cut relief of Sasanian king Shapur I receiving Roman
emperors Philip and Valerian. Naqsh-e Rostam, c. 260 CE.
Courtesy of Pentocelo (Wikimedia Commons,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Naqsh-
_e_Rostam_VI_relief_Shapur_Ist.jpg)
25 Denarius of Septimius Severus, with reverse of Mars standing
with a spear, foot atop a helmet, and legend MARTI
PACIFERO. Rome, 197–198 CE. Roman Imperial Coinage
4.113. Courtesy of Classical Numismatic Group
Acknowledgments

This book comes of twelve years of research and writing on the

relationship between the ancient Roman and Parthian empires. It
began as my dissertation in the Graduate Group in Ancient History
and Mediterranean Archaeology at the University of California,
Berkeley in 2007–2009, and then entered a long period of revision
and expansion before this publication. Such a long gestation has
deepened my debt to those who have supported its writing.
My champions at Berkeley were several: Anthony Bulloch,
Crawford Greenewalt, Christopher Hallett, Robert Knapp, Trevor
Murphy, Carlos Noreña, Martin Schwartz, and Andrew Stewart. I am
grateful to each of them. Most important was and is Erich Gruen,
who supervised the dissertation and has remained pivotal in the
manuscript’s development since that time. He reviewed the full draft
at an advanced stage and provided crucial feedback, leading me to
clarify and sharpen the argument at many points. Beyond the book,
his teaching and friendship have enriched my life. It is not an
exaggeration to say that my world would be unrecognizable without
him. The debt cannot be repaid—and I am happy to live with it.
My conversation partners for Parthian history have been many. In
addition to Erich Gruen and Martin Schwartz, I wish to thank Björn
Anderson, Matthew Canepa, Peter Edwell, Kenneth Jones, Jeffrey
Lerner, Jake Nabel, Marek Olbrycht, and Andrew Overman. In
particular, Rahim Shayegan and Benjamin Rubin have given me
many opportunities to work on the subject and challenged me to
engage with an ever-widening corpus of evidence. They remain two
of the sharpest and most generous scholars with whom I have had
the privilege to work.
 I finished drafting the manuscript while on a research residency
as a Getty Scholar at the Getty Research Institute and Getty Museum
in Spring 2019. I could not imagine a better setting for the
completion of this phase of the project. The resources available to
me there—and the skill and good cheer with which the Getty staff
offered them—were remarkable. Special thanks must go to Rose
Campbell, Thisbe Gensler, Kenneth Lapatin, Alexa Sekyra, and
Jeffrey Spier. The manuscript was improved by exchanges with my
fellow scholars at the Getty Villa: Zsuzsanna Gulácsi, Kathleen Lynch,
Robert Rollinger, and Antigoni Zournatzi. The list of other scholars at
the Getty who broadened my intellectual horizons is too lengthy to
recount here. I trust they each know how much I enjoyed and
appreciated our time together. I also must thank my colleagues at
the Omrit Settlement Excavation Project in Israel (Jennifer Gates-
Foster, Michael Nelson, Benjamin Rubin, and Daniel Schowalter) who
increased their workload to allow me to accept the research
residency and complete this book.
Also I must mention several parties who played an important role
in the book’s final shape and usefulness to readers. I wish to thank
the capable editorial staff at Routledge Press. Amy Davis-Poynter,
Ella Halstead, and Elizabeth Risch were supportive at every stage of
the writing process. They assisted in the proper conception of the
project, knew where to be flexible and where to hold firm, and
brought the book safely into print. G. R. Farhad Assar provided the
images for the Arsacid coins. His scholarly contributions and
generosity have enriched the study of the Parthian Empire. Other
image permissions were granted by the Ancient World Mapping
Center of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Classical
Numismatic Group, Münzkabinett Berlin, Numismatica Ars Classica,
Sunrise Collection, and Wikimedia Commons.
Between 2010 and 2019, I taught at three different universities,
with colleagues who were fierce advocates of this project (not to
mention my career in general) and who proved to be the most
reliable of friends: William Greenwalt and John Heath of Santa Clara
University, Sarah Miller and Stephen Newmyer of Duquesne
University, and Martin Connell and Scott Richardson of the College of
St. Benedict and St. John’s University. Once more this list could be
endlessly extended, especially at St. Ben’s and St. John’s, where I
have spent countless hours talking about Romans and Parthians to
my carpool companions and where I have found an institution willing
to allow its scholars the time necessary for a project to mature. My
debt to my students at these schools is another too great to
measure. They have debated this material with me, always leading
to fresh insights. Their intelligence, enthusiasm, and optimism give
us hope.
In the field of history, we are always after principal drivers. For
me, they are teachers and family. Steven Aylward, Richard Hadel, S.
J., Dano Monahan, and Joseph Koestner, teachers at St. Louis
University High School, and Nanette Scott Goldman, Andrew
Overman, Beth Severy-Hoven, and Calvin Roetzel, professors at
Macalester College, were those who fired my enthusiasm for
teaching, writing, history, and classics. I am a professor because of
their passion. As for my family, it is here that I struggle most to
articulate my gratitude. It is often that way when the tangibles and
intangibles of life merge completely and on a grand scale.
Scholarship is hard work. My parents Roger and Linda sacrificed so
that I could develop the tools necessary to do it, and my parents-in-
law Jeanette Eberhardy and Peter and Jennifer Pyclik have sustained
the effort. My wife and best friend Katrina has shared me with
academia and enabled my success in every way since our days
together at Macalester. Knowing the self-doubt of scholarship is no
stranger to me, Katrina and our sons Hendrick and August have
always reminded me to believe in myself. It is to them that I
dedicate this book.
Maps

Map 1 Eastern Roman Empire in the 2nd century CE. Ancient World Mapping
Center © 2020 (awmc.unc.edu). Used by permission.
Map 2 Parthian Empire. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Parther_reich.jpg).
Map 3 Armenia and its environs c. 50 CE. Courtesy of Cplakidas (Wikimedia
Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Roman_East_50-
en.svg)
Introduction

The Present meets the past

Two major states are on course for collision in the Middle East: one
is a western power superior in its military resources, going from one
war to another in the Middle East, entangling itself in the region’s
geopolitics, and the other is a local state centered on the Iranian
Plateau with a reach extending to the Mediterranean, exercising
regional influence through political leaders and factions in
neighboring territories. Both are concerned for the balance of power
in the Middle East and their position and interests within it. Both
share a history of violence, involving captive- or hostage-taking
sometimes leading to further conflict. Each presents the other as a
dangerous enemy not to be trusted, a threat deserving of a military
campaign. Sound familiar? The answer may surprise many readers.
This description applies to the relationship of ancient Rome and
Parthia in the 1st century BCE through early 3rd century CE. This
book is an attempt to address what we may call “the Roman–
Parthian problem,” a shorthand expression for how we should best
understand and frame the relationship between these two great
empires of the ancient Mediterranean and Middle East. The tendency
of scholars, for generations, has been to describe Roman–Parthian
relations in the bleakest of terms, suggesting that their conflict was
inevitable and their active hostility fierce and ever-present. The
following questions whether this is the appropriate reading and
offers an instructive alternative. Before further discussion of the
problem and its possible solutions, the introduction of the main
players may be helpful for readers new to the subject.
Empires of interest
Familiar to most will be Rome, a city-state whose empire started
small but came to dominate the Mediterranean. This began with
Rome’s conquest of the Italian peninsula between the late 6th and
early 3rd centuries BCE, followed by the north African city-state of
Carthage in a series of wars (the first in 264–241 BCE and the
second in 218–201 BCE), and then several eastern Mediterranean
states (between 200 and 30 BCE). These included the Hellenistic
kingdoms of the Antigonids (located in Macedonia), the Seleucids (in
Syria and its environs, including Asia Minor, Phoenicia, and Judea),
Pontus (a territory in Asia Minor on the Black Sea), and the
Ptolemies (in Egypt). Along the way, expressions of Roman power
touched every Mediterranean coast, and Rome acquired numerous
provinces (territories it directly ruled and taxed), including Sicily (241
BCE); Sardinia and Corsica (227 BCE); Spain (197 BCE); Macedonia,
Achaea, and Africa (146 BCE); Asia (129 BCE); Transalpine Gaul (c.
120 BCE, expanded to the Rhine River and English Channel in 58–51
BCE); Phrygia (c. 120 BCE); Lycaonia and Cilicia (by 100 BCE); Crete
(c. 65 BCE); Bithynia–Pontus and Syria (63 BCE); Cyprus (58 BCE);
and Egypt (30 BCE). As is well known, Egypt was the last of the
great Hellenistic kingdoms to fall to Rome, in this case after its
queen Cleopatra VII (r. 51–30 BCE) and her Roman consort Mark
Antony were defeated in a Roman civil war by the future emperor
Augustus at the battle of Actium in 31 BCE. By this point, the Roman
Empire stretched from the Atlantic Sea to the Euphrates River, from
the North Sea to the Sahara Desert. It would grow even east of the
Euphrates in the 2nd century CE (a region of special concern for us),
leading to provinces in Osrhoene (c. 195 CE) and Mesopotamia (c.
198 CE). As a coordinated political unit, this Roman Empire
(notwithstanding adjustments in its borders and internal divisions)
would last into the 5th century CE.1
The Arsacids were a dynasty named after a certain Arsaces, who
established his rule c. 247 BCE over the nomadic Parni (one tribe of
the so-called Dahae). Not quite a decade later, in 238 BCE, Arsaces
led the Parni into and established his hegemony over the ancient
region of Parthia, located southeast of the Caspian Sea in modern-
day Turkmenistan. Once part of the Persian (Achaemenid) Empire,
Parthia (originally called Parthava by the Achaemenids) later became
part of the empire of Alexander the Great, king of Macedon (r. 336–
323 BCE) and conqueror of the Persians, before falling under the
authority of the Macedonian general Seleucus I Nicator (r. 305–281
BCE), who succeeded him and founded the Seleucid dynasty. It was
from the Seleucid Empire that Arsaces (r. 238–217 BCE) carved out
an independent kingdom of Parthia. Together, Arsaces, his Parni, and
the native inhabitants of his new kingdom developed into a people
called the “Parthians.” Speakers of a language akin to Middle Persian
(that we call “Parthian”), these Parthians were capable as mounted
bowmen—a trait celebrated on the coinage of Arsaces, whose
reverse image shows him seated on a backless throne with
outstretched arm holding a bow (Figure 1).2

Figure 1 Silver drachm of Arsaces I, wearing a bashlyk, with reverse of Arsaces I

seated on a backless throne, holding a bow. Possibly Nisa, c. 247–211
BCE. Sellwood 2.1 = Sunrise 237. Courtesy of the Sunrise Collection.

