Sykes' History of Persia - Heritage Institute

Arsaces II.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE RISE OF PARTHIA AND THE APPEARANCE OF
ROME IN ASIA
Parthia is not an extensive tract of country ; for this reason it was united
with Hyrcania for the purpose of paying tribute under the Persian dominion
and afterwards. . . . Besides its small extent, it is thickly wooded, mountainous,
and produces nothing.—Strabo xi. 9. i.
Parthia Proper,— Parthia, the home of the warrior
race which for so many centuries divided with Rome the
empire of the world, is familiar to me, as lying mainly
within the modern provinces of Khorasan and Astrabad,
in which I have travelled extensively. Its
original
but it
boundaries cannot be ascertained with exactitude ;
is known that Parthia marched with Hyrcania on the
west, and that the latter state occupied part of modern
Mazanderan and part of the Astrabad province. It seems
certain that the lower reaches of the Gurgan and Atrek
valleys were included in Hyrcania, and that the upper
valley of the Atrek, and possibly
also of the Gurgan,
belonged to Parthia. Along the southern slopes of the
Elburz range Parthia, even in ancient times, appears to
have stretched considerably farther to the west than on
the northern side. There can be little doubt that its
capital lay in the neighbourhood of Damghan,
which was
the chief city of Kumis in medieval times ; and Kumis is
the classical Comisene mentioned by Ptolemy ^ as being
that part of Parthia which adjoins Hyrcania. On the
. east it was bounded by the Tejen River, which in part of
1
Ptolemy vi. 5. 1. Vide also Strabo xi. 9.
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