Hegemonic Warfare in the Ancient Near East: King Tigranes II of Armenia Becomes the Rival of Parthia in the 80s–70s BCE

From the middle third to early first centuries BCE, a warrior society known as the Parthians conquered the ancient Middle East. At the height of their power, the Parthians’ empire stretched from Syria and Armenia in the west to the Hindu Kush. The submission of Armenia to Parthia was a great triumph; however, the Parthians’ hegemony over the region did not last. By the early 80s, the king of Armenia, Tigranes II, had placed himself in a strong position, pursuing aggressive power-maximizing policies against his neighbors and expanding the strength and security of his kingdom for several years. His successful diplomatic and military operations in eastern Anatolia had enhanced the capabilities and reputation of his kingdom significantly. He eagerly began recruiting, organizing, and training a substantial, well-equipped army that expanded considerably over the next two decades.

Due in large part to the confused, incomplete, and inaccurate surviving historical record of this period of Parthian and Armenian history, scholars differ widely on the details of the reconstruction of Tigranes II’s reign until his war against Rome in 69. Yet one thing is certain. Tigranes suddenly and violently emerged as a rival to the Parthian king, and Armenia became a hegemonic rival of Parthia across the Near East. This paper will reconsider this rivalry alongside the disparate surviving evidence and a system-level analysis of the international environment of the Near East in this period. Such an approach facilitates new interpretations of the geopolitical conditions and concerns of states (especially Armenia) in the Near East to create a fuller appreciation of the events of this period, and to demonstrate that, before the sudden and unexpected intervention of Rome in the affairs of Armenia in 69, Tigranes concerned himself little with the Romans and instead actively sought to challenge and perhaps replace Parthian hegemony.