maintained themselves for years in Neerda in the swamps of Babylonia, and were acknowledged as dynasts by Artabanus (Jos. Ant. 18. 9). In A.D. 35 he tried anew to conquer Armenia, and to establish his son Arsaces as king there. A war with Rome seemed inevitable. But that party among the Parthian magnates which was hostile to Artabanus applied to Tiberius for a king of the race of Phraates. Tiberius sent Phraates’s grandson, Tiridates III., and ordered L. Vitellius (the father of the emperor) to restore the Roman authority in the East. By very dexterous military and diplomatic operations Vitellius succeeded completely. Artabanus was deserted by his followers and fled to the East. Tiridates, who was proclaimed king, could no longer maintain himself, because he appeared to be a vassal of the Romans; Artabanus returned from Hyrcania with a strong army of Scythian (Dahan) auxiliaries, and was again acknowledged by the Parthians. Tiridates left Seleucia and fled to Syria. But Artabanus was not strong enough for a war with Rome; he therefore concluded a treaty with Vitellius, in which he gave up all further pretensions (A.D. 37). A short time afterwards Artabanus was deposed again, and a certain Cinnamus was proclaimed king. Artabanus took refuge with his vassal, the king Izates, of Adiabene; and Izates by negotiations and the promise of a complete pardon induced the Parthians to restore Artabanus once more to the throne (Jos. Ant. 20. 3). Shortly afterwards Artabanus died, and was succeeded by his son, Vardanes, whose reign was still more turbulent than that of his father.
6. Artabanus III. reigned a short time in A.D. 80 (on a coin of this year he calls himself Arsaces Artabanus) and the following years, and supported a pretender who rose in Asia Minor under the name of Nero (Zonaras xi. 18), but could not maintain himself against Pacorus II.
7. Artabanus IV., the last Parthian king, younger son of Vologaeses IV., who died A.D. 209. He rebelled against his brother Vologaeses V. (Dio Cass. vii. 12), and soon obtained the upper hand, although Vologaeses V. maintained himself in a part of Babylonia till about A.D. 222. The emperor Caracalla, wishing to make use of this civil war for a conquest of the East in imitation of his idol, Alexander the Great, attacked the Parthians in 216. He crossed the Tigris, destroyed the towns and spoiled the tombs of Arbela; but when Artabanus advanced at the head of an army, he retired to Carrhae. There he was murdered by Macrinus in April 217. Macrinus was defeated at Nisibis and concluded a peace with Artabanus, in which he gave up all the Roman conquests, restored the booty, and paid a heavy contribution to the Parthians (Dio Cass. lxxviii. 26 f.). But at the same time, the Persian dynast Ardashir (q.v.) had already begun his conquests in Persia and Carmania. When Artabanus tried to subdue him his troops were defeated. The war lasted several years; at last Artabanus himself was vanquished and killed (A.D. 226), and the rule of the Arsacids came to an end.
ART AND PART, a term used in Scots law to denote the aiding or abetting in the perpetration of a crime,—the being an accessory before or at the perpetration of the crime. There is no such offence recognized in Scotland as that of being an accessory after the fact.
ARTAPHERNES, more correctly Artaphrenes, brother of Darius Hystaspis, and satrap of Sardis. It was he who received the embassy from Athens sent probably by Cleisthenes (q.v.) in 507 B.C., and subsequently warned the Athenians to receive back the “tyrant” Hippias. Subsequently he took an important part in suppressing the Ionian revolt (see Ionia, Aristagoras, Histiaeus), and after the war compelled the cities to make agreements by which all differences were to be settled by reference. He also measured out their territories in parasangs and assessed their tributes accordingly (Herod, vi. 42). In 492 he was superseded in his satrapy by Mardonius (Herodotus v. 25, 30-32, 35, &c.; Diod. Sic. x. 25). His son, of the same name, was appointed (490), together with Datis, to take command of the expedition sent by Darius to punish Athens and Eretria for their share in the Ionian revolt. After the defeat of Marathon he returned to Asia. In the expedition of Xerxes, ten years later, he was in command of the Lydians and Mysians (Herod, vi. 94, 119; vii. 74, Aesch. Persae, 21).