In addition, their rulers, the Arsacids, knew how to navigate the

cultural complexity of the Iranian landscape. They understood its
Achaemenid and Hellenistic character—and they drew on it. One
might note the coinage of Mithridates I (r. 171–139/138 BCE) and
Mithridates II (r. 124/123–88/87 BCE) (Figures 2 and 3), on which
the former was the first Arsacid to sport a diadem, the quintessential
symbol of Hellenistic kingship, and placed the reverse figure of
Arsaces in an eastern trouser suit upon an omphalos (“navel”), the
iconic seat of the god Apollo in city of Delphi. On other coins, he
even adopted the title “Lover of Greeks” (ΘΙΛΕΛΛΗΝΟΣ). As for
Mithridates II, he was the first Arsacid to advertise himself as “King
of Kings” (ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΝ), the privileged title of the
Achaemenid king, and tied his diadem around an upright tiara,
whose earflaps had Achaemenid precedent, too, though the overall
effect was distinctive (we might say “Parthian”; so also his V-neck
jacket). The beards and bows would have had associations with the
coinage of monarchs and satraps in both traditions.

Figure 2 Silver drachm of Mithridates I, wearing a diadem, with reverse of Arsaces

I seated on an omphalos, holding a bow. Hecatompylus, 148–132 BCE.
Sellwood 11.1. Courtesy of G. R. Assar.
Figure 3 Silver drachm of Mithridates II, wearing a tiara, with reverse of Arsaces
seated on a throne and title ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΝ. Rhagai, 96/95– 93/92
BCE. Sellwood 28.7. Courtesy of G. R. Assar.

The Arsacids utilized these diverse cultural forms to legitimize

their position as they used the martial ability of their people to
expand their power throughout the region. In the 2nd and 1st
centuries BCE, the Arsacids built an empire based on a flexible
political configuration of vassal territories, including Hyrcania (c. 235
BCE); Asponius and Turiva (possibly the territory of Traxiana, c. 150
BCE); Media (148 BCE); Babylonia (141 BCE); Elymais (139/138
BCE); presumably Persis, Seistan, and Arachosia (likely in the 130s
BCE); northern Mesopotamia (c. 113 BCE); and Armenia (c. 96 BCE).
The empire reached from the Euphrates River and Mesopotamia, on
the margins of which the Arsacids founded a capital city, Ctesiphon
(located on the east bank of the Tigris River, facing Seleucia-on-the-
Tigris on its west bank), to the Indus River (i.e., into modern
Afghanistan and Pakistan, part of the Hindu Kush watershed, on the
doorstep of India). We often refer to this as the “Parthian Empire.”
Not as long-lived as the Roman Empire, the Parthian Empire of the
Arsacids, nonetheless, survived till their ultimate defeat c. 224 CE by
Ardashir, descendant of Sasan and founder of the Sasanian Empire.
The Roman–Parthian problem
Since the beginning of modern scholarship on the motivations and
dynamics of the Roman–Parthian relationship, the dominant
historiographic narrative has focused on mutual Roman–Parthian
hostility. The formulations are various and highlight the hostility to
different degrees, but fundamental incompatibility and violent
conflict often characterize the general picture of Roman–Parthian
history. In this reading, war was certain as the Roman and Parthian
empires expanded into uncomfortable contact in the Middle East.
Imperialism, and its desire for power, prestige, and resources, drove
them into the region and against one another, with dire
consequences.
In a typical rundown of events, Rome and Parthia struggled for
hegemony in the Middle East from the start of their contact in the
early 90s BCE. While the spats were first diplomatic, each passing
decade brought them increasingly closer to military engagement
until the Roman general Crassus carried out a full-scale invasion
across the Euphrates and into the western Parthian Empire in 54
BCE. This was a clear sign that Romans were no longer willing to
tolerate their eastern foe. His subsequent, devastating loss at
Carrhae in 53 BCE ensured that Romans ever after would incline to
war to even the score with the barbarians. Antony would invade
Mesopotamia in the 30s BCE like a wildfire across the steppe. If
Augustus did not fan the flames, per se, during his reign (31/30
BCE–14 CE), he did keep the coals hot and ready. The fire broke out
again under Tiberius (in the 30s CE), then Nero (in the late 50s and
early 60s CE), each of whom sent armies into the region to
challenge Parthia. Under Nero the engagements were more serious,
involving multiple battles between Roman and Parthian forces. Even
worse were the Parthian campaigns of Trajan (114–117 CE), Lucius
Verus (161–166 CE), Septimius Severus (193–198 CE), and Caracalla
and Macrinus (214–217 CE). They repeatedly descended into
southern Mesopotamia, even sacking the Parthian capital Ctesiphon
on multiple occasions. Moving through the bibliography, one’s eyes
flit from battle to battle, seeing little evidence for any meaningful
cooperation. The impression received is of one long, even if
occasionally disjointed, war between Rome and Parthia.
Some specific examples of scholarship help to illustrate the
tendency. In one exemplary study, an author provides a
contextualized investigation of the battle of Carrhae, the fierce
contest fought and lost by Crassus in 53 BCE. The monograph
reviews the growth of Roman and Parthian empires, the battle and
its protagonists, and its major consequences, making a point to
consider both Roman and Parthian perspectives. In his concluding
remarks, the author is explicit that this clash at Carrhae was
“inevitable” as both Rome and Parthia pursued voracious territorial
conquest leading to a face-off in ancient Syria. For him, the battle
resulted in a division between “East and West” at the Euphrates—a
division that future Roman emperor Augustus solidified and that,
despite another six wars between Rome and Parthia and even more
between Byzantium and the Sasanians (their successor empires,
respectively), lasted until the emergence of an Islamic empire in the
7th century CE that swallowed all of the Near East with the
exception of Asia Minor.3
Others have articulated similar views. One scholar, speaking of the
Roman annexation of Syria in 63 BCE, considers it to have produced
an opposition between Rome and Parthia that contributed to
“l’antithèse Orient-Occident” of late antiquity.4 Another notes that
“conflict with western powers became inevitable” when the Arsacids
expanded into Mesopotamia.5 In line with his predecessors, still
another important contributor adopts the thesis that “Territorial
disputes were largely to blame” for the disagreement and armed
conflict between Rome and Parthia and expresses amazement that
the struggle between Rome and Iran (specifically over Armenia)
would continue into the 6th century CE.6 The position is summed up
in a recent general history of the Persians, in which the author
classifies Rome as a “determined enemy” of Parthia and Parthia as
“a constant enemy of Rome” primarily because of Roman
expansionistic interests.7 Even those who have taken more balanced
positions, noting progressive moments and elements in Roman–
Parthian relations, are, nevertheless, frequently and decidedly
pessimistic.8 In short, the position has an impressive pedigree.
Symptoms of this interpretation surface in other places, too—in
the widely held assumption, for example, that Rome and Parthia
were fundamentally enemies. We already have seen such sentiments
in discussions of Roman–Parthian imperialistic expansion. But they
pop up even when the topic is different. In a treatment of cultural
exchange between Romans and Parthians, a researcher displays
comfort in beginning an article with the following assessment of the
prevailing view: “The Romans and Parthians were enemies engaged
in ruthless and almost perpetual warfare, a life and death struggle
which left few opportunities for peaceful contacts.”9 In an
enlightening study of Roman civil war between 44 and 29 BCE,
another scholar identifies Parthia simply as “Rome’s Iranian foe.”10
And in discussions of Roman views of Parthians in general (often
expressed in literature and art), the picture projected is adamant:
Parthia was Rome’s Other, its people the barbaric inverse of the
Romans, with all the hostility that necessarily entailed. One useful
summary is the following: “the Parthians came to be seen as natural
enemies of Rome, an idea which persisted through to the third
century AD.”11 Another is more telling still: “the Romans saw the
Parthians as backwards and inferior … Getting to know the Parthians
was no so important, if your goal was only to kill them.”12 Here, too,
we could draw on several other significant studies, each leading to
the same conclusion: Romans and Parthians were bitter enemies,
incapable of anything but hostility.13 The consistency is clear.
It is also important to recognize that it has had its impact beyond
the academy. In a recent popular history of Iran, likely one of the
most read, the author reviews the history of the Parthian Empire in
only four pages.14 The volume itself is streamlined (the main text
being 110 pages), so we should not expect extensive coverage. Even
so, for what was the longest running empire in Iran’s history (the
Arsacids ruled for almost 500 years, as the author himself
acknowledges), this brevity is striking. But it is typical. The Parthian
Empire remains the most underappreciated Iranian state. More
important for our purposes is the shape of the discussion. It
observes in regard to Rome, “the Parthian Empire was a rival worthy
of respect,” a notable departure from the language above. It also
mentions as an illustration a diplomatic settlement between Rome
and Parthia under the emperor Augustus. Yet this constitutes a mere
four lines, introduced and concluded by the tale of Crassus and the
battle of Carrhae, clearly the main interest. Along the way, “the first
distinct Orientalist/Occidentalist commentary in which the other side
is perceived as sexually decadent” is highlighted. In this, Surenas,
the Parthian aristocrat and commander who defeated Crassus,
mocked the Roman proclivity for pornography when even on
campaign, while Plutarch, the Greek author recounting the whole
tale, ironically drew attention to Surenas’s accompanying harem. The
review is rounded off with two further military campaigns: a Parthian
invasion of Roman territory in the eastern Mediterranean in 40 BCE
and emperor Trajan’s later invasion of Parthian Mesopotamia in 115–
117 CE. The main theme is unmistakable: the vexed and violent
relationship between Rome and Parthia. Considering the author’s
specialty (modern Iran), it is likely that his discussion depends
primarily on the syntheses and conclusions of the above experts. If
scholars of the ancient Mediterranean and Middle East ever wonder
whether their work has an impact on the general public, it does.
What we say about Parthia matters.

