The First Parthian–Roman War in the Sources

In the third and second centuries BCE, the Romans came to dominate the Mediterranean and the lesser-known Parthians came to dominate the Middle East. These were two peoples who developed within the Hellenistic world and, indeed, came to rule it. By the early first century BCE, the imperial interests of the Parthians and Romans began to overlap in the Near East, but the early interactions of Parthia and Rome were infrequent, awkward, and unproductive. That said, this distant relationship drastically changed in the middle 50s BCE.

In 58/57 BCE, Mithridates IV gained the Parthian throne by killing his father, but a strong faction of Parthian nobles rebelled against Mithridates and put forth his brother, Orodes II, as a rival. Mithridates fled westward to Syria, and, in an act of desperation, he solicited military aid from the Roman commander, Gabinius, in winter 56/55 BCE. Although unsure about his participation in the conflict, Gabinius, like many Roman statesmen before him, accepted the plea of a suppliant to intervene in a foreign affair. Mithridates’ decision to seek Roman support in a Parthian conflict was unprecedented and forever changed Parthian-Roman relations.

Through a Parthian invitation, Rome finally began the destructive First Parthian-Roman War, and although Mithridates and Gabinius initiated it, the conflict ultimately fell to Orodes and the infamous Roman commander Crassus, who lost his army and his life in the effort. In reconstructing the origins of this conflict, scholars rely on eleven passages from various ancient authorities. Each of these accounts offers a slightly different perspective of similar events. Although the origins of the First Parthian-Roman War are difficult to reconstruct, a careful consideration of our literary accounts paired with an investigation of available Parthian coinage make that reconstruction possible. This paper considers the available evidence.