Aeschylus in his list of Persian kings (Persae, 775 ff.), which is quite unhistorical, mentions two kings with the name Artaphrenes, who may have been developed out of these two Persian commanders. (Ed. M.)
ARTAXERXES, a name representing Pers. Artakhshatra, “he whose empire is well-fitted” or “perfected”, Heb. Artakhshasta, Bab. Artakshatsu, Susian Irtakshashsha (and variants), Gr. Ἀρταξέρξης, Ἀρτοξέρξης, and in an inscription of Tralles (Dittenberger, Sylloge, 573) Ἀρταξέσσης; Herodotus (vi. 98) gives the translation μέγας ἀρήιος, and considers the name as a compound of Xerxes, showing thereby that he knew nothing of the Persian language; the later Persian form is Ardashir, which occurs in the form Artaxias (Artaxes) as the name of some kings of Armenia. It was borne by three kings of the Achaemenian dynasty of ancient Persia; though, so long as its meaning was understood, it can have been adopted by the kings only after their accession to the throne.
1. Artaxerxes I., surnamed Macrocheir, Longimanus, “Longhand,” because his right hand was longer than his left (Plut. Artax. i.). He was the younger son of Xerxes, and was raised to the throne in 465 by the vizier Artabanus, the murderer of his father. After a few months he became aware of the crimes of the vizier, and slew him and his sons in a hand-to-hand fight in the palace. His reign was, on the whole, peaceful; the empire had reached a period of stagnation. Plutarch (Artax. i.) says that he was famous for his mild and magnanimous character, Nepos (de Reg. i.) that he was exceedingly beautiful and valiant. From the authentic report of his cup-bearer Nehemiah we see that he was a kind, good-natured, but rather weak monarch, and he was undoubtedly much under the baneful influence of his mother Amestris (for whose mischievous character cf. Herod. ix. 109 ff.) and his sister and wife Amytis. The peacefulness of his rule was interrupted by several insurrections. At the very beginning the satrap Artabanus raised a rebellion in Bactria, but was defeated in two battles. More dangerous was the rebellion of Egypt under Inarus (Inarōs), which was put down by Megabyzus only after a long struggle against the Egyptians and the Athenians (460–454). Out of it sprang the rebellion of Megabyzus, who was greatly exasperated because, though he had persuaded Inarus to surrender by promising that his life would be spared, Artaxerxes, yielding to the entreaties of his wife Amytis, who wanted to take revenge on Inarus for the death of her brother Achaemenes, the satrap of Egypt, had surrendered him to her for execution.
In spite of his weakness, Artaxerxes I. was not unsuccessful in his polity. In 448 the war with Athens was terminated by the treaty concluded by Callias (but see Callias and Cimon), by which the Athenians left Cyprus and Egypt to the Persians, while Persia gave up nothing of her rights, but promised not to make use of them against the Greek cities on the Asiatic coast, which had gained their liberty (Ed. Meyer, Forschungen zur alt. Gesch. ii. 71 ff.). In the Samian and the Peloponnesian wars, Artaxerxes remained neutral, in spite of the attempts made by both Sparta and Athens to gain his alliance.
During the reign of Artaxerxes I. the Jewish religion was definitely established and sanctioned by law in Jerusalem, on the basis of a firman granted by the king to the Babylonian priest Ezra in his seventh year, 458 B.C., and the appointment of his cup-bearer Nehemiah as governor of Judaea in his twentieth year, 445 B.C. The attempts which have been made to deny the authenticity of those parts of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah which contain an account of these two men, taken from their own memoirs, or to place them in the reign of Artaxerxes II., are not convincing (cf. Ed. Meyer, Die Entstehung des Judentums, 1896; see further Jews, §§ 19, 21, 22; Ezra and Nehemiah).
Artaxerxes I. died in December 425, or January 424 (Thuc. iv. 50). To his reign must belong the famous quadrilingual alabaster vases from Egypt (on which his name is written in Persian,