Dangers and suspicions

Perhaps an uncompromising hostility between Rome and Parthia was
simply the reality—or perhaps not. In the second half of the 20th
century, scholars began to concentrate on the critical study of the
Occident’s presentation of and engagement with the Orient. The
classic investigation is Edward Said’s Orientalism.15 This work laid
bare how westerners have constructed the East as an exotic,
dangerous, and inferior Other, against which Europeans and
Americans have come to define themselves as superior antagonists.
The danger was (and is) plain:
 For if it is true that no production of knowledge in the human
sciences can ever ignore or disclaim its author’s involvement as a
human subject in his own circumstances, then it must also be
true that for a European or American studying the Orient there
can be no disclaiming the main circumstances of his actuality:
that he comes up against the Orient as a European or American
first, as an individual second. And to be a European or an
American in such a situation is by no means an inert fact. It
meant and means being aware, however dimly, that one belongs
to a power with definite interests in the Orient, and more
important, that one belongs to a part of the earth with a definite
history of involvement in the Orient almost since the time of
Homer.16

There are two important layers in this text—with corresponding

applications—relevant for us. The first is the possibility that
westerners have approached Roman–Parthian relations with
sympathy for Rome and as antagonists of Parthia. That there is such
preference is certain, though the preference may result most often
from the limitations of our ancient evidence (which favors the
western perspective—see below) rather than from antipathy for the
East. The second layer is that even if we attempt to heighten our
awareness of a western bias preferring Rome to Parthia, and even if
we attempt to address it with more evenhanded study, the antithesis
between the West and the East may still produce an assessment that
unduly highlights opposition and hostility.
The events of East–West history—right up to the present day—
have increased the likelihood of a misstep by scholars. Is it a
coincidence that we have shaped the bellicose narrative of the
ancient “West” and “Middle East” beginning in the late 19th and
through the early 21st centuries, a period that has seen many points
of conflict between the modern West (think: Europe and North
America, especially the United States) and the Middle East (think:
Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and
their immediate neighbors)? The United States, supported by key
allies (many European, like the United Kingdom), has fought two
wars in Iraq (1990–1991, 2003–2011) and another in Afghanistan,
initiated in 2001 and now completing its 18th year at the time of this
writing in 2019. Also at the present moment the United States has
renewed sanctions against Iran in its struggle to stifle its nuclear
prospects. How this crisis will be resolved remains to be seen.
Moving further back into history, we should think on the European
and (more limited) American interventions in the Middle East
throughout the decline and disintegration of the Ottoman Empire in
the late 19th through early 20th centuries and its turbulent
aftermath. Led to believe that they would receive independence
after World War I, only to be divided up as colonies, protectorates,
and mandates, subject to the control of Britain and France, Arab
nationalists in the Middle East carried out a range of protests, riots,
revolts, and attacks, to accelerate the recognition of their statehood
(which largely was achieved in the years after World War II). To
return to Iran (our particular concern in antiquity), we should think
on the confrontation developing between the West and Iran in the
same period, with the former fashioning nation-states increasingly
based on democratic principles, scientific education, and modern
militaries, while the latter pursued its own distinctive path (a
continuing process) in the modern world, distributing its political
power and opening and educating its society even as a culture of
religious regulations limits certain personal freedoms and its nuclear
ambitions threaten its enemies. And, of course, there was the Cold
War in the second half of the 20th century, not exactly a battle
between the West and the Middle East (though its implications
caused tension between them), but a conflict between great empires
and their proxies that necessarily has defined so much modern
experience and thinking. Influenced by this conflict around them, it
is possible that modern scholars have read too much hostility into
the Roman–Parthian relationship.17
If true, the mistake is understandable, especially considering the
ancient sources with which they have worked to construct the
narrative. As is well known, the ancient evidence for this problem is
limited. There is no Parthian political literature to speak of, only a
Greco-Roman literary tradition composed of writers working most
often during moments of acute antagonism. Extant writers of the 1st
century BCE included the famed Roman statesmen Caesar and
Cicero, who saw the campaign of Crassus from afar but had
important parts to play in either its genesis (Caesar) or its violent
aftermath (Cicero and Caesar). Also writing in the 1st century BCE
are authors like Crassus’s freedman Apollonius (who accompanied
Crassus in 54–53 BCE or had access to Roman survivors) and
Antony’s lieutenant Quintus Dellius (present during Antony’s
campaign into the Parthian Empire in 36 BCE), whose original works
are lost, and the Roman historian Livy (coming of age in the same
critical period and writing a history of Rome from its foundations to 9
BCE), whose survey survives only in summary form after 167 BCE.
As for later authors, necessarily dependent on such literary
predecessors for events of the 1st century BCE (sometimes
acknowledged, most often not), particularly important are the Greek
biographer Plutarch (writing Lives of Sulla, Lucullus, Pompey,
Crassus, Caesar, and Antony), Roman senator and historian Tacitus
(crucial for the Julio-Claudian period), and Roman senator and Greek
writer Cassius Dio (writing another history of Rome, from its
foundation to 229 CE, largely intact for 69 BCE to 46 CE). They, too,
witnessed Roman–Parthian wars during their lifetimes. Plutarch and
Tacitus were alive for the confrontation under Nero and King
Vologases I (r. 51/52–78/79 CE), though they were quite young.
Plutarch and perhaps even Tacitus lived to see the extensive
campaign of Trajan against King Osroes (r. 109/110–128/129 CE). As
for Dio, he lived through the Parthian wars of Lucius Verus,
Septimius Severus, Caracalla, and Macrinus.18 These conflicts
necessarily shaped their perspectives, encouraging them, at the
least, to seek out, chronicle, and emphasize hostile episodes in their
attempts to identify the roots of later conflict. This then is the record
that has faced modern historians. The result is predictable. Living
with the confrontation of the West and Middle East in their own
times, they look to antiquity to understand (and highlight) its origins,
only to find it in the scrolls of ancient historians with parallel goals.
As a result, the source problem is complex and compounded,
producing a violent narrative. Such a narrative, we must admit, likely
exaggerates and perhaps distorts.
A final influence on scholars, no doubt, has been our
understanding of how ancient empire works. Significant in this
regard is the line of thinking best represented by William Harris’s
landmark publication, War and Imperialism in Republican Rome,
327–70 BCE. In this study, Harris argues that Rome (especially in the
4th through 2nd centuries BCE, his main focus) was an aggressive
imperialist, constantly engaged in military conflict—first in Italy, then
the western Mediterranean, then eastern Mediterranean. At nearly
every turn, Romans sought tangible resources useful to the state
and the individual (especially the individual). While aristocratic
commanders looked to achieve “praise” and “glory” (laus and gloria)
through military victory, particularly important was the acquisition of
the tangibles: plundered property, slaves (i.e., the slaves of the
conquered and the conquered themselves), fiscal penalties (the so-
called indemnities), and taxes of various forms (in the case of
annexation, consistent taxes directly applied to the conquered
people by Roman authorities). Such booty, acquired through war,
was vital for aristocrats, who used it to invest in more land, to work
that land with an increasing number of slaves, and to make public
benefactions to gain voters’ approval, to thereby secure further
political office and the additional military opportunities that it would
afford. This internal drive, based on a “social ethos” that valued war,
was unusually strong among Romans. Harris even uses the word
“pathological” in his analysis. While Parthia is peripheral in his study
(though Harris does mention Caesar’s grand plan to conquer the
Parthian Empire in 44 BCE—interrupted by his assassination), these
ideas have provided a framework within which scholars have
constructed Roman–Parthian relations over the past forty years. The
key theme is relentless (Roman) imperial expansion, driven by a
(Roman) love of bellicosity and its economic benefits.19
All these influences together would make it hard to fashion any
narrative for Rome and Parthia other than one dominated by events
of war. Convinced that the ancient world always operated under the
most uncompromising and violent form of realpolitik, a form that
rings true for our modern experience of West–Middle East relations,
we have combed the texts for all the bloody details of the Roman–
Parthian confrontation that confirm our expectations and explain
why the present is so unpleasant. In the process, we rely on ancient
testimonies whose authors lived under similar circumstances and
worked with similar goals. As a result, the chance of distortion is
high. Such circumstances lend themselves toward suspicion that
some elements of a more constructive Roman–Parthian interaction
have gone unnoticed. If so, this should give us serious pause—and
we should resist the temptation to ignore it.
Such suspicion has led to several isolated reexaminations of the
ancient evidence, with a specific interest in the collaborative. Each
has raised questions about traditional understandings of key
moments in Roman–Parthian relations. Perhaps before Crassus,
Romans and Parthians were more cooperative. The negotiations of
66–63 BCE between the Roman general Pompey and king Phraates
III (r. 70/69–58/57 BCE) produced several important collaborations,
one being the creation of a working Roman–Parthian border along
the Middle Euphrates.20 Maybe immediately after Crassus, the
Parthians were not as diametrically opposed to Roman presence in
the Near East as we have thought. We have evidence that they
sought sympathetic Roman partners—though the effort failed, and a
major invasion of 40 BCE resulted.21 Could it be that when Antony
carried out an eastern campaign in 36 BCE, he never sought a
Parthian war at all, but rather a Median war?22 It could be that we
even have exaggerated Roman–Parthian hostility during the
Augustan Age (31/30 BCE–14 CE), a period that historians have
regarded as a high mark of (otherwise dreary) Roman–Parthian
relations. Here the Roman appetite for revenge was less than
previously appreciated, and peace truly was the priority of both
sides.23 As for Nero and Vologases, their conflict and resolution were
in all likelihood in the spirit of this Augustan Age rather than a break
with it.24
 We might consider Roman views of Parthians more generally, too.
It remains possible that not every depiction of the Parthians was
negative. Perhaps in Augustan Rome, the Parthians were partners in
peace (albeit partners subordinate to Rome), and their depiction in
eastern/Trojan garb would have had positive associations for
contemporary Romans, who themselves descended from the Trojans
(as they themselves believed). Perhaps when they looked upon the
Parthians on Augustus’s Parthian Arch, some Romans saw the
Parthians as constructive collaborators, not as ruthless foes.25 Of
course, many Latin poets may depict the Parthians as remote and
dangerous enemies, deserving punishment, but Roman intellectuals
were thoroughly familiar with Cyrus the Great through Xenophon’s
Cyropaedia (its historical accuracy is another matter). What is more,
maybe this founder of the Persian Empire, which still existed in their
own day in the form of the Parthian Empire, was deserving of
respect as a model of political leadership, a wise and just man,
compared at times with the oldest, most illustrious, and most
successful figures and families in Roman history.26 Some attempts
then have been made to correct the balance of scholarship, if only
on a small scale.

