Sykes' History of Persia - Heritage Institute

XXIX PARTHIA, ROME, AND PONTUS 361
Syria. Far from this, he at once marched to defend
Parthia, and increased his army by embodying in it the
survivors of the force of Antiochus. No details of the
campaign have been recorded, but apparently it lasted for
some years and ended in the total defeat of the Parthians,
owing to the defection of their Greek contingent, and in
the death of the monarch. His successor continued his
policy, but he too was defeated and died fighting against
the formidable nomads.
Mithradates 11. of Parthia, 124-88 b.c.— It might be
thought
second defeat ;
that Parthia was doomed to succumb after this
but Mithradates II., who now ascended the
throne, was a more fortunate or a better and his
general,
operations changed the whole aspect of affairs, the nomads
receiving such severe lessons that they turned their arms
to a quarter where the resistance was weaker, and poured
into the state now termed Afghanistan. Indeed, so successful
was Mithradates that he annexed various provinces
to
the eastward, and coins prove that princes with Parthian
names bore rule near the Himalayas during this period.
After his new provinces had been duly organized, Mithra-
dates was free to devote attention to the west of his
empire, where Hymerus, the Viceroy of Babylon, was
preparing to revolt. But the Parthian monarch with his
seasoned army was too powerful, and Hymerus was easily
crushed.
Parthia and Armenia.—The state of Armenia with its
capital Van has already been referred to in connexion with
the campaigns of the Assyrian conquerors, when it was inhabited
by the Nairi, the Urartu, and the Mannai. But
about the sixth century b.c. the Armenians, who are an
Aryan race, apparently entered the country from the west.
Herodotus speaks of them as colonists of the Phrygians,
when he mentions their
contingent
in connexion with the
great army of Xerxes.-^ Armenia (Armina) also appears
among the provinces of the Persian Empire in the Behistun
inscriptions,
and we hear of it from time to time in sub-
sequent history, but generally as having no particular
importance. When Mithradates I. extended the Parthian
^ Herodotus vii. 73.