A Question Concerning Certain Views of Parthian History
Dr. B. G. Zichy-Woinarski
In the course of a study of the Arsacids, the three histories, which have appeared in England recently, unexpectedly posed a problem, which became of great interest.
The classical reference to Parthia seemed to provide a picture of a people who appeared in what is today Iran and Iraq, where from 248-247 BC to 226-227 AD, they created a vast empire.
For three hundred years they defied continual pressure from Rome in the West, and withstood the inroads of nomad hordes from the East, even while they created for themselves a pervasive, unique and ubiquitous culture, which, like the laws of the Medes and Persians, with whom they were often equated, "altered not".
It was this picture, derived almost entirely from classical sources, which was presented by the historians of the nineteenth century - in England, G. Rawlinson, in Germany, A. von Gutschmidt, who produced their histories of Parthia in 1873 and 1888 respectively. They presented the history of a great empire, militarily the equal of Rome, creating in the face of an all-pervasive Hellenism, its own unique environment. The power and the control of the Arsacids convinced Rawlinson and von Gutschmidt that they had, in fact, created a "great oriental monarchy". The sudden end, which overtook an apparently strongly entrenched dynasty surprised both men, but neither ascribed it to a gradual inexplicable decline; Rawlinson, indeed, reasoning from historical sources, declared that the Parthian Empire " was still as great and as powerful as it had ever been", when the last Arsacid fell before the rebellious client-king, Ardashir.
This satisfactory picture was to be the only one presented to the world for the next fifty years, for it was considered to be accurate, being subject to but minor criticism.
The rapid disappearance of the Arsacids after the successful coup of Ardashir was an enigma, which did not greatly disturb historians until the new discoveries at Dura Europos and on sites in Iraq and Iran were made, ca. 1930 AD. These new facts seemed to call for a fresh evaluation of the Arsacids, for the extent of their power and importance had lapsed into obscurity, the histories of Rawlinson and von Gutschmidt literally decaying on library shelves. Consequently Professor N. C. Debevoise' book: "A Political History of Parthia", came, in 1938, almost as a new work to the world and as a complete surprise to a student familiar with Rawlinson and von Gutschmidt.
Subsequent Parthian material, incorporated into the "Cambridge Ancient History", and in a definitive chapter in Professor Frye's "Heritage of Persia" was augmented in 1968, by the most recent study to appear, "The Parthians", by Dr. M. A. R. Colledge; it is particularly these four works, which can be considered as those of the later school.
From a study of these new histories it became apparent that the views of some modern scholars, since the appearance of "A Political History", had veered away from one of admiration in the 9th and 10th century to one of derogatory denigration in the 20th from the early view of an "unexpected fall of a proud and powerful monarchy" to the "overthrow of a tottering and decrepit Arsacid line wherein the name "Arsaces" had become but a "shuttlecock", as Professor Debevoise declared in the introduction to "A Political History of Parthia".
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Dr. B. G. Zichy-Woinarski