The purpose and challenges of this study

This, however, has muddied the waters. There is now the need to
clarify matters, for both fellow scholars and newcomers to the
Roman–Parthian problem. Is the story of Rome and Parthia one of
conflict, through and through? Is it rather a much rosier picture, with
a variety of happier highlights? Or is it really one or the other? Could
it be possible that both narratives have got it right, so to speak, if
only in partial form? Can we—must we—hold to both narratives
simultaneously?
To the final two questions, I argue in the affirmative. We cannot
argue away the elements of cooperation or conflict. Both existed.
What we must do instead is consider their full relationship to one
another. If we do so, we see a pattern emerge that helps us to
better understand antiquity and perhaps even our modern
predicament. The identification and a clear outline of this pattern are
the goals of this book.
There are, of course, obstacles at hand. We face the same
impediment as all students of Parthia: the source tradition.27 For a
political study of this sort, we would love to have at hand a
substantial political literature offering firsthand perspectives from the
Romans, Arsacids, and the borderland elites who made their lives
and shaped their states in the overlapping spheres of influence of
these two empires. As often, the work of ancient history is a
compromise. While we have nothing surviving from the Arsacids in
this respect, we have a range of Greek and Roman authors who
comment in various ways on people and events relevant to Roman–
Parthian relations. As discussed above, these include a number of
authors addressing contemporary events: some with original works
that have survived, such as Caesar or Cicero, and others with works
that almost certainly informed later writers, such as Apollonius,
Quintus Dellius, and Livy. Among those later writers are Plutarch,
Tacitus, and Dio, the latter two also acting as important sources for
events in their own day. Still others can be added to this list. The
Gallic historian Pompeius Trogus likely worked in the Augustan Age,
producing a universal history that included Parthian history down to
c. 20 BCE (as epitomized in Justin). And a scatter of important
references can be found in the works of the Greek geographer
Strabo (also of the Augustan Age); Roman soldier, senator, and
historian Velleius Paterculus (who wrote during the principate of
Tiberius: 14–37 CE); and Roman imperial librarian and biographer
Suetonius who had access to senatorial and imperial records (till his
removal during the reign of Hadrian: 117–138 CE), among others.
We can add to the mix borderland figures like Josephus and
Isidorus of Charax. Often referred to as Josephus Flavius, a reminder
that his literary career emerged under Flavian patronage in Rome,
Josephus was a Judaean who wrote in Greek in the late 1st century
CE. Considering the substantial Jewish population of Mesopotamia,
which maintained ties to its homeland in the Jordan and Dead Sea
valleys, he had access to a communication network stretching into
the Parthian Empire. We see this reflected in the fact that Josephus
wrote the original version of his history of the First Jewish Revolt
(66–70 CE), his Jewish War, in Aramaic and intended it for the Jews
of Mesopotamia.28 As for Isidorus, he wrote in the 1st century CE in
Greek, but was from Charax at the mouth of the Tigris River. He
then also offers us a more “Parthian” perspective. What is more, his
surviving work, The Parthian Stations, lays out the travel route and
stops between Syria and Alexandria in Arachosia (on the doorstep of
India).29 This speaks to interest, movement, and trade along what is
sometimes called the “Parthian Royal Road.” Trade, indeed, was an
important form of exchange between the Parthian and Roman
empires. Theirs was not an impenetrable border wall, but rather a
porous frontier, across which soldiers sometimes passed, to be sure,
but more often traders who would have exchanged not only wares
but also information.30
Our source tradition then is far from perfect but, nonetheless,
leaves us with a bounty to consider, as we will see in the pages to
follow. We are without politically inclined authors writing in Parthian.
But the balance of the Greco-Roman literature offers us valuable
intermittent discussions of relevant Parthian affairs from well-
positioned contemporaries with access to a variety of resources. Of
course, this does not mean that their every detail will be accurate.
We already noticed that the tendency of some would have been to
exaggerate the conflict. We also can assume that they distorted the
image of Parthians for us at many junctures. Yet we would be foolish
to abandon optimism. Some of these authors were firsthand
witnesses of the events they detail. Some wrote in periods of
frequent diplomatic exchanges between Roman generals and
emperors and Arsacid kings. They offer us a Roman perspective,
useful in itself but also illuminating when it comes to Parthia,
provided that we use it carefully. Our footing is made more certain
when we incorporate local perspectives like Josephus and Isidorus,
when it is possible. And more evidence, from both sides of the
divide, comes in the form of coins, art and architecture, and
inscriptions.31 Frequently, these are powerful testimonies for the
Roman–Parthian problem. We are in a good position.
Based on this evidence, I propose the following. Cooperation and
conflict defined the relations of Rome and Parthia, and the interplay
of these contrary acts was not random. We can identify a distinct
pattern, if we try—a pattern involving a dynamic relationship
between “image” and “reality.” Often the “reality” for Rome and
Parthia was an interest in peace in the Middle East. This was no
high-minded peace, to be sure. It was born of practicality. Peace was
easier—and offered more than war—when little in the way of
territory was at stake. At other times, peace was more reliable, since
war realistically could have produced serious defeat and all the
dishonor (both personal and national) that it would have entailed,
not to mention the loss of tangible resources. On the other hand, it
is imperative to recognize that Romans and Parthians prized military
victory and territorial conquest. This is where “image” comes into
play. Whatever the reality, by the 90s BCE, when Rome and Parthia
first had diplomatic contact (according to the best of our evidence),
the habits of imperialism required aggressive posturing. What often
made a successful Roman statesman or Parthian king was evidence
that he was victorious in the field, winning the zero-sum game of
geopolitics for his own people, whatever the reality. I write
“whatever the reality” deliberately. Early on and at different stages,
Roman and Parthian elites conjured for their domestic constituencies
the image of an aggressive posture vis-à-vis the other, even while
they adopted a more collaborative and progressive tact in their
actual foreign policy. They wanted the best of both worlds: an
assured peace with a glowing military reputation. Yet this tactic was
not without danger: the image of hostility created an opportunity for
those with the belligerence and overconfidence to break with
tradition. If one’s own people expected aggression, and one thought
he was sure to win in the field, why go for negotiated peace rather
than military victory? This line of thinking is not merely hypothetical.
History shows us examples of these figures (often Romans) in
Roman–Parthian relations. In this way, while reality and image
sometimes were quite different, at other times they merged; the
image became the reality, with devastating, long-term effects.

