Constant Roman invasion of northern Mesopotamia resulted in an increased Romanization of cities such as Nisibis. He first stopped in Athens where Parthian envoys greeted him with olive branches, a signal for peace. However, the Roman senate itself was slowly losing control to three powerful men who came to dominate Roman politics: Caesar, Pompey and Crassus – together known as the First Triumvirate. The wars were ended by the Arab Muslim Conquests, which led to the fall of the Sasanian Empire and huge territorial losses for the Byzantine Empire, shortly after the end of the last war between them. He conquered them completely in this way. Its hold on Mesopotamia had been seriously undermined by repeated Roman conquest of the cities of the region. He crossed the Tigris, reaffirmed his conquest of Adiabene and proceeded to Ctesiphon, the most important capital of the Parthian Empire. It was the climax of a four-year period, starting in 213, when Caracalla pursued a lengthy campaign in central and eastern Europe and the Near East. The Parthian King fled and the city fell without much of a siege. Vologases III was king of the Parthian Empire from 110 to 147. It has even been ventured that, when earlier in his campaign Trajan annexed Armenia, he was bound to annex the whole of Mesopotamia lest the Parthians interrupt the flux of trade from the Persian Gulf and/or foment trouble at the Roman frontier on the Danube. The legion's emblem was a thunderbolt. Regrettably, due to the scarcity of Parthian sources, the narrative will be told mainly from the Roman perspective. Consummate in their military tactics and organization the Parthians were also excellent horse breeders and trainers. He withdrew quickly, but later made the proposal for a large-scale invasion, which was outright rejected by the Senate. [9] That meant that Charax on the Persian Gulf was the sole remaining western terminus of the Indian trade route outside direct Roman control, [10] and such control was important in order to lower import prices and to limit the supposed drain of precious metals created by the deficit in Roman trade with the Far East. To the west, the Sassanids waged war against their rivals, the Romans. After triumphing in the Seleucid–Parthian wars and annexing large amounts of Seleucid Empire the Parthians began to look west for territory to expand into. The entire diplomatic history between the two states is too complex. [16], In his Dacian conquests, Trajan had already resorted to Syrian auxiliary units, whose veterans, along with Syrian traders, had an important role in the subsequent colonization of Dacia. On the other hand, the quick capture of the Parthian capital and its ongoing civil war reflects the decaying nature of the Parthian state. Trajan went to war … The Armenians had already played a role in the early history of the Roman-Parthian relations. Parthian enterprise in the West began in the time of Mithridates I; during his reign, the Arsacids succeeded in extending their rule into Armenia and Mesopotamia. The outcome of his rise to prominence was his new reputation as the richest man in Rome and his position of Consul in 70 BC. Lightfoot (1990), 115: "Trajan succeeded in acquiring territory in these lands with a view to annexation, something which had not seriously been attempted before [...] Although Hadrian abandoned all of Trajan's conquests [...] the trend was not to be reversed. [28] Also, there was the propaganda value of an Eastern conquest that would emulate, in Roman fashion, those of Alexander the Great. 198, which ranged between the Roman and the Sassanid empires, until the Muslim conquests of the 7th century. According to some modern historians, the aim of the campaign of 116 was to achieve a "preemptive demonstration" aiming not toward the conquest of Parthia, but for tighter Roman control over the Eastern trade route. Instead, his family was based in North Africa, of possible Berber or Punic descent. Labienus’ rebels joined Ventidius’ men. This was the beginning of an "international role" for the Parthian empire, a phase that also entailed contacts with Rome. In 113, Trajan embarked on his last campaign, provoked by Parthia's decision to put an unacceptable king on the throne of Armenia, a kingdom over which the two great empires had shared hegemony since the time of Nero some fifty years earlier. Various authors have discussed the existence of the province and its location: André Maricq (La province d'Assyrie créée par Trajan. He then dispatched his generals who recaptured the region. The 160s decade ran from January 1, 160, to December 31, 169. Septimius