Note 72 — Chapter IX · THE EUPHRATES FRONTIER AND THE PARTHIANS. (continued 2)

When Nöldeke says (Tabari, p. 449), “The subjection of the chief lands of the monarchy directly to the crown formed the chief distinction of the Sassanid kingdom from the Arsacid, which had real kings in its various provinces,” the power of the great-kingdom beyond doubt is thoroughly dependent on the personality of the possessor, and under the first Sassanids must have been much stronger than under the last decayed Arsacids. But a contrast in principle is not discoverable. From Mithradates I., the proper founder of the dynasty, onward the Arsacid ruler names himself “king of kings,” just as did subsequently the Sassanid, while Alexander the Great and the Seleucids never bore this title. Even under them individual vassal-kings ruled, e.g. in Persis (p. 81, note 2); but the vassal-kingdom was not then the regular form of imperial administration, and the Greek rulers did not name themselves according to it, any more than the Caesars assumed the title of great-king on account of Cappadocia or Numidia. The satraps of the Arsacid state were essentially the Marzbans of the Sassanids. Perhaps rather the great imperial offices, which in the Sassanid polity correspond to the supreme administrative posts of the Diocletiano-Constantinian constitution, and probably were the model for the latter, were wanting to the Arsacid state; then certainly the two would be related to each other much as the imperial organisation of Augustus to that of Constantine. But we know too little of the Arsacid organisation to affirm this with certainty.