The devil in the details

We now can discuss the granular and consider a sketch of the
chapters to come. If we look at Roman–Parthian history with the
lens provided above, we will discover that a cyclical shape
characterized it. There were at least two full cycles of the image–
reality dynamic described above: the first (shorter in its duration and
more fragmentary in its evidence) played out between 96/95 and
30/31 BCE, and the second (rather the opposite in its longer
duration and fuller evidence) between 30/31 BCE and the 220s CE,
when the Parthians finally folded, to the Sasanians.
The beginning of the first cycle is the subject of Chapter 1. This
chapter treats the earliest attested interactions between Romans and
Parthians. These took place during the eastern appointments of Sulla
in 96/95 BCE and Lucullus in the late 70s and early 60s BCE, and
against the general backdrop of Rome’s conflicts with Mithridates VI
of Pontus (r. 120–63 BCE) and Tigranes II of Armenia (r. 96–56
BCE). In particular, we assess the standard reading of this period in
light of the ancient evidence, though it is fragmentary. Was it, in
fact, the case that Rome and Parthia were opposed to one another
from the start and that Lucullus and Phraates III nearly brought the
two states into open conflict?
Chapter 2, brings our attention to the first period, the mid-60s
BCE, for which our evidence (specifically Dio and Plutarch) becomes
full enough to attempt a more systematic analysis of the problem.
Between 66 and 63 BCE we have evidence for multiple diplomatic
exchanges between a Roman official and Arsacid king, in this case
Pompey the Great, who replaced Lucullus in the conduct of the Third
Mithridatic War in 67 BCE, and Phraates III. These two had to
manage Roman–Parthian relations as the Armenian Empire crumbled
and determine their spheres of imperial interest in Armenia, Upper
Mesopotamia, and Syria. Once again, scholars have emphasized a
deep hostility between Rome and Parthia, noting examples of
provocation and obstinance on both sides. But it is worth asking
whether any evidence of collaboration survives. Considering the
evidence, this period provides the first real opportunity for
understanding how Romans and Parthians negotiated strategic
needs, reputation’s requirements, and peace’s attractions.
Chapters 3 and 4 identify the moment when hostility became
reality, resulting in a series of violent engagements across two
decades. In Chapter 3, we see how Crassus took advantage of the
image of aggression and conflict that Pompey projected vis-à-vis
Parthia. He secured an appointment as governor of Syria and
departed Rome in late 55 BCE to embark on a two-season Parthian
campaign east of the Euphrates that ended in his disastrous defeat
at the battle of Carrhae and his subsequent death in 53 BCE. Then,
in Chapter 4, we see the consequences of the Crassan campaign. In
this case, the literary sources (Dio, Josephus, Cicero, and Plutarch)
reach back to firsthand accounts allowing for the reconstruction of
both Arsacid and Roman efforts, as well as the possible motivations
behind them. With regard to the Arsacids, aggressive action was
necessary, though it has been partially misunderstood by modern
scholars who have assumed that Orodes II (r. 58/57–38 BCE) sought
to eradicate the Roman presence from the Near East from 53
through 38 BCE. On the Roman side, the defeat of Crassus and the
loss of Roman standards and soldiers resulting from it were scars for
the Roman people, prompting fear and encouraging revenge. But
the picture was complicated by Roman civil conflict and the various
needs of individual statesmen in that context. Pompey and others
were willing to negotiate, whereas Caesar planned a Parthian
expedition. But due to his assassination and the timing of events, it
was Antony who invaded the Parthian Empire with a massive army in
36 BCE. While the campaign ended in failure, its impact in Rome has
been underestimated, distorting how we understand the subsequent
period.
The year 30 BCE marked a turning point, as argued by Chapter 5,
Octavian-turned-Augustus and Phraates IV (r. 38–2 BCE)
reestablished peace and cooperation, as routinely acknowledged in
scholarship. This marked the beginning of a new cycle in Roman–
Parthian history in which the pragmatism of peace came to dominate
once again. Yet even here one wonders whether moderns have read
too much tension into Roman–Parthian relations, assuming that
Augustus faced a domestic constituency that universally insisted on
the conquest of Parthia and as a result utilized more provocative
tactics than he actually did. Perhaps the efforts under Antony were
enough (with Octavian’s collaboration) to satisfy the Roman appetite
for revenge. Perhaps Augustus walked a finer line than previously
recognized in the years immediately after Actium when he was
embroiled in a Parthian civil war. And perhaps, too, the greatest
development of the period, the return of Crassus’s standards and
captives in 20 CE, had a more complex origin than a single-minded
and aggressive pursuit by Augustus. As we will see, it was an event
with significant results in epigraphy, art, and numismatics, showing
the recurrence of an earlier strategy: dress diplomatic solutions in a
rhetoric of war. As before, it was a tactic not without risk.
Chapters 6 and 7 explore the legacy of this method in the Julio-
Claudian and Flavian periods. In Chapter 6, we first consider the
pressures facing emperors and kings before turning to their Roman–
Parthian policies down to 68 CE. Contention over Armenia played a
key role throughout. And particularly important was the Neronian
period, during which Roman and Parthian troops directly clashed in
the late 50s and 60s CE over who would control its throne. It was a
disagreement that ended with theatricality and flash in the city of
Rome in 66 CE. The central question is whether this conflict between
Nero and Vologases I (r. 51–77 CE) constituted a break with the
Augustan period. In Chapter 7, we return to a period in Roman–
Parthian history that is very poorly documented but crucial to a
proper reading of their subsequent relations. It has been assumed
that Vespasian and his sons Titus and Domitian systematically
reorganized the eastern Roman Empire in 69–96 CE, stationing
legions for the first time in cities along the upper Euphrates to
defend Roman territory against Parthia and prepare for future action
against it. But does the evidence, as meager as it is, support such a
picture? Or does it speak instead to a peaceful reality with Parthia
under Vologases and his successor Pacorus II (r. 77/78–108/109 CE)
and a more organic administrative evolution in the Roman East?
Chapter 8, addresses the last phase of Roman–Parthian history.
As will be argued, the emperor Trajan and his successors repeated
the Crassan phase of the Roman–Parthian historical cycle, with all its
violent consequences. Indeed, Trajan in 114–116 CE did what no
Roman had done before: conquer Upper Mesopotamia, Babylonia,
and Ctesiphon. Up for grabs, however, is how we explain Trajan’s
decision to break with a century of tradition in Parthian policy. Was it
driven by economic motives, strategic considerations, or a desire for
glory? Whatever the answer, the result was a new set of benchmarks
for the eastern Roman Empire and Roman–Parthian conflict. Trajan
offered a new model—one that future Roman emperors would
pursue. While Trajan’s death was followed by several decades of
peace, Romans and Parthians (before the fall of the Arsacids)
between 161 and 217 CE saw multiple periods of intense conflict.
These included confrontations between Lucius Verus and Marcus
Aurelius and Vologases IV (r. 147/148–191/192 CE) in 166–161 CE,
Septimius Severus and Vologases V (r. 191/192–207/208 CE) in 193–
198 CE, and Caracalla and Macrinus and Artabanus IV (r. 213–224
CE) in 214–217 CE. Trajan and his successors embraced the rhetoric
and reality of war.
Finally, the concluding chapter considers the significance of this
study by simultaneously looking forward and backward. To close a
study of Roman–Parthian relations with the conquest of the Arsacids
by the Sasanians in 224 CE obscures and limits the import of the
issue. So here the aftermath of 224 CE is pursued, and a preview of
Roman–Sasanian relations offered. In the end, any temptations to
embrace Roman triumphalism must be tempered with an
appreciation of the tenacity and efficacy of the Sasanians, as they
attempted to consolidate and expand their power. This then allows
the proper vantage point from which to articulate the importance of
the final century of Roman–Parthian relations and review the general
conclusions of this book. As to the latter, the Roman–Parthian
confrontation should not be oversimplified. There were violent and
cooperative elements to their relations, producing a distinct pattern.
Roman and Parthian leaders often balanced two priorities: an
avoidance of uncertain and costly war, and a simultaneous need for
violent posturing and victory. While peace could be achieved in fact
as long as aggression was projected in image, this method sowed
the seeds for real conflict. Such a conclusion offers a kernel of
wisdom for other periods of history as well—and the book closes
with one modern application: the relationship between the United
States and the state of Iran over the past forty years. The
comparison is enticing. We easily could apply the opening paragraph
of this chapter to the United States–Iran relationship. In the closing
pages, I draw attention to how the construction of Iran by U.S.
presidential administrations has evolved in ways eerily similar to that
of Parthia by Rome. An open question is whether it will have the
same result.