then brought his attention to the Parthians, whom he believed to be his enemy for supporting his rival Niger. Although the Parthians understood that Crassus acted on his own foolishness to wage war, they also understood the growing threat of the Romans. Mithridates II conducted unsuccessful negotiations with Sullafor a Roman… However, the Parthian King, Volgases IV, had greater ambitions. Ventidius had humble beginnings. TRAJAN (Traianus), MARCUS ULPIUS°TRAJAN (Traianus), MARCUS ULPIUS ° (52/3–117), Roman emperor, ruled 98–117 c.e. Pacorus withdrew his army from Syria, which was promptly retaken by the Romans. For the most part, the early “Roman Peace” that came out of exhaustion from the Roman civil wars carried through to their Parthian relations. Trajan subdued the rebels in Mesopotamia, installed the Parthian prince Parthamaspates as a client ruler, and withdrew to Syria. By 139 B.C.E. His forces carried out a campaign of massacres in the northern regions of the Parthian Empire before withdrawing to Asia Minor, where he was assassinated in April 217. Unable to beat back the Roman infantry in an uphill battle, the Parthians were routed. Trajan failed to take Hatra, which avoided total Parthian defeat. Following his victory over Niger, Septimius invaded Northern Mesopotamia, which then were ruled by vassal states of Parthia. He was personally present at the siege, and it is possible that he suffered a heat stroke while in the blazing heat. [48], After wintering in Antioch during 115/116  – and, according to literary sources, barely escaping from a violent earthquake that claimed the life of one of the consuls, Marcus Pedo Vergilianus [49] [50]  – Trajan again took to the field in 116, with a view to the conquest the whole of Mesopotamia, an overambitious goal that eventually backfired on the results of his entire campaign. Crassus knew that his place in the Triumvirate was owed solely to his wealth. The emperor Caracalla, son of Septimius Severus, entered Mesopotamia, but was assassinated on campaign. He had his troops declare him Emperor. Abgar VII was king of Osrhoene from 109-116 CE. Ventidius positioned his men on a hill with his infantry in a defensive with his slingers while the Parthian cavalry poised themselves at the foot of the hill ready to attack. Unfortunately, the Romans retaliated two years later. It was originally levied by Julius Caesar in 58 BC, and the legion accompanied him during the Gallic Wars until 49 BC. When Roman and Parthian borders finally met, the centuries that followed were a time of diplomacy and war between two empires of distinct cultures and methods of war. Macrinus succeeded Caracalla and renewed the campaign against Parthia. As the Romans became more established as a power, peace came slowly to an end. [31] One can explain the campaign by the fact that, for the Romans, their empire was in principle unlimited, and that Trajan only took advantage of an opportunity to make idea and reality coincide. Hearing that there was a quarrel between Sanantoukios, emperor of the Persians, and his cousin Parthamaspates (274), the emperor Trajan … Trajan argued that this act was a violation of treaty. Yet the ultimate failure of the campaign in Mesopotamia reflected the limited potential for further Roman expansion. In later centuries it came to be called commonly, but incorrectly, the Legio Fulminatrix, the Thundering Legion. Trajan’s campaign displayed eagerness for glory of the Roman emperors. In southern Mesopotamia, Trajan learned that the cities he conquered in the north were revolting. Officially declared by the Senate optimus princeps, Trajan is remembered as a successful soldier-emperor who presided over the greatest military expansion in Roman history, leading the empire to attain its maximum territorial extent by the time of his death. It is said that the Romans wished their future emperors to be “luckier than Augustus and better than Trajan,” taking these two emperors as models for future rulers. The invasion of Crassus dramatically altered the relations between the two states. His grand scheme for Armenia and Mesopotamia were ultimately "cut short by circumstances created by an incorrect understanding of the strategic realities of eastern conquest and an underestimation of what insurgency can do." 21 (1931), pp. [65] No attempt was made to expand into the Iranian Plateau itself, where the Roman army, with its relative weakness in cavalry, would have been at a disadvantage. The Roman–Persian Wars, also known as the Roman–Iranian Wars, were a series of conflicts between states of the Greco-Roman world and two successive Iranian