Prefiero el galicism o, que tod os entienden, a la palabra castiza: sim ón

Mithradates I was first amongst the Arsacid kings to issue the tetradrachm in the Parthian Empire, striking a Parthian version of this denomination at the mint of Seleucia-on-the-Tigris from 141 BC (Figure 10). The legend on these tetradrachms reads ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΜΕΓΑΛΟΥ ΑΡΣΑΚΟΥ

ΦΙΛΕΛΛΗΝΟΣ ‘[of the] Great King Arsaces, Philhellene’.489 _{Striking this}

particular legend in the captured capital of the Seleucid Empire sent a clear message to the Greek-speaking inhabitants of the city that the Arsacids were not hostile to their cultural identity (nor their religion, as the image of the Greek god Herakles was struck onto these tetradrachms, and Zeus on the accompanying drachms from this city).490 _{By presenting himself as an ally of the}

Greek population, Mithradates I distinguished himself as a tolerant ruler, enlightened to the culture of those residing in this highly Hellenised city of Mesopotamia. The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus of the 1st _{century BC}

(known for his interest in the morality of the individual and community) alludes to the inclusive nature of this Parthian king, claiming that he integrated the best of each conquered region’s customs into his empire.491 _{Mithradates I’s coin}

iconography illustrates this point: for example, the solitary diadem band that replaced the soft cap on obverse coin portraits presented a more recognisable image of royalty to these Greek populations; and the ‘Philhellene’ epithet demonstrated a particular desire to be seen as a ruler who is sympathetic towards the ethnic Greek populations that fell within the Parthian imperial sphere.

After Mithradates I’s death in 132 BC, his son Phraates II took the throne.492 _{Phraates II struck tetradrachms and drachms at Seleucia-on-the-}

Tigris bearing the legend ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΜΕΓΑΛΟΥ ΑΡΣΑΚΟΥ ΝΙΚΗΦΟΡΟΥ ‘[of the] Great King Arsaces, Bearer of Victory’ (Figure 11).493 _{The victory celebrated to}

by Phraates II on these issues was that against Antiochus VII in 129 BC, which allowed the Parthians to regain their footing in Media and Babylonia, and

490 _{Carved in 148 BC at Bisotun on the road leading from Ecbatana in Media to Seleucia-on-the-Tigris}

in Mesopotamia, a relief dedicated to the god Herakles Kallinikos was set up for the preservation of Kleomenes, the commander of the Upper Satrapies who was resisting the Parthian advance. The choice to depict the apotropaic god on Mithradates I’s tetradrachms in 141 BC was perhaps deliberate in light of the relief at Bisotun, demonstrating the Arsacid king’s protection over the city following his victory there. See Ḥākemī (1959-60); Luschey (1968), 30, pl. 16.2; ibid. (1974), 122 ff., pls. 15-16; Bernard (1980), 316-318; Boyce & Grenet (1991), 93-94; Hackl et al. (2010), 476, III.1.3.F.3.

491 _{Diodorus Siculus, 33.18.}

492 _{The date for Mithradates I’s death is according to Assar (2005), 43.}

493 _{S17. See Cribb (2007), 362; Curtis, V.S. (2007b), 420; Sinisi (2008), 235-237, fig. 2 on the curious}

become the dominating power in Mesopotamia once again.494 _{The epithet}

served to demonstrate this king’s right of conquest, and hence his power in the former Seleucid capital. Notably, the epithet ‘Philhellene’ of his father was absent from Phraates II’s tetradrachm issues in Seleucia, perhaps highlighting a growing period of difficult relations between the reigning Arsacid king and his Greek subjects.

Although Phraates II managed to secure his power in the west of the empire, Graeco-Roman sources expose the political instabilities that underlined Arsacid rule after the death of Mithradates I. Justin’s historical account claims that the vassal kings in the east had come to Antiochus VII to offer their support as they detested the arrogance of the Parthians.495 _{This resentment seemingly} followed Phraates II to the east during a campaign against a band of nomadic invaders on Parthia’s frontiers. It is said that Phraates II was killed during this campaign due to his contempt towards a contingent of captive Greek soldiers. Justin recounts these events in his epitome: “Phraates [II], however, led to war with him an army of Greeks who had been captured in the war against Antiochus [VII], and whom he had treated with arrogance and cruelty, heedless towards the fact that captivity had not lessened their hostile spirit and that the indignity of their injustices had further exacerbated them. Therefore, as soon as they saw the battle turn against the Parthians, the [Greek] soldiers changed to the enemy’s side and carried out revenge for their captivity, which they had

494 _{Justin, 38.10.10-11.}

495 _{Justin, 38.10.5. Though Mithradates I had extended his power over diverse cultural regions, the}