Notes
1 For the development of the Roman Empire, see W. V. Harris, War and
Imperialism in Republican Rome, 327–70 BCE (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979);
E. S. Gruen, The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome, 2 volumes
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984); A. M. Eckstein, Mediterranean
Anarchy, Interstate War, and the Rise of Rome (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2006).
2 For the development of the Parthian Empire, the classic study is N. C.
Debevoise, A Political History of the Parthians (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1938). See also G. Rawlinson, The Sixth Great Oriental Monarchy, or the
Geography, History, and Antiquities of Parthia (London: Longmans, Green, and
Co., 1873); M. A. R. Colledge, The Parthians (London: Thames and Hudson,
1967); A. D. H. Bivar, “The Political History of Iran under the Arsacids,” in E.
Yarshater (ed.), The Cambridge History of Iran, Volume 3(1): The Seleucid,
Parthian and Sasanian Periods (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983),
21–99; J. Wolski, L’Empire des Arsacides (Louvain: Peeters, 1993); V. S. Curtis
and S. Stewart (eds.), The Age of the Parthians: The Idea of Iran, Volume II
(London: I. B. Tauris, 2007); G. R. F. Assar, “Iran under the Arsacids, 247 BC-
AD 224/227,” in B. R. Nelson (ed.), Numismatic Art of Persia: The Sunrise
 Collection, Part I: Ancient – 650 BC to AD 650 (Lancaster: Classical Numismatic
Group, 2011), 113–213.
3 G. C. Sampson, The Defeat of Rome: Crassus, Carrhae, and the Invasion of the
East (Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military, 2008), concluding remarks on 179–181.
For more discussion, see J. M. Schlude, review of G. C. Sampson, The Defeat
of Rome: Crassus, Carrhae, and the Invasion of the East (Barnsley: Pen &
Sword Military, 2008), Bryn Mawr Classical Review, March 2009.
4 J. Dobiáš, “Les Premiers Rapports des Romains avec les Parthes et l’Occupation
de la Syrie,” Archiv Orientální 3 (1931), 216.
5 Debevoise 1938, 28.
6 Colledge 1967, 36; for a review of the disagreements and conflicts, see 36–56.
See also A. N. Sherwin-White, Roman Foreign Policy in the East, 168 B.C. to
A.D. 1 (London: Duckworth, 1984), 298, who adopts this general point of view
when he tellingly suggests that Romans looked to bring the Parthians under
“Roman hegemony,” as they already had done with Samnites, Celts, and
Carthaginians, as well as Pyrrhus of Epirus, Philip V of Macedon, and
Mithridates VI of Pontus (for full discussion, see 271–321).
7 M. Brosius, The Persians: An Introduction (New York: Routledge Press, 2006),
82 (in general, see 79–101).
8 K. H. Ziegler, Die Beziehungen zwischen Rom und den Partherreich: ein Beitrag
zur Geschichte des Völkerrechts (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1964),
strongly emphasizes friendly Roman–Parthian relations from 31 BCE to 96 CE
but still recognizes their limits (45–96, especially 85–96) and takes a much
more pessimistic view from 92 to 31 BCE, more or less regarding the Roman
Republican period as a diplomatic failure, since any agreements recognizing
Parthian sovereignty and equality were essentially hollow from the Roman
perspective, and concluding that from 54 BCE on Rome and Parthia were in a
state of war (20–44, especially 36–44). R. D. Sullivan, Near Eastern Royalty
and Rome, 100–30 BC (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990), also
provides a mixed interpretation, speaking sometimes of more peaceful
moments, particularly during the early years of the Roman principate, but more
often, as in his analysis of the Republican period, of confrontation and conflict
(20, 97, 101, 118–120, 300–318).
9 O. Kurz, “Cultural Relations between Parthia and Rome,” in E. Yarshater (ed.),
The Cambridge History of Iran, Volume 3(1): The Seleucid, Parthian and
Sasanian Periods (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 559. It may
come as no surprise that the article is rather thin. For a study of intercultural
communication (broadly defined) among the Arsacids, Romans, and the various
elites who lived in the Near East, where the Roman and Parthian spheres of
influence overlapped, see the various studies collected in J. M. Schlude and B.
B. Rubin (eds.), Arsacids, Romans, and Local Elites: Cross-Cultural Interactions
of the Parthian Empire (Oxford: Oxbow, 2017).
10 J. Osgood, Caesar’s Legacy: Civil War and the Emergence of the Roman Empire
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 184, 303.
11 J. B. Campbell, “War and Diplomacy: Rome and Parthia, 31 BC-AD 235,” in J.
W. Rich and G. Shipley (eds.), War and Society in the Roman World (New York:
Routledge, 1993), 217.
12 R. M. Sheldon, Rome’s Wars in Parthia: Blood in the Sand (London: Vallentine
Mitchell, 2010), 194–195.
13 See A. Spawforth, “Symbol of Unity? The Persian-Wars Tradition in the Roman
Empire,” in S. Hornblower (ed.), Greek Historiography (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1994), 233–247; C. U. Merriam, “‘Either with Us or Against Us’: The Parthians
in Augustan Ideology,” Scholia: Studies in Classical Antiquity 13 (2004): 64–65.
Sonnabend and Shayegan offer a different point of departure, arguing that
Augustus sought coexistence with Parthia, enabled, in part, by identifying
Romans as defenders (not aggressors) against the Persians (with whom
Augustus identified the Parthians). Yet for them the Parthians remained an
“imperial other” (the language of Shayegan), to whom the Romans were
opposed and with whom they were in conflict. See H. Sonnabend, Fremdenbild
und Politik: Vorstellungen der Römer von Ägypten und dem Partherreich in der
Späten Republik und Frühen Kaiserzeit (Frankfurt: P. Lang, 1986), 209–210; M.
R. Shayegan, Arsacids and Sasanians: Political Ideology in Post-Hellenistic and
Late Antique Persia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), xiii–xiv,
332–340. Compare, too, C. Lerouge, L’image des Parthes dans le monde gréco-
romain: Du début du Ier siècle av. J.-C. jusqu’à la fin du Haut-Empire romain
(Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2007), 119–122. Also instructive is R. M.
Schneider, “Friend and Foe: the Orient in Rome,” in V. S. Curtis and S. Stewart
(eds.), The Age of the Parthians: The Idea of Iran, Volume II (London: I. B.
Tauris, 2007), 50–86, whose work on Roman sculpture, gems, cameos, and
paintings supports this picture. While Schneider attempts a more nuanced
reading of Roman imperial representations of easterners, in which he argues
that material depictions were not as one-sided and negative as often assumed,
he views the Parthians as exceptional; “the Parthian was Rome’s most
distinctive cultural Other … her only true cultural counter-pole” (60).
14 A. M. Ansari, Iran: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2014), 28–31.
15 E. W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978).
16 Ibid., 11.
17 For a recent assessment of modern Middle Eastern politics, with appreciation of
the historical context and especially the relationship between the West and the
Middle East, see O. Roy, The Politics of Chaos in the Middle East, translated by
R. Schwartz (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008). Of course, there
have been significant developments since then, including the “Arab Spring” and
the continuing civil war in Syria. See the useful collection of studies
 (systematically organized) in L. Fawcett (ed.), International Relations of the
Middle East, 4th edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), especially (for
the West–Middle East relationship) E. L. Rogan, “The Emergence of the Middle
East into the Modern State System” (39–61); P. Sluglett, “The Cold War in the
Middle East,” 62–78; R. Hinnebusch and A. Ehteshami, “Foreign Policymaking in
the Middle East: Complex Realism,” 239–258; C. Smith, “The Arab-Israeli
Conflict,” 259–284; A. Shlaim, “The Rise and Fall of the Oslo Peace Process,”
285–303; M. Legrenzi and F. G. Gause, “The International Politics of the Gulf,”
304–324; M. C. Hudson, “The United States in the Middle East,” 356–379; R.
Hollis, “Europe in the Middle East,” 380–399.
18 All such events are reviewed in the following chapters. For relevant studies, see
B. Mineo (ed.), A Companion to Livy (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015), especially
J. von Ungern-Sternberg, “Livy and the Annalistic Tradition,” 167–177; A. W.
Lintott, “A Historian in Cicero: Ad Familiares—P. Licinius (?) Apollonius,”
Rheinisches Museum für Philologie Neue Folge 119.4 (1976), 368; C. P. Jones,
Plutarch and Rome (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971); M. Beck (ed.), A
Companion to Plutarch (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014); N. Ehrhardt, “Parther
und parthische Geschichte bei Tacitus,” in J. Wiesehöfer (ed.), Das Partherreich
und seine Zeugnisse (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1998), 295–307; E.
Dąbrowa, “Tacitus on the Parthians,” Electrum 24 (2017), 171–189; R. Mellor,
Tacitus (New York: Routledge Press, 1993); R. Syme, Tacitus, 2 volumes
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958); F. Millar, A Study of Cassius Dio (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1999).
19 See Harris 1979. While Harris focuses on the 4th through 2nd centuries BCE,
his observations remain relevant for the 1st century BCE, too, during which
time Rome and Parthia made their first contact and charted a course for their
relations. Harris himself often remarks that the 1st century BCE remained a
period of aggressive imperial expansion. The major difference from the earlier
period was that certain Roman elites of the 1st century BCE were happy to go
beyond the normal bounds of aristocratic ambition, for example, Marius, Sulla,
Pompey, Caesar, etc. For the impact of Harris, see Eckstein 2006, who reacts to
his analysis—and that of scholars like him—who see Roman military aggression
as exceptional and the reason for the success of the Roman Empire. Using
international relations theory, he argues that this behavior of Rome (specifically
in the 8th through 2nd centuries BCE) was anything but unusual. All states in
the ancient Mediterranean were subject to interstate anarchy (caused by the
absence of international law and a governing authority capable of enforcing it),
leading them to aggressively expand their power in any way possible out of
concern for their own security. Indeed, state security is the main focus in
Eckstein, not individual motivation (though he acknowledges its importance,
too). For Eckstein, the explanation for Roman imperial success must be sought
in Roman state’s structure, which advantageously integrated outsiders—not on
the basis of ethnicity or geography. While different in this way, Eckstein
Another random document with
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shoes, stockings, and underclothes are comparatively unknown.
Only upon dress-up occasions does a man or woman put on
slippers.
The cooking and housekeeping are done entirely by the women.
The chief food is a coarse bread made of corn or millet baked in
thick cakes. This is broken up and dipped into a kind of a bean stew
seasoned with salt, pepper, and onions. The ordinary peasant
seldom has meat, for it is only the rich who can afford mutton or
beef. At a big feast on the occasion of a wedding, a farming nabob
sometimes brings in a sheep which has been cooked whole. It is
eaten without forks, and is torn limb from limb, pieces being cut out
by the guests with their knives.
 Next to the market where sugar cane is sold is the “Superb Mosque,” built by
Sultan Hassan nearly 600 years ago. Besides being a centre for religious
activities, it is also a gathering place for popular demonstrations and political
agitation.
 Cairo is the largest city on the African continent, and one of the capitals of the
Mohammedan world. Its flat-roofed buildings are a yellowish-white, with the towers
and domes of hundreds of mosques rising above them.

Of late Egypt has begun to raise vegetables for Europe. The fast
boats from Alexandria to Italy carry green stuff, especially onions, of
which the Nile valley is now exporting several million dollars’ worth
per annum. Some of these are sent to England, and others to Austria
and Germany.
As for tobacco, Egypt is both an exporter and importer. “Egyptian”
cigarettes are sold all over the world, but Egypt does not raise the
tobacco of which they are made. Its cultivation has been forbidden
for many years, and all that is used is imported from Turkey, Greece,
and Bosnia. About four fifths of it comes from Turkey.
Everyone in Egypt who can afford it smokes. The men have pipes
of various kinds, and of late many cigarettes have been coming into
use. A favourite smoke is with a water pipe, the vapour from the
burning tobacco being drawn by means of a long tube through a
bowl of water upon which the pipe sits, so that it comes cool into the
mouth.
The chicken industry of Egypt is worth investigation by our
Department of Agriculture. Since the youth of the Pyramids, these
people have been famous egg merchants and the helpful hen is still
an important part of their stock. She brings in hundreds of thousands
of dollars a year, for her eggs form one of the items of national
export. During the last twelve months enough Egyptian eggs have
been shipped across the Mediterranean to England and other parts
of Europe to have given one to every man, woman, and child in the
United States. Most of them went to Great Britain.
The Egyptians, moreover, had incubators long before artificial egg
hatching was known to the rest of the world. There is a hatchery
near the Pyramids where the farmers trade fresh eggs for young
chicks at two eggs per chick, and there is another, farther down the
Nile valley, which produces a half million little chickens every
season. It is estimated that the oven crop of chickens amounts to
thirty or forty millions a year, that number of little fowls being sold by
the incubator owners when the baby chicks are about able to walk.
Most of our incubators are of metal and many are kept warm by oil
lamps. Those used here are one-story buildings made of sun-dried
bricks. They contain ovens which are fired during the hatching
seasons. The eggs are laid upon cut straw in racks near the oven,
and the firing is so carefully done that the temperature is kept just
right from week to week. The heat is not gauged by the thermometer,
but by the judgment and experience of the man who runs the
establishment. A fire is started eight or ten days before the eggs are
put in, and from that time on it is not allowed to go out until the
hatching season is over. The eggs are turned four times a day while
hatching. Such establishments are cheaply built, and so arranged
that it costs almost nothing to run them. One that will hatch two
hundred thousand chickens a year can be built for less than fifty
dollars, while for about a dollar and a half per day an experienced
man can be hired to tend the fires, turn the eggs, and sell the
chickens.
 CHAPTER VI
THE PROPHET’S BIRTHDAY

