Parthia: Rome's Ablest Competitor | Hacker News Reader

Parthia: Rome's Ablest Competitor

ancient.eu

81 pointsHNLurker248 comments

I have to be careful reading articles like this. I have hundreds of hours logged in 2004's Rome Total War. All it takes is reading some interesting fact about Rome's military or one of their enemies and I can find myself losing a day or two in a new campaign. Even though the first Rome Total War came out 15 years ago, it is still the pinnacle of historical simulation video games to me. Simple yet endless replay value in trying out new tactics and strategies.

Ah, a kindred spirit. Despite the quality of the sequel, the original Rome Total War has a certain charm and simplicity that’s hard to replicate.

oh boy ... rome total war and civ4 - you don't realize when the night's over and the day breaks :).

One of the great "what-ifs" of history is that when Julius Caesar was assassinated, he was preparing for a campaign against the Parthian Empire. What if, Julius Caesar was not assassinated and was able to launch his invasion of Parthia.

Julius Caesar was one of the greatest generals in history, and arguably Rome's best general (with the possible exception of Scipio Africanus). In addition, as evidenced by his visit to the tomb of Alexander the Great, he idolized Alexander, and I am sure would have loved to try to do what Alexander did in conquering Persia. Years later Trajan did figure out how to invade the Parthian capital city of Ctesiphon by moving columns down the Euphrates - so a successful invasion was possible.

With Julius Caesar's assassination Rome fell into civil war. Mark Antony tried an invasion, but as history showed, he was not nearly the general Julius Caesar was. Julius's successor, Augustus, was not a military genius in any sense, and was too worried about his position in Rome to risk an invasion of Parthia, and was content just to get the Roman standards back that had been lost by Crassus.

Subsequent history may have been a lot different if Julius Caesar had not been assassinated when he was.

Julius Caesar was one of the greatest generals according to a history written by the victors. Namely, him.

Not that I'm saying you're wrong, but invading Parthia would be a rather different story than invading Gaul.

> Julius Caesar was one of the greatest generals according to a history written by the victors. Namely, him.

Well, sure, but when the question is "who's good at winning?", it's not obviously wrong to see what the victors think.

Hannibal was one of the greatest generals according to a history written by the victors, even though the victors despised him.

Hannibal gets more credit as a result.

Note, I'm not necessarily saying Caesar was bad. He did win, as you say. But he had significant materiel and troop advantages against the Gauls and against Pompey. Maybe we should credit him more as a politician and less as a general.

Another example is Robert E. Lee, and Ulysses S. Grant. Even though Grant was the winner, often Lee is perceived as the better general. Though I think if you ask historians now who was the better general, I think many will say Grant as he had a deeper understanding of overall strategy (including logistics, manpower, etc) which is more important than whatever tactical brilliance Lee may have had.

I read a very interesting account of how poorly Lee in particular and the Confederacy in general prosecuted the Civil War. They misunderstood their political goals absolutely and instead of simply fighting a war of defense - holding out long enough to appear a legitimate nation in their own right, (essentially running down the clock), they fought to take and hold territory that they didn't need. Tactical brilliance is nothing without sound strategy.

Montgomery vs Rommel is a good example of that too!

Politics again. Grant was a lousy president afterwards, and the south needed a hero. Thus their storylines diverge.

In fact, given the political needs in ensuing decades, there's really no need for the "story" to reflect the record at all.

i agree with about 98% of what you said, but julius caesar had also heavily mortgaged the future for the present. he had aging legions who had already mutinied a few times and he kept winning them back with more and more promises that he'd not yet fulfilled. i wonder if a force as formidable as the parthian archers would be something that ended up finally breaking the resolve of those experienced legions.

There's actually something deeply weird about Caesar's assassination. He was well aware that folks were plotting against him, and was incredibly complacent about it all - this is something that ancient sources mention again and again, not just urban legend. You can read that as him just being fatalistic (which was incredibly common in the ancient world) but it's almost as if he willfully invited the whole thing.

I think Julius Caesar lived his whole life, believing (or at least acting) like he was invincible.

He gets captured by pirates, and he incessantly demands they treat him with respect and that he is going to come back and crucify them. They don't kill him, and he later comes back and crucifies them.

During his Gaul campaigns, he would regularly be in the thick of the fight, and several times came close to being killed.

During mutinies, he would regularly go out among the mutinous soldiers without really a whole lot of protection and talk them down. He could have been easily killed during that time.

So what we see as complacency or fatalism, may just be Julius Caesar acting like he always did. That strategy had worked his whole life, until at the end, it didn't.