empires: the Parthian and the Sasanian. In 191, Septimius was assigned general of the Legions of Pannonia, southwest of modern Hungary. [69], It was at this point that Trajan's health started to fail him. the Parthian Empire of the Arsacid Dynasty stretched from eastern Anatolia to the Indus River, a territory at least as large as the Roman Republic at the time. But with the lack of progress, Antony was forced to conclude his campaign with by withdrawing his army back to Armenia. Since his parents was disgraced and taken prisoner in the “Social War,” Ventidius joined the Legions as his best choice. After re-taking and burning Seleucia, Trajan then formally deposed the Parthian king Osroes I and put his own puppet ruler Parthamaspates on the throne. The emperor withdrew his men from southern Mesopotamia to consolidate his gains in the north. [6] In 115, the Roman emperor overran northern Mesopotamia and annexed it to Rome as well; its conquest was deemed necessary, since otherwise the Armenian salient could be cut off by the Parthians from the south. Trajan planned to embark on another campaign, but was struck by illness. For the whole of his reign he contended with the rival king Vologases III based in the eastern parts. Trajan's Parthian campaign, also known as the Trajan's Parthian War, was engaged by Roman emperor Trajanin the year 115 against the Parthian Empire in Mesopotamia. In certain occasion, warfare had a direct impact on cultural development. Its latter name comes from Arsaces I who, as leader of the Parni tribe, founded it in the mid-3rd century BC when he conquered the region of Parthia in Iran's northeast, then a satrapy (province) under Andragoras, in rebellion against the Seleucid Empire. He is also known for his philanthropic rule, overseeing extensive public building programs and implementing social welfare policies, which earned him his enduring reputation as the second of the Five Good Emperors who presided over an era of peace and prosperity in the Mediterranean world. Mesopotamia was the name of two distinct Roman provinces, the one a short-lived creation of the Roman Emperor Trajan in 116–117 and the other established by Emperor Septimius Severus in ca. Roman-Parthian relations dominated international policy in the classical near east. Then, Trajan received word that a Parthian general Parthamastaphes, nephew of the King, was arriving with an army. It's noteworthy, however that Trajan… Following the campaign of his subordinate, Marc Antony decided to take matters into his own hands. In the eyes of Trajan, who may have been looking for any excuse to follow the in the footsteps of Alexander the Great, this overturning of over fifty years of Romano-Parthian cooperation over Armenia was a declaration of war. Thus, in order to understand the cultural development of the classical near east, the Parthian wars must not be neglected. Ventidius proved to be a capable and distinguished commander under Caesar, whose influence accelerated Venditius’ career. [51] It is noteworthy that no new legions were raised by Trajan before the Parthian campaign, maybe because the sources of new citizen recruits were already over-exploited. The wars between Rome and the Parthian Empire, which took place roughly from 53 BC to 217 AD, were a unique episode in classical history. Trajan's Parthian campaign, also known as Trajan's Parthian War, was engaged by Roman emperor Trajan in the year 115 against the Parthian Empire in Mesopotamia. Emperor Trajan was even temporarily able to nominate a king of western parts of Parthia, Parthamaspates, as ruler of a Roman "client state" in Parthia. [33] This interpretation is backed by the fact that all subsequent Roman wars against Parthia would aim at establishing a Roman presence deep into Parthia itself. The border between the two empires fell back to the Euphrates. Neglected Roman Military Hero.”, Poirot, John Joseph. The Romans then marched to the Persian Gulf, which the Roman emperor Trajan had reached almost 50 years before. Unlike Crassus who ventured into open territory, the hilly terrain of the Taurus negated the Parthian strength in cavalry. [17] He had recruited Palmyrene units into his army, including a camel unit, [18] therefore apparently procuring Palmyrene support to his ultimate goal of annexing Charax. Trajan abandoned the policy of not extending the Roman frontiers established by Augustus. However, he did not success in establishing his line on the throne, and various Arsacid members of different lineages ruled until the accession of Vologases II, who succeeded in establishing his own line on the Armenian