CHAPTER II
EARLY FOREIGN RELATIONS
MITHRADATES THE FIRST established Parthia as a world power; whether or not his successors could maintain that position against the Seleucidae remained to be seen. Phraates II came to the throne about 138/37 b.c. on the death of his father Mithradates.[1] He must have been very young, for his mother, whose name was Ri-⸢in⸣(?)-nu, acted as regent.[2]
Babylonia remained for the next seven years in the hands of the Parthians, as cuneiform documents from there show;[3] but the coinage of Phraates suggests
- ↑ Justin xlii. 1. 1.
- ↑ A. T. Clay, Babylonian Records in the Library of J. Pierpont Morgan. II. Legal Documents from Erech Dated in the Seleucid Era (New York, 1913), No. 53 and p. 13.
- ↑ A copy of an old astronomical work, dated 27 Aiaru, 111 a.e., 174 s.e. (to be corrected to 175 s.e.; cf. same date correctly written in Reisner, Hymnen, No. 5, referred to below), i. e., 137 b.c., Epping and Strassmaier in ZA, VI (1891), 228 and 244; a copy of an ancient hymn, dated same year, George A. Reisner, Sumerisch-babylonische Hymnen nach Thontafeln griechischer Zeit (Berlin, 1896), No. 5; a copy of another, dated 114 a.e., i.e., 134 b.c., ibid., No. 35, Pl. 153; a tablet dated in year 6 of "Arʾsiuqqa, king" (i.e., about 132/31 b.c. on the probable assumption that this is Phraates II), Clay, Babylonian Records, II, No. 51. Ephemerides from slightly later years calculate a number of dates during this period and always give them to Arsaces; the last is 180 s.e., i. e.,
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