Reminds me of George Washington. He literally marches in front of bullets and luckily he was misses

Image dump of the article: https://i.imgur.com/jRs9P6V.jpg

You are doing god's work.

An Iranian friend of mine who is a history buff (but not qualified in it) says that the fall of Parthia to the Arab conquests was galvanised in Persian culture and is one of the driving factors of hostilities between modern day Iran and the Arabian peninsula.

Since Iran then was then subsequently ruled by Caliphs, Turkish Sultans and then western rulers. There is an inferiority complex in Persian politics.

It's an interesting thought, although I am not too sure how much bearing it has in reality.

Parthians did not fall to Arabs. Either you misunderstood your friend or s/he is indeed "not qualified".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthian_Empire

It was the 3rd Iranian empire (I do not consider Elam to be Iranian) that fell to the Arabs, the Sassanian:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sassanian_Empire

To an extent, as an Iranian, it is partially true that post Sassanian, no other Iranian dynasty had command over the entirety of historic Iranian lands and boundaries. The last Iranian dynasty, the Pahlavi dynasty of the 20th century came closest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Iranian_dynasties_and_...

> There is an inferiority complex in Persian politics.

I'm quite confident that mindset is a thing of the past. (Look at China.) Currently of course we are burdened with a regime that is polluting Iranian culture. But this too shall pass, God willing.

[p.s. regarding other mis-statements]:

> Since Iran then was then subsequently ruled by Caliphs, Turkish Sultans and then western rulers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samanids

That's a pretty substantial piece of real estate, agreed?

> western rulers.

Possibly you are referring to the Pahlavi Shahs (?), in which case it important to point out that if the Shah of Iran was in fact a puppet of the West they would not have been so pleased to see him go. You may want to take a trip to Iran and ask the natives what are their feelings towards the Pahlavi dynasty these days ...

Thanks for the insight. Does the current regime like to draw on these historical periods to foment partriotism / nationalism?

I am planning to visit Iran someday (Shiraz, Damavand and Ifshahan)

No. The clerical class in Iran was introduced by the Safavid dynasty. This same dynasty -- Shiite Turks -- also forced the conversion of Iran into a Shia country. It was much more tolerant before that. So their point of reference starts with the Safavids.

When they first came to power, one of the more unhinged specimens of the Mullahs, the hanging judge Khalkhali, wanted to demolish Persepolis. Iran's heritage and history threatens them.

It is also quite upsetting to the regime that every year Iranians gather at the tomb of Hafiz (Shiraz) and Persepolis (very near Shiraz).

But if you pay attention, you will note that the "Supreme Leader" likes to sit on a chair with clothing that very much resembles the iconic relief of Dariush the Great. :-)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/Darius_I...

Their supporters in the west likewise push the extremist terrorist cult of MEK as the alternative. I sometimes wonder if this is implicitly a threat to Iranians of who will come to power should they throw out the Mullahs (who clearly had and still have foreign support). What is oddly consistent across the histrionic divide is a shared interest in propaganda against the Pahlavi dynasty. No less than NYTimes is on this game.

Go figure ..

How would you categorize the succession of dynasties in Persia? The world history courses I took all heavily ignored the existence of lands between the Jade Gate and the Turkish Straits, so I have only the vaguest of ideas of what the history of Persia looks like.

Wikipedia is a good place to start but I would not consider it authoritative. Lot of dogs in the fight over the history of Iran, specially the past couple of centuries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_iran

For the academic treatment, I highly recommend Encyclopædia Iranica:

http://www.iranicaonline.org/pages/about

A request for you: please call it as we have called it for millennia: Iran.

> A request for you: please call it as we have called it for millennia: Iran.

I've met quite a few (ethnic) Iranians who have told me off for referring to it as Iran instead of Persia, but that may well be more tied up with recent history than ancient history.

You are correct. The impolite answer is that they count on their new compatriots' lack of knowledge to dodge the I-rain-ian [sic] label.

Historically, only enemies of Iran refer to it as Persia. The British, for example, remain quite keen to call us that.

I second this and would like to add that Persians are one of dozen of ethnicities that make up Iran including Turks/Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, Baluchs, Turkmens, Lors/Lurs, etc. [1] Referring to it as Persia/Persians is akin to ignoring vast majority of the people living there imho.

"Iran" has been the term people used inside to refer to the land/people for a very long time, but Shah officially requested the change from foreign governments in 1935.[2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnicities_in_Iran

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Iran

Stoking ethnic tensions with an eye towards partition, God forbid, is precisely their aim.

You could return the favor and call them English.

We have higher standards. :)

If one wanted to encourage tourism, call it Persia. Many places have a different foreign name than internal name. It isn't (usually) disrespectful.