throne, which would rule the country until it was abolished by the Sasanian Empire in 428. Pacorus was defeated again when his Cataphracts were lured into an ambush. A.] In Judea, Antigonus was driven out and the Roman-backed King Herrod was installed as ruler. Pacorus withdrew but Labienus was killed in the battle. When the Roman Emperor Antinius Pius died in 161, Volgases attacked and made Armenia a dependency. [57] Another hypothesis is that the rulers of Charax had expansionist designs on Parthian Babylon, giving them a rationale for alliance with Trajan. His primary goal was to remain independent of both the major powers in the region, the Roman and the Parthian Empires. [75] Trajan was forced to withdraw his army in order to put down the revolts. He declared Babylon a new province of the Empire and had his statue erected on the shore of the Persian Gulf, [56] after which he sent the Senate a laurelled letter declaring the war to be at a close and bemoaning that he was too old to go on any further and repeat the conquests of Alexander the Great. Attempting to do one better than Trajan, Cassius the next year invaded Media, the heart of the Parthian … The Roman–Parthian Wars (54 BC – 217 AD) were a series of conflicts between the Parthian Empire and the Roman Republic and Roman Empire. But Trajan … Quelques renseignements inobservés (Jean d'Ephèse, Anthologie Grecque XVI 72)". As the surviving literary accounts of Trajan's Parthian War are fragmentary and scattered, [84] it is difficult to assign them a proper context, something that has led to a long-running controversy about its precise happenings and ultimate aims. On his way to Parthia, Trajan conquered Armenia and consolidated it as a province. [36], Trajan marched first on Armenia, deposed the Parthian-appointed king (who was afterwards murdered while kept in the custody of Roman troops in an unclear incident, later described by Fronto as a breach of Roman good faith [37] ) and annexed it to the Roman Empire as a province, receiving in passing the acknowledgement of Roman hegemony by various tribes in the Caucasus and on the Eastern coast of the Black Sea – a process that kept him busy until the end of 114. [61] Some measures seem to have been considered regarding the fiscal administration of Indian trade – or simply about the payment of customs (portoria) on goods traded on the Euphrates and Tigris. Trajan’s Parthian campaign In 116 Trajan mounted a full-scale invasion of Parthia, rapidly advancing to capture Ctesiphon, Susa, and Characene. It was Crassus who would ultimately bring war. With his conquests, Trajan’s rule represented the pinnacle of Rome’s expansion. Trajan’s successor, Hadrian, decided that the Empire could not sustain its eastern conquests. The Romans conquered Armenia, and in the following year, Trajan marched to the south, where the Parthians were forced to evacuate their strongholds. In this way, the image of Parthian-Roman war … Strabo says that their horses were superior in "fleetness" (3.5.15). Patrick Le Roux, IN Ségolène Demougin, ed., Longden, "Notes on the Parthian Campaigns", 8. Nonetheless, the usual affairs of conflict continued. [34], The campaign was carefully planned in advance: ten legions were concentrated in the Eastern theater; since 111, the correspondence of Pliny the Younger witnesses to the fact that provincial authorities in Bithynia had to organize supplies for passing troops, and local city councils and their individual members had to shoulder part of the increased expenses by supplying troops themselves. Only half of Antony’s army returned home. After skirmishes on the outskirts of the city, the two armies met in battle. In: Maricq: A precise description of events in Judaea at the time being impossible, due to the non-historical character of the Jewish (rabbinic) sources, and the silence of the non-Jewish ones: William David Davies,Louis Finkelstein,Steven T. Katz, eds., Histoire des Juifs, Troisième période, I – Chapitre III – Soulèvement des Judéens sous Trajan et Adrien, R. P. Longden, "Notes on the Parthian Campaigns of Trajan". Unlike their Parthian predecessors, the Sassanids were more centralized and more aggressive. With Caesar’s successful campaign in Gaul, Crassus knew that wealth alone was not enough. It was the first series of conflicts in what would be 682 years of Roman–Persian Wars. Truth, in Ségolène Demougin, ed., Longden, `` Parthian Nippur and Vologases ' southern Strategy: Historical. Roman rule and Trajan was born in a family of Italian Roman origin and Edessa were evicted by the.. 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