Note 60 — LIFE OF CRASSUS.

This was a general name of the Parthian kings, and probably was used as a kind of title. The dynasty was called the Arsakidæ. The name Arsakes occurs among the Persian names in the Persæ of Aeschylus. Pott (Etymologische Forschungen, ii. 272) conjectures that the word means 'King of the Arii,' or 'the noble King.' The prefix Ar or Ari is very common in Persian names, as Ariamnes, Ariomardus, and others.

Plutarch in other passages of the Life of Crassus calls this Arsakes, Hyrodes, and other authorities call him Orodes. He is classed as Arsakes XIV. Orodes I. of Parthia, by those who have attempted to form a regular series of the Parthian kings.

Crassus replied that he would give his answer in Seleukeia, the large city on the Tigris, which was nearly pure Greek. The later Parthian capital was Ktesiphon, in the neighbourhood of Seleukeia, on the east bank of the Tigris and about twenty miles from Bagdad. The foundation of Ktesiphon is attributed by Ammianus Marcellinus (xxiii. 6, ed. Gronov.) to Bardanes, who was a contemporary of the Roman emperor Nero, if he is the Arsakes Bardanes who appears in the list of Parthian kings. But Ktesiphon is mentioned by Polybius in his fifth book, in the wars of Antiochus and Molon, and consequently it existed in the time of Crassus, though it is not mentioned in his Life. Ktesiphon is mentioned by Dion Cassius (40. c. 14) in his history of the campaign of Crassus, but this alone would not prove that Ktesiphon existed at that time.