Persia is a very pleasing sounding name. I am a Persian and quite like it. However, as noted elsewhere, tribal preferences and aesthetics are trumped by a greater love for the totality of the Iranian People, who are not all Persians.

Rough outline from ancient through end of Middle Ages

* Achaemenid - Cyrus the Great, Xerxes, etc

* Alexander - Conquered Persian Empire

* Seleucid - Alexander's General

* Parthian - Nomadic invaders who ruled Persia from horseback

* Sassanian - Native Persians who expelled the Parthians and saw themselves as the heirs of the Achaemenids

* Arab Caliphate - Part of the Muslim conquest

* Mongol Ilkhanate - Conquered by Hulagu, Grandson of Genghis Khan

* Safavid - Founded by Ismail. It was under this dynasty that Iran/Persia became Shiite as opposed to Sunni

I can recommend the writings of K. E. Eduljee who has been digging into this topic for an extended period of time.

http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/

Scroll down to the Site Contents, the third column is dedicated to (mostly) Persian history.

Regarding the post Sassanid dynasty, the Safavids came close: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safavid_dynasty

The Arab invasion of Persia is overblown. What seems to have happened is some Buffer states between Byzantine and Persia revolted and took some land in Iran.

Most of Islam's early history is forged. For example take the location of their holy city of Mecca. Muhammed never stepped into Mecca and he was from Petra. Dan Gibson has done an excellent documentary on it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOnGvzVceVo)

As for the name Muhammed goes, it means "chosen one". It was name used to refer to Jesus initially. Half the christians claimed he was the son of god while the other half believed he was just a normal human who was chosen by god. They started calling him Muhammed instead implying he was not the son of god.

>Muhammed never stepped into Mecca

Muhammed was from Mecca so I’m not sure about that.

The parent is referring to a thesis that Muhammad was not from Mecca, and the entire insertion of Mecca is a politically-motivated alteration to early Islam. This theory hasn't gained a lot of credence among modern historians, however.

(See https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/98auh0/does_... for example).

> As for the name Muhammed goes, it means "chosen one".

Actually the name of the Prophet has the Arabic roots h.m.d. denoting 'praise', and we have the names Ahmad, Muhammad, and Hamid derived from that root.

This isn't esoteric occult knowledge, btw. You could do a cursory search before you post:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_%28name%29

> Dan Gibson claims that early mosques face Petra rather than Mecca. But he compares the mosque orientations with MODERN directions of Petra and Mecca. He does not realise that historical qibla directions cannot be the same as modern qibla directions. In fact, the easiest mosque orientations were not calculated at all, but relied on astronomical horizon phenomena, not least because the Kaaba itself is astronomically aligned.

A paper: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330221815

I think that is different Persian empire, but they are right the Byzantines (Romans) and Persians where involved fighting each other which weakened them.

And the Bizarre doctrinal spats that Byzantium went in for didn't help - we wont mention the IV crusade.

I would question that notion. Sassanians were quite capable. In fact, some Iranian historians consider them superior to Hakhamaneshian.

I wonder if there persists a desire to forget about the Battle of Edessa?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Edessa

sassanians were very capable, to be sure and, to be fair, though the article doesn't really specify the date, edessa and valerian were centuries later in rome's history, near the tail-end of the unified empire (30-ish years before diocletian).

so i'm not sure there's a desire to forget about the battle of edessa, or the skinning of valerian - it's in the history, but the tone of the article seems to be regarding the threats to the emerging and established empire and not the crumbling one.

Fair points all around. (I thought the skinning bit was debated?)

you're absolutely correct. my apologies.

The Silk Road map image leads to a 2012 article about it:

https://www.ancient.eu/image/146/the-silk-road/

which in turn has a map image with better resolution:

https://www.ancient.eu/uploads/images/146.png?v=1485680513

Obligatory plug of the excellent "The History of Rome" podcast

Love Mike Duncan! I’m going through his “Revolutions” podcast now and it’s terrific. Also worth mentioning Dan Carlin’s podcast about the Achaemenids, obviously about an earlier period of Iranian history than tfa but very good stuff. He covers a great deal more than the Greek wars, and in the west it’s a story we don’t usually hear told from the “other side”.

Fwiw though I’ll take generally Mike Duncan over Carlin - Carlin’s a world class storyteller but imo he gets too caught up in hypotheticals and war stories. Duncan doesn’t have the quite the same “favorite professor” delivery but he covers things from more angles.

The story behind https://ageofempires.fandom.com/wiki/Parthian_Tactics :)

What a great domain name!

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