Stand with me on the Hill of the Citadel and take a look over Cairo.
We are away up over the river Nile, and far above the minarets of
the mosques that rise out of the vast plain of houses below. We are
at a height as great as the tops of the Pyramids, which stand out
upon the yellow desert off to the left. The sun is blazing and there is
a smoky haze over the Nile valley, but it is not dense enough to hide
Cairo. The city lying beneath us is the largest on the African
continent and one of the mightiest of the world. It now contains about
eight hundred thousand inhabitants; and in size is rapidly
approximating Heliopolis and Memphis in the height of their ancient
glory.
Of all the Mohammedan cities of the globe, Cairo is growing the
fastest. It is more than three times as big as Damascus and twenty
times the size of Medina, where the Prophet Mohammed died. The
town covers an area equal to fifty quarter-section farms; and its
buildings are so close together that they form an almost continuous
structure. The only trees to be seen are those in the French quarter,
which lies on the outskirts.
The larger part of the city is of Arabian architecture. It is made up
of flat-roofed, yellowish-white buildings so crowded along narrow
streets that they can hardly be seen at this distance. Here and there,
out of the field of white, rise tall, round stone towers with galleries
about them. They dominate the whole city, and under each is a
mosque, or Mohammedan church. There are hundreds of them in
Cairo. Every one has its worshippers, and from every tower, five
times a day, a shrill-voiced priest calls the people to prayers. There
is a man now calling from the Mosque of Sultan Hasan, just under
us. The mosque itself covers more than two acres, and the minaret
is about half as high as the Washington Monument. So delighted
was Hasan with the loveliness of this structure that when it was
finished he cut off the right hand of the architect so that it would be
impossible for him to design another and perhaps more beautiful
building. Next it is another mosque, and all about us we can see
evidences that Mohammedanism is by no means dead, and that
these people worship God with their pockets as well as with their
tongues.
In the Alabaster Mosque, which stands at my back, fifty men are
now praying, while in the courtyard a score of others are washing
themselves before they go in to make their vows of repentance to
God and the Prophet. Not far below me I can see the Mosque El-
Azhar, which has been a Moslem university for more than a
thousand years, and where something like ten thousand students
are now learning the Koran and Koranic law.
Here at Cairo I have seen the people preparing to take their
pilgrimage to Mecca, rich and poor starting out on that long journey
into the Arabian desert. Many go part of the way by water. The ships
leaving Alexandria and Suez are crowded with pilgrims and there is
a regular exodus from Port Sudan and other places on this side of
the Red Sea. They go across to Jidda and there lay off their costly
clothing before they make their way inland, each clad only in an
apron with a piece of cloth over the left shoulder. Rich and poor
dress alike. Many of the former carry gifts and other offerings for the
sacred city. Such presents cost the Egyptian government alone a
quarter of a million dollars a year; for not only the Khedive but the
Mohammedan rulers of the Sudan send donations. The railroad
running from far up the Nile to the Red Sea makes special rates to
pilgrimage parties.
Yet I wonder whether this Mohammedanism is not a religion of the
lips rather than of the heart. These people are so accustomed to
uttering prayers that they forget the sense. The word God is heard
everywhere in the bazaars. The water carrier, who goes about with a
pigskin upon his back, jingling his brass cups to announce his
business, cries out: “May God recompense me!” and his customer
replies, as he drinks, by giving him a copper in the name of the Lord.
The lemonade peddler, who carries a glass bottle as big as a four-
gallon crock, does the same, and I venture to say that the name of
the Deity is uttered here more frequently than in any other part of the
world. It is through this custom of empty religious formulas that I am
able to free myself of the beggars of the city. I have learned two Arab
words: “Allah yatik,” which mean: “May God give thee enough and to
spare.” When a beggar pesters me I say these words gently. He
looks upon me in astonishment, then touches his forehead in a polite
Mohammedan salute and goes away.
On my second visit to Egypt I was fortunate in being in Cairo on
the birthday of the Prophet. It was a feast day among the
Mohammedans, and at night there was a grand religious celebration
at the Alabaster Mosque which Mehemet Ali, that Napoleon of Egypt,
built on the Citadel above Cairo. Its minarets, overlooking the Nile
valley, the great deserts and the vast city of Cairo, blazed with light,
and from them the cry of the muezzins sounded shrill on the dusky
air: “Allah is great! There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is the
Prophet of Allah! Come to worship! Allah is great! There is no God
but Allah!”
As this call reverberated through the city, Mohammedans of all
classes started for the Citadel. Some came in magnificent turnouts,
bare-legged, gaudily dressed syces with wands in their hands
running in front of them to clear the way. Some came upon donkeys.
Some moved along in groups of three or four on foot. The Khedive
came with the rest, soldiers with drawn swords going in front of his
carriage and a retinue of cavalry following behind.
The Alabaster Mosque covers many acres. It has a paved marble
court, as big as a good-sized field, around which are cloisters. This is
roofed with the sky, and in the midst of it is a great marble fountain
where the worshippers bathe their feet and hands before they go in
to pray. The mosque is at the back of this court, facing Mecca. Its
many domes rise to a great height and its minarets seem to pierce
the sky. It is built of alabaster, but its exterior has become worn and
pitted by the sands of the desert, which have been blown against its
walls until it has nothing of the grandeur which it must have shown
when its founder worshipped within it.
 The interior, however, was wonderfully beautiful that night, when
its gorgeous decorations were shown off by the thousands of lights
of this great service. Under the gaslight and lamplight the tinsel
which during the day shocks the taste was softened and beautified.
The alabaster of the walls became as pure as Mexican onyx, and the
rare Persian rugs that lay upon the floor took on a more velvety tint.
See it all again with me. In the eye of your mind cover an acre field
with the richest of oriental rugs; erect about it walls of pure white
alabaster with veins as delicate as those of the moss agate; let these
walls run up for hundreds of feet; build galleries around them and
roof the whole with great domes in which are windows of stained
glass; hang lamps by the thousands from the ceiling, place here and
there an alabaster column. Now you have some idea of this mosque
as it looked on the night of Mohammed’s birthday.
You must, however, add the worshippers to the picture. Thousands
of oriental costumes; turbans of white, black, and green; rich gowns
and sober, long-bearded, dark faces, shine out under the lights in
every part of the building. Add likewise the mass of Egyptian soldiers
in gold lace and modern uniforms, with red fezzes on their heads,
and the hundreds of noble Egyptians in European clothes. There are
no shoes in the assemblage, and the crowd moves about on the
rugs in bare feet or stockings.
What a babel of sounds goes up from the different parts of the
building, and how strange are the sights! Here a dozen old men
squat on their haunches, facing each other, and rock back and forth
as they recite passages of the Koran. Here is a man worshipping all
alone; there is a crowd of long-haired, wild-eyed ascetics with faces
of all shades of black, yellow, and white. They are so dirty and
emaciated they make one think of the hermits of fiction. They stand
in a ring and go through the queerest of antics to the weird music of
three great tambourines and two drums played by worshippers quite
as wild looking as themselves. It is a religious gymnastic show, the
horrible nature of which cannot be described upon paper.
When I first entered the mosque, these Howling Dervishes were
squatted on the floor, moving their bodies up and down in unison,
and grunting and gasping as though the whole band had been
attacked with the colic. A moment later they arose and began to bob
their heads from one side to the other until I thought their necks
would be dislocated by the jerks they gave them. They swung their
ears nearly down to their shoulders. The leader stood in the centre,
setting the time to the music. Now he bent over so that his head was
almost level with his knees, then snapped his body back to an erect
position. The whole band did likewise, keeping up this back-breaking
motion for fifteen minutes. All the time they howled out “Allah, Allah!”
Their motions increased in wildness. With every stoop the music
grew louder and faster. They threw off their turbans, and their long
hair, half matted, now brushed the floor as they bent down in front,
now cut the air like whips as they threw themselves back. Their eyes
began to protrude, one man frothed at the mouth. At last they
reached such a state of fanatical ecstasy that not for several minutes
after the leader ordered them to stop, were they able to do so. The
Howling Dervishes used to cut themselves in their rites and often
they fall down in fits in their frenzy. They believe that such actions
are passports to heaven.
 A great occasion in Cairo is the sending of a new gold-embroidered carpet to the
sanctuary in Mecca, there to absorb holiness at the shrine of the Prophet. The old
carpet is brought back each year, and its shreds are distributed among the
Faithful.
 The mosque of the Citadel in Cairo was built of alabaster by Mehemet Ali, the
“Napoleon of Egypt.” When Mohammed’s birthday is celebrated, its halls and
courts are choked with thousands of Moslem worshippers and are the scene of
fanatical religious exercises.

