Prelude

Pompey’s arrangements of the East at the conclusion of the Mithridatic wars (8963 bc) began Rome’s permanent military commitment. In the north, Bithynia, bequeathed to Rome (74 bc), merged with much of the old Pontic kingdom as a new Bithynia-Pontus and a “Pontic road” extended the via Egnatia from Byzantium into Anatolia via Nicomedia to Nicopolis (Purk) in Armenia Minor. In the south, Pompey’s annexation of Syria (64 bc), the Seleucid Empire’s surviving fragment, created the first Roman province in the Semitic Near East. Syria would constitute only the major cities of the coast and the Orontes River Valley with the Greek cities of the non-contiguous area of the Decapolis (mainly east of the Jordan River) appended.

Direct Roman rule involved only a distorted S-shaped chain of provinces (Bithynia-Pontus, Asia, Cilicia, Syria) with a military commitment reduced from Pompey’s 12 legions to only four (two each in Cilicia and Syria) or possibly five (one in Bithynia-Pontus?). Permanent legionary camps for these 20,000-30,000(?) troops are unknown. Indirect Roman control through client-kings, however, not only filled gaps around the regular provinces, but also presented a block of Roman influence and (in theory at least) Rome-protected territory running from the Crimea along the Caucasus’ south side through Armenia, Osrhoene, and the Syrian desert to the Arabia peninsula. The Mithridatic wars shifted Rome’s eastern frontier from the Aegean coast to the Euphrates and beyond, although as typical in late republican unrestrained imperialism, large bites of new territory still required organizational and pacifying digestion.

Rome’s eastward advancement collided with the westward ambitions of Iranian Parthia, a multi-ethnic empire, whose Arsacid dynasty had replaced Seleucid control between Mesopotamia and India. Thus began a rivalry of Mediterranean and Iranian powers over seven centuries that would yield the Near East to fresh Arabian blood heated with Muslim enthusiasm. Initial contact came in 95 bc (or 92 bc), when Cornelius Sulla, then propraetor of Cilicia, encountered a Parthian embassy in Cappadocia. No formal foedus (treaty) with the Parthians came from Sulla, Lucullus, or Pompey. Nor was the Euphrates established as a border. Pompey set the empire’s Mesopotamian border at the obscure Oruros some 50 (or 250) miles from Zeugma (Pliny, Nat. Hist. 6.120). Parthia, after 31 bc the only true state bordering Roman territory and not a client-kingdom, approximated Rome’s own capabilities and became the prime focus of Rome’s foreign and military policy in the East for the next 250 years.

Further, Pompey established Rome’s right to name Armenian kings, when he permitted Tigranes II (a descendant of Artaxias I) to retain his crown (66 bc). After all, Rome’s recognition of Armenian independence (188 bc) had created that state. Sophene, however, annexed by Tigranes c. 93 bc, was added to Cappadocia (64 bc). Armenia became the chief bone of contention between Rome and Parthia from Augustus on, the cause - directly or indirectly - of nearly all wars and crises. Roman sources (Parthian sources scarcely exist) never explicitly explain Parthian claims to Armenia in particular (cf. Tacitus, Ann. 6.31.1). Tigranes II, however, fathered sons by a Parthian wife and his offspring (both male and female) married Arsacids. Parthia probably had dynastic claims to Armenia, especially as Roman candidates with suitable Artaxiad blood eventually represented genealogical gymnastics. Pro-Parthian and pro-Roman factions within the fiercely independent Armenian nobility aggravated the situation.