The first, perhaps, is a simple deduction concerning imperial aggression: Empires often seek security, but sometimes they just simply seek. The Parthians had done nothing to justify Crassus’ invasion. The Sassanids, for their part, seem to have been less interested in avenging Roman invasions of Iraq than in acquiring a larger empire for themselves.

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On the other hand, once the Rome-Persia conflict was engaged, it had a momentum of its own. More than one scholar has come away with the sense that Romans and Persians continued to fight each other for centuries because neither one could find another opponent worthy of their mettle. Neither Rome nor Persia had another great empire on its immediate border. Romans might fight in Germany, Persians might fight in Central Asia, but for each side, the Romano-Persian duel was the main event.

A third point is the paradox of parity. The two powers’ relative equality ensured that the conflict would go on and on. As soon as one side got the advantage, it tended to press it too far, like Trajan or Khusro II, and thus allowed the enemy to recoup. There was a constant cycle of conquest, overextension, and forced retrenchment.

Augustus had demonstrated that Rome’s security dilemma in the East was soluble through negotiation. The Parthians seemed quite willing to accept his point. Over time, nevertheless, it came back to war, as the forces of greed and glory reasserted themselves. First Trajan and then the Sassanids gave in to the temptation of the battlefield. Ironically, for all the centuries of conflict, very little land changed hands. Rome, the civilizer of Europe, barely touched what is modern Iraq. Persia left little mark on Syria or Anatolia.

Finally, of course, is an example of the irony of war if ever there was one: The Arabs inherited the energy that the two powers wasted on the conflict. In the long run, for both Rome and Persia, victory proved to be little more than a mirage.

This article was written by Barry S. Strauss and originally published in the Autumn 1999 edition of MHQ. For more great articles, subscribe to MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History today!

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