In another part of the room was a band of Whirling Dervishes,

who, dressed in high sugar-loaf hats and long white gowns, whirled
about in a ring, with their arms outstretched, going faster and faster,
until their skirts stood out from their waists like those of a circus
performer mounted on a bareback steed, as she dances over the
banners and through the hoops.
There were Mohammedans of all sects in the mosque, each going
through his own pious performances without paying any attention to
the crowds that surrounded him. In his religious life the Mussulman
is a much braver man than the Christian. At the hours for prayer he
will flop down on his knees and touch his head on the ground in the
direction of Mecca, no matter who are his companions or what his
surroundings. He must take off his shoes before praying, and I saw
yesterday in the bazaars of Cairo a man clad in European clothes
who was praying in his little box-like shop with his stocking feet
turned out toward the street, which was just then full of people. In the
heel of each stocking there was a hole as big as a dollar, and the
bare skin looked out at the crowds.
The Moslems of Egypt, like those elsewhere, have their fast days,
during which, from sunrise to sunset, they do not allow a bit of food
nor a drop of water to touch their lips. Some of them carry the fast to
such an extent that they will not even swallow their saliva, and in this
dry climate their thirst must be terrible. The moment the cannon
booms out the hour of sunset, however, they dash for water and
food, and often gorge themselves half the night. You may see a man
with a cigarette in his hand waiting until the sun goes down in order
that he may light it, or another holding a cup of water ready while he
listens for the sound of the cannon. This fasting is very severe upon
the poor people of Egypt, who have to work all day without eating.
The rich often stay up for the whole night preceding a fast day, and
by going to bed toward morning they are able to sleep the day
through and get up in time for a big meal after sunset.
The poor are the best Mohammedans, and many of the more
faithful are much alarmed at the laxity in religious duty that comes
through contact with Europeans. A missionary friend told me of a
Moslem sheik who was offered a glass of cognac by a brother
believer on a fast day. Shortly after this he met my friend and spoke
of the incident, saying: “I don’t know what we are coming to. Good
Mohammedans think they can drink without sinning, and this man
laughed when I told him it was fast day and said that fasts were for
common people, and that religion was not of much account, anyhow.
We have many infidels among us, and it seems to me that the world
is in a very bad way.”
The Moslems have many doctrines worthy of admiration and the
morals of the towns of Egypt which have not been affected by
European civilization are, I am told, far better than those of Cairo or
Alexandria. A traveller to a town on the Red Sea, which is purely
Mohammedan, says that the place has had no litigation for years,
and there is no drunkenness or disorder. The people move on in a
quiet, simple way, with their sheik settling all their troubles.
Mohammedan Cairo is quite as orderly as the part in which the
nobility and the Europeans live. It contains the bazaars and the old
buildings of the Arabian part of the city, and is by all odds the most
interesting section.
 CHAPTER VII
IN THE BAZAARS OF CAIRO

Cairo is the biggest city in Africa. It is larger than St. Louis and one
of the most cosmopolitan cities in the Orient. The Christians and the
Mohammedans here come together, and the civilizations of the East
and the West touch each other. The modern part of Cairo has put on
the airs of European capitals. It has as wide streets as Paris, and a
park, full of beautiful flowers and all varieties of shrubs and trees, lies
in its very centre. Here every night the military bands play European
and American airs, and veiled Mohammedan women walk about with
white-faced French or Italian babies, of which they are the nurses.
People from every part of the world listen to the music. The
American jostles the Englishman while the German and the
Frenchman scowl at each other; the Greek and the Italian move
along side by side, as they did in the days when this country was
ruled by Rome, and now and then you see an old Turk in his turban
and gown, or a Bedouin Arab, or a white-robed, fair-faced heathen
from Tunis.
The European section of Cairo now has magnificent hotels. It is
many a year since the foreign traveller in Egypt has had to eat with
his fingers, or has seen a whole sheep served up to him by his
Egyptian host as used to be the case. To-day the food is the same
as that you get in Paris, and is served in the same way. One can buy
anything he wants in European Cairo, from a gas-range to a glove-
buttoner, and from a set of diamond earrings to a pair of shoestrings.
Yesterday I had a suit of clothes made by an English tailor, and I
drive about every day in an American motor car. There are, perhaps,
fifty thousand Europeans living in the city, and many American
visitors have learned the way to this great winter resort. The bulk of
the Europeans are French and Italian, and the Mouski, one of the
main business streets, is lined for a mile with French and Italian
shops. There are thousands of Greeks, and hundreds of Jews from
Palestine, the states of southern Europe, and Asia Minor. One sees
every type of Caucasian moving about under dark red fezzes and
dressed in black clothes with coats buttoned to the chin.
The foreign part of Cairo is one of great wealth. There are
mansions and palaces here that would be called handsome in the
suburbs of New York, and property has greatly risen in value. Many
of the finest houses are owned by Greeks, whose shrewd brains are
working now as in the classic days. The Greeks look not unlike us
and most of them talk both English and French. They constitute the
money aristocracy of Alexandria, and many of the rich Greek
merchants of that city have palatial winter homes here. As I have
said, they are famed as bankers and are the note-shavers of Egypt.
They lend money at high rates of interest, and I am told that perhaps
one fifth of the lands of the country belong to them. They have
bought them in under mortgages to save their notes. The lower
classes of the Greeks are the most turbulent of Egypt’s population.
 FROM CAIRO TO KISUMU

Embraces the right shoulder of Africa which for centuries withstood the attempts
of rulers and traders to establish their dominion over the continent

The tourist who passes through Cairo and stays at one of the big
hotels is apt to think that the city is rapidly becoming a Christian one.
As he drives over asphalt streets lined with the fine buildings of the
European quarter, it seems altogether English and French. If he is
acquainted with many foreigners he finds them living in beautiful
villas, or in apartment houses like those of our own cities. He does
his shopping in modern stores and comes to the conclusion that the
Arab element is passing away.
 This is not so. Cairo is a city of the Egyptians. Not one tenth of its
inhabitants are Christians and it is the hundreds of thousands of
natives who make up the life blood of this metropolis. They are
people of a different world from ours, as we can see if we go down
for a stroll through their quarters. They do business in different ways
and trade much as they have been trading for generations. Their
stores are crowded along narrow streets that wind this way and that
until one may lose himself in them. Nearly every store is a factory,
and most of the goods offered are made in the shop where they are
sold.
Although the foreigner and his innovations are in evidence, native
Cairo is much the same now in characters, customs, and dress as it
was in the days of Haroun Al Raschid. Here the visionary Alnaschar
squats in his narrow, cell-like store, with his basket of glass before
him. He holds the tube of a long water pipe in his mouth and is
musing on the profits he will make from peddling his glass, growing
richer and richer, until his sovereign will be glad to offer him his
daughter in marriage and he will spurn her as she kneels before him.
We almost expect to see the glass turned over as it is in the story,
and his castles in the air shattered with his kick. Next to him is a
turbaned Mohammedan who reminds us of Sinbad the Sailor, and a
little farther on is a Barmecide washing his hands with invisible soap
in invisible water, and apparently inviting his friends to come and
have a great feast with him. Here two long-gowned, gray-bearded
men are sitting on a bench drinking coffee together; and there a
straight, tall maiden, robed in a gown which falls from her head to
her feet, with a long black veil covering all of her face but her eyes,
looks over the wares of a handsome young Syrian, reminding us of
how the houris shopped in the days of the “Thousand and One
Nights.”
Oriental Cairo is a city of donkeys and camels. In the French
quarter you may have a ride on an electric street car for a few cents,
or you may hire an automobile to carry you over the asphalt. The
streets of the native city are too narrow for such things, and again
and again we are crowded to the wall for fear that the spongy feet of
the great camels may tread upon us. We are grazed by loaded
donkeys, carrying grain, bricks, or bags on their backs, and the
donkey boy trotting behind an animal ridden by some rich Egyptian
or his wife calls upon us to get out of the way.
The donkeys of Egypt are small, rugged animals. One sees them
everywhere with all sorts of odd figures mounted on them. Here is an
Egyptian woman sitting astride of one, her legs bent up like a spring
and her black feet sticking out in the stirrups. She is dressed in
black, in a gown which makes her look like a balloon. There is a long
veil over her face with a slit at the eyes, where a brass spool
separates it from the head-dress and you see nothing but strips of
bare skin an inch wide above and below. Here is a sheik with a great
turban and a long gown; his legs, ending in big yellow slippers, reach
almost to the ground on each side of his donkey. He has no bridle,
but guides the beast with a stick. A donkey-boy in bare feet, whose
sole clothing consists of a blue cotton nightgown and a brown
skullcap, runs behind poking up the donkey with a stick. Now he
gives it a cut, and the donkey jerks its hinder part from one side to
the other as it scallops the road in attempting to get out of the way of
the rod. Here is a drove of donkeys laden with bags for the market.
They are not harnessed, and the bags are balanced upon their
backs without ropes or saddles.
The ordinary donkey of Egypt is very cheap indeed, but the
country has some of the finest asses and mules I have ever seen,
and there are royal white jackasses ridden by wealthy
Mohammedans which are worth from five hundred to a thousand
dollars per beast. The best of these come from Mecca. They are
pacers, fourteen hands high, and very swift. The pedigrees of some
of them are nearly as long as those of Arabian horses. It is said that
the Arabs who raise them will never sell a female of this breed.
But to return to the characters of the bazaar. They are of the
oddest, and one must have an educated eye to know who they are.
Take that man in a green turban, who is looked up to by his fellows.
The dragoman tells us that he has a sure passport to Heaven, and
that the green turban is a sign that he has made the pilgrimage to
Mecca and thus earned the right to the colours of the Prophet.
Behind him comes a fine-featured, yellow-faced man in a blue gown
wearing a turban of blue. We ask our guide who he may be and are
told, with a sneer, that he is a Copt. He is one of the Christians of
modern Egypt, descended from the fanatical band described by
Charles Kingsley in his novel “Hypatia.” Like all his class he is
intelligent, and like most of them well dressed. The Copts are among
the shrewdest of the business Egyptians, and with prosperity they
have grown in wealth. They are money lenders and land speculators.
Many of them have offices under the government, and not a few
have amassed fortunes. Some of them are very religious and some
can recite the Bible by heart. They differ from their neighbours in that
they believe in having only one wife.
The crowd in these streets is by no means all men, however.
There are women scattered through it, and such women! We look at
them, and as their large soulful eyes, fringed with dark lashes, smile
back at us, we wish that the veils would drop from their faces. The
complexions which can be seen in the slit in the veils are of all
colours from black to brunette, and from brown to the creamy white
of the fairest Circassian. We are not particularly pleased with their
costume, but our dragoman tells us that they dress better at home.
The better classes wear black bombazine garments made so full that
they hide every outline of the figure. Some of them have their cloaks
tied in at the waist so that they look like black bed ticks on legs.
Here, as one raises her skirt, we see that she wears bloomers falling
to her ankles, which make us think of the fourteen-yard breeches
worn by the girls of Algiers. The poorer women wear gowns of blue
cotton, a single garment and the veil making up a whole costume.
Astride their shoulders or their hips some of them carry babies, many
of whom are as naked as when they were born.