Ctesiphon was an ancient city, located on the eastern bank of the Tigris, about 35 kilometres (22 mi) southeast of present-day Baghdad. Ctesiphon served as a royal capital of the empires in the Parthian and Sasanian eras