Seleucid anabasis undertaken by Antiochus VII ostensibly created a clash of cultures. Justin’s epitome remarks on the wealth which Antiochus VII brought with his army: “There was certainly such an amount of silver and gold that even the common soldiers fastened their boots with gold and trod on the material for the love of which nations battled by the sword”; Justin, 38.10.3. A gold stater, which Assar has argued was minted by the Seleucid king in Ecbatana after a victory against Mithradates I in 134/133 BC, displays on its reverse Nike driving a biga leftwards - the same design as Mithradates I’s lower-value bronze emissions from the same mint that show the goddess driving to the right (S12.9, 14); Assar (2005), 49; Houghton, Lorber & Hoover (2008), no. 2134-AV, pl. 36. Antiochus VII had inscribed on this gold issue ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΑΝΤΙΟΧΟΥ ΜΕΓΑΛΟΥ ΕΥΕΡΓΕΤΟΥ ‘[of the] Great King Antiochus, Benefactor’. These gold coins from Ecbatana exhibit a striking display of power and wealth. The precious metal itself is perhaps indicative of the Seleucid king’s self-proclaimed euergetism on coins struck in the city of Ecbatana.

desired for so long, through the bloody slaughter of the Parthian army and of Phraates [II] himself. In his place, his uncle, Artabanus [I], was made king.”496 Phraates II had attempted to counter some of the turmoil that troubled his reign by fusing the Arsacid and Seleucid royal lines through a complicated process of intermarriage. Phraates II is said to have married a princess who was of Arsacid and Seleucid extraction, being both a granddaughter of Mithradates I and a daughter of Demetrius II (the elder brother of Phraates II’s Seleucid opponent, Antiochus VII). Demetrius II had been captured during an earlier war with the Parthians in c. 139 BC during the reign of Mithradates I, Phraates II’s father. During his captivity in Hyrcania, Demetrius II was married off to a daughter of Mithradates I. According to the historian Justin, Demetrius II attempted to abandoned his wife and escape to Syria, but was brought back into captivity under Phraates II; the Seleucid prisoner was only trusted again after he had fathered children in Hyrcania.497 _{Justin believed that the Arsacid king}

wanted to instigate a dynastic feud in the Seleucid house by placing Demetrius II as their ally on the Seleucid throne in Syria.498 _{This political manoeuvre aimed} to secure the Parthian Empire under Phraates II while his Seleucid half-brother would have ruled in Syria, giving the Arsacids an extended political reach. The strategy, however, proved ineffective: Demetrius II abandoned his Arsacid wife and children in Hyrcania after escaping Parthia, returning to Syria and marrying Cleopatra Thea.499

Other efforts to emphasise Phraates II’s legitimacy to rule over the Parthian Empire and its contested frontiers were made more apparent in his coin legends. Across a number of mints that were specifically opened to supply coinage for the eastern campaign against the invading nomads, Phraates II issued a high volume odrachms with a new epithet ΘΕΟΠΑΤΟΡΟΣ ‘[of a] divine father’ (Figure 13).500 _{This title highlighted the Arsacid dynastic succession}

496 _{Justin, 42.1.4-5, 42.2.1.} 497 _{Justin, 38.9.2-9.} 498 _{Justin, 38.9.10.} 499 _{Nabel (2017), 26 ff.}

500 _{S15.2, S16.1-16, 18-24. The epithets ΦΙΛΟΠΑΤΟΡΟΣ ‘[of the] father-loving’ (S15.3) and}

between Mithradates I and Phraates II, and also suggest that Mithradates I had been deified after his death according to the Seleucid institution of a ruler cult.501 _{Fragments from a group of clay statues found in the Round Hall complex} of Nisa are thought to reprsent Mithradates I as a deified ancestor; Invernizzi notes that while the facial features of the bust resemble that of Mithradates I, the long beard suggests that the statue was modelled on an older depiction of the king, and was perhaps commissioned by the late king’s son, Phraates II.502 The concept of an Arsacid ruler cult will be discussed in more detail in Chapter Three.

Following Phraates II’s demise in the eastern campaigns, a brother of Mithradates I took the throne in c. 126 BC. Artabanus I’s reign was plagued by insurgency in the regions of Elymais and Characene, Arab incursions into Babylonia, as well as the continued conflict with the Tochari nomadic invaders in the north-east of the Empire.503 _{Artabanus I made use of similar dynastic}

affirmations in the coin legends on his drachms, describing himself as

ΘΕΟΠΑΤΟΡΟΣ ‘[of a] divine father’ (in reference to Phriapatius), as well as ΦΙΛΑΔΕΛΦΟΥ ‘[of the] Brother-Loving’ (in reference to Mithradates I).504 _The

efforts of both Phraates II and Artabanus I to emphasise their dynastic link to the Mithradates I is evidence of his enduring imprint on Arsacid ideology concerning the formation of the Parthian Empire and its ‘Great King’.

