Roman-Persian Wars

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Despite this setback, like his predecessor Crassus, Antony was undone mainly by faulty strategy. He concentrated on besieging cities, but the Parthian strength was their mobile army that lived off the land. Unable to capture Parthian cities because he had lost much of his siege equipment and unable to defeat their armies, Antony was forced to retreat from Media, harassed by the Parthians every step of the way. By the time he crossed back into Armenia, he had lost twenty thousand legionnaires, four thousand cavalrymen, and an undetermined number of light troops. Forced to leave Armenia in the dead of winter, Antony lost another eight thousand men during his retreat westward to Syria. Antony’s casualties rivaled Crassus’ at Carrhae. Rome was farther than ever from defeating Parthia.

Antony, meanwhile, turned his attention to civil war. His rival was Julius Caesar’s heir and great-nephew, Octavian (63 B.C.-A.D. 14). The two men’s fleets clashed at Actium in 31 B.C., and Octavian emerged victorious; the defeated Antony committed suicide. Octavian became sole ruler of the Roman world and, renamed Augustus, was Rome’s first emperor. However grand his position, Augustus was a practical man with few illusions. He wisely recognized that if mighty Antony with sixteen legions had failed against Parthia on the battlefield, he, Augustus, was unlikely to do better. He decided, therefore, to solve Rome’s Parthian problem by using both diplomacy and force.

In 20 B.C., Augustus took advantage of disorder in Armenia and Parthia to put on the throne of Armenia a new pro-Roman king, whom he backed up with an army. With this as a stick and a treaty as a carrot, Augustus struck a deal with Rome’s enemy. Although Persia had thrashed two huge Roman armies, it too had lost its taste for war, perhaps because victory had taken its toll of manpower and finances. In the north, Armenia would be a buffer state between the two great empires. In the south, Rome recognized the Euphrates boundary. Parthia, in turn, returned the legionary standards and all surviving Roman prisoners. Ever the master of public relations, Augustus declared victory without fighting a war. He even advertised victory on his coins with slogans like civibus et signis militaribus a Parthia recuperatis (’citizens and military standards recovered from Parthia’).

In a sense, Augustus’ treaty with Parthia was a victory for Rome. The settlement would last more or less intact for a century. While there continued to be jockeying back and forth over Armenia, occasionally with the involvement of troops, the two sides remained at peace. By not avenging Carrhae on the field of honor, Augustus dealt Rome’s military reputation a setback, regardless of his attempt to disguise it as a victory. Yet Rome had finally achieved security in the East at little cost.

The relative tranquility came to an end, however, in A.D. 113, when Rome changed course, and Emperor Trajan mounted a massive invasion of Parthian territory. The Parthian king Osroes’ deposing a pro-Roman king in Armenia and installing a Parthian puppet had provoked the emperor. There had, however, been similar provocations in the past, which Rome had settled calmly with a small show of force. Trajan’s desire for glory was no doubt a factor, but there seems to have been method to his marching. During the last generation, Rome had slowly moved away from the client-kingdom system of border defense favored by Augustus. Under the new system, client kingdoms were annexed and made part of a network of forward defenses on favorable terrain, complete with walls, trenches, highways, and legions. In the Balkans, Trajan had already conquered the client kingdom of Dacia (Romania) and made it a Roman province. In the East, he planned to push the Parthians back east from the Euphrates and conquer northern Mesopotamia, whose hilly terrain was eminently defensible. He also annexed Armenia.

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Tags: Ancient-Medieval, Historical Conflicts

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