Beate Dignas & Engelbert Winter - Kaveh Farrokh

14 1 To the beginning of the third century
ideological level, however, Rome’s claim for world domination remained
intact. 26 Many comments made by poets of the Augustan period, who represented
the opinion of the nobility in the city of Rome, reflect the view
that no state or people could be equal to the imperium Romanum. 27
Augustus initiated a policy that refrained from conquests beyond the
Euphrates and acknowledged the Parthians as a second world power equal
to Rome. Although Nero (54–68) fought a Parthian War over Armenia,
the Arsacid ruler Tiridates was eventually crowned by Nero as king of
Armenia in a great Roman spectacle, 28 and we may say that Augustus’
policy of cooperation laid the foundation for a more or less uninterrupted
peace between the two powers throughout the first century ad. The fact
that in ad 66 the so-called ‘Armenian question’ found a solution must
have strengthened relations even further (26). 29 Local conflicts, Rome’s
fortification of the frontier along the Euphrates and in the Caucasus and a
tightened Roman rule in the Eastern provinces did their part to see relations
deteriorate but did not immediately lead to new armed confrontations on
the Eastern frontier of the Roman Empire. 30 Rome, however, improved its
military position significantly during this period. 31
At the beginning of the second century the emperor Trajan (98–117)
intended to conquer the Parthian kingdom and thereby turned the dream
of Roman world domination into political reality. 32 Our ancient sources do
not reveal the precise reasons for the emperor’s Parthian campaign. It looks
as if ideas of world domination and military glory 33 were equally important
as strategic considerations regarding a stronger Roman frontier beyond the
Euphrates. Trajan rejected Parthian efforts to come to a peaceful settlement.
Contemporary observers criticised the emperor’s actions prior to the
military confrontations 34 and accused him of turning his back on a Roman
policy in the East that had prevailed since Augustus, namely a policy that
acknowledged the sovereignty of the Parthian kingdom as a political factor
within a community of states that abided by the same international laws. 35
26 On the image of the Parthians in the West see Sonnabend 1986.
27 For references see Wissemann 1982.
28 Anderson 1934: 743–80; Ziegler 1964: 67–78; Wagner 1985: 31–42.
29 Wolski 1983a: 269–77; for the period after 34/5 see also Schottky 1991: 81–7; for the position of
Armenia between the two great powers in general see Garsoïan 1997a: 63–94 and 1985: 95–116.
30 For developments within the Parthian kingdom during the first century see Dabrowa 1981: 187–204;
Schottky 1991: 61–135; Ash 1999: 114–35.
31 For the fortification of the Roman–Parthian frontier along the Euphrates from Augustus to the
Flavian emperors see Dabrowa 1980: 382–8; Wagner 1985: 19–57; Bosworth 1976: 63–78; Mitchell
1993: 118–42.
32 On Trajan’s political goals see Eadie 1985: 407–23.
33 Cf. esp. Cass. Dio lxviii.17.1. 34 E.g. Front. 15. 35 Cf. Ziegler 1964: 102.