How vital was the nomadic element in the Parthian empire is obvious from the fact that, in civil wars, the deposed kings con sistently took refuge among the Dahae or Scythians and were restored by them. But, in Parthia, these nomads were amalga mated with the native peasantry, and, with their religion, had adopted their dress and manners. Even the kings, after the first two or three, wear their hair and beard long, in the Iranian fashion, whereas their predecessors are beardless. Although the Arsacids are strangers to any deep religious interest (in contrast to the Achaemenids and Sassanids), they acknowledge the Per sian gods and the leading tenets of Zoroastrianism. They erect fire-altars and even obey the command to abandon all corpses to the dogs and fowls ( Justin xli. 3). The union, moreover, recom mended by that creed, between brother and sister—and even son and mother—occurs among them. Consequently, beside the council of the nobility, there is a second council of "Magians and wise men" (Strabo xi. 515).
Again, they perpetuate the traditions of the Achaemenid em pire. The Arsacids assume the title "kings of kings" and derive their line from Artaxerxes II. Further, the royal apotheosis, so common among them and recurring under the Sassanids, is prob ably not so much of Greek origin as a development of Iranian views. For at the side of the great god Ahuramazda there stands a host of subordinate divine beings who execute his will—among these the deified heroes of legend, to whose circle the king is now admitted, since on him Ahuramazda has bestowed victory and might.
This gradual Iranianization of the Parthian empire is shown by the fact that the subsequent Iranian traditions, and Firdousi in particular, apply the name of the "Parthian" magnates (Pah lavan) to the glorious heroes of the legendary epoch. Conse quently, also, the language and writing of the Parthian period, which are retained under the Sassanids, received the name Pahlavi, i.e., "Parthian." The script was derived from the Aramaic. But to these Oriental elements must be added that of Hellen ism, the dominant world-culture which had penetrated into Parthia and Media. It was indispensable to every state which hoped to play some part in the world and was not so utterly secluded as Persis and Atropatene; and the Arsacids entertained the less thought of opposition as they were destitute of an in dependent national basis. All their external institutions were borrowed from the Seleucid empire : their coinage with its Greek inscriptions and nomenclature ; their Attic standard of currency; and, doubtless, a great part of their administration also. In the towns Greek merchants were everywhere settled. Mithradates I.
even followed the precedent of the Seleucids in building a new city, Arsacia, which replaced the ancient Rhagae (Rai, Europus) in Media. The further the Arsacids expanded the deeper they
penetrated into the province of Hellenism; the first Mithradates himself assumed, after his great conquests, the title of Philhel len, "the protector of Hellenism," which was retained by almost all his successors. Then follow the surnames Epiphanes "the revealed god," Dikaios "the just," Euergetes "the benefactor," all of them essentially Greek in their reference, and also regu larly borne by all the kings. Af ter the conquest of the Euphrates and Tigris provinces it was imperative that the royal residence should be fixed there. But as no one ventured to transfer the royal household and the army, with its hordes of wild horsemen, to the Greek town of Seleucia, and thus disorganize its commerce, the Arsacids set up their abode in the great village of Ctesiphon, on the left bank of the Tigris, opposite to Seleucia, which ac cordingly retained its free Hellenic constitution (see CTESIPHON AND SELEUCIA). So also Orodes I. spoke good Greek, and Greek tragedies were staged at his court (Plut. Crass. 33).
In spite of this, however, the rise of the Arsacid empire marks the beginning of a reaction against Hellenism—not, indeed, a conscious or official reaction, but a reaction which was all the more effective because it depended on the impetus of circum stances working with all the power of a natural force. The essential point is that the east is completely divorced from the Mediterranean and the Hellenic world, that it can derive no fresh powers from that quarter, and that, consequently, the influence of the Oriental elements must steadily increase. This process can be most clearly traced on the coins—almost the sole me morials that the Parthian empire has left. From reign to reign the portraits grow poorer and more stereotyped, and the inscrip tions more neglected, till it becomes obvious that the engraver himself no longer understood Greek but copied mechanically the signs before his eyes, as is the case with the contemporary Indo Scythian coinage, and also in Mesene. Indeed, after Vologaeses I. (51-77), the Aramaic script is occasionally employed. The political opposition to the western empires, the Seleucids first, then the Romans, precipitated this development. Naturally enough the Greek cities beheld a liberator in every army that marched from the west, and were ever ready to cast in their lot with such—a disposition for which the subsequent penalty was not lacking. The Palthian magnates, on the other hand, with the army, would have little to do with Greek culture and Greek modes of life, which they contemptuously regarded as effeminate and unmanly. They required of their rulers that they should live in the fashion of their country, practise arms and the chase, and appear as Oriental sultans, not as Grecian kings.