Furthermore under Artabanus I, the epithet ‘Philhellene’ made a re- appearance on coinage, peculiarly in Margiana.505 _{This curious use of the}

epithet in the eastern city of Margiana is emphasised by the fact that it was not struck on coins from the Greek city of Seleucia-on-the-Tigris during Artabanus I’s reign. So why was this ethnic-specific epithet that had been introduced by Mithradates I in the former Seleucid capital now being used in the east of the empire? The evidence from Justin’s account suggests that Artabanus I was still 501 _{The problematic concept of a ruler cult under the Mazda-worshipping Parthian kings is addressed} in greater detail in Chapter Three. 502 _{Invernizzi (2001), 141-147; ibid. (2011a), 196-200, fig. 8; ibid. (2011b), 655-657.} 503 _{Sachs, Hunger (1996), 278-279, -124 B rev. 12 ff.} 504 _{S19-20, S22.1, S22.3-4.} 505 _{S22.1-2, S22.4.}

reliant on captive Greek forces to defend Parthia’s borders against the north- eastern nomads – the same Greeks whom Phraates II had incited to revolt against his authority. This theory, however, is rather unsatisfactory on some accounts, since it is unlikely that the Parthian king did not command sufficient indigenous soldiers in the Upper Satrapies to defend his eastern frontier. The Greek presence in Artabanus I’s army may also be accounted for by the descendents of the numerous military colonists who had been settled in Bactria under Alexander and Seleucus I, and who were perhaps displaced during the nomadic invasions into the Graeco-Bactrian kingdom from the east, as narrated in Greek and Chinese sources.506 _{The epithets on Artabanus I’s coins}

demonstrate this king’s efforts to appeal to the political stability that was established with the Hellenistic populations under Mithradates I, who was also honoured in the coin legends as a beloved brother (Figure 15). Unfortunately, like his nephew, Artabanus I was killed in the defensive battle against the nomads on the eastern frontier.507

During Artabanus I’s reign, innovations in the royal portrait demonstrate a movement towards a distinctive Parthian image of royalty. The king’s hair was displayed on his coinage in a more eastern fashion, formed in uniform rings of tight curls (Figures 14-15). At the same time, the king was shown wearing a Parthian V-necked jacket with crossed lapels embellished with circular appliqués, as well as a torque curling around his neck.508 _{This costume was}

depicted on Artabanus I’s coinage widely, in the westernmost capital of Seleucia-on-the-Tigris on tetradrachms, in the easternmost mint of Margiana on drachms, and on bronzes across various mints including Susa.509 _{Nevertheless,} while the Arsacid king wore this V-necked jacket on its own in his coin portraits, 506 _{Strabo, 11.8.2, 11.8.4; Shiji, 123, translated in Watson (1968), 265, 269.} 507 _{Justin, 42.2.2.} 508 _{S18.2, S19-S22; Curtis, V.S. (2000), 25; ibid. (2007a), 15. The full royal trouser suit of the Parthian} kings can be seen in the investiture scenes on tetradrachms of Phraates III (c. 70-57 BC) from S39.1, and of his successors; see Curtis, V.S. (1998a), 62; ibid. (2000), 25; ibid. (2007), 15; ibid. (2012a), 71; Sinisi (2014), 15-17. Furthermore, the royal Parthian costume can be seen particularly clearly on the 1st century BC life-size bronze statue of the Shami Prince, discovered in the Bakhtiari region of southwestern Iran and now housed in the National Museum of Iran, Tehran; see Curtis, V.S. (1993b); ibid. (2000), 26-27, fig. 8.

the additional long overcoat or kandys remained a fixed part of the iconic seated archer’s costume until the end of the Parthian period. This development is perhaps explained in Justin’s account: “Their clothing once reflected their own customs, but after their wealth had increased, it became light weight and flowing like that of the Medians.”510 _{Following the Arsacids’ imperial expansion,}

royal residences were established in the milder climates of Media and Mesopotamia at the cities of Ecbatana, Rhagae-Arsacia, and Seleucia-on-the- Tigris. Ecbatana, in particular, served as the principal summer residence of the Arsacid kings, while Seleucia was used as the main winter residence.511

Parthian period costume is again described in a passage by Plutarch on the Parthian general Surena and his army at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC: while the general wore Median-style clothing, the warriors under his command were dressed in Scythian fashion and glistening in Margianian steel armour.512

Although fashions developed as new centres of power were established across the expanding empire, many of these costume elements were already pervasive across the Iranian nations with slight distinctions in detail. These early innovations in the royal portrait were furthered under Artabanus I’s successor, Mithradates II, who strove to develop and consolidate a new, “Parthian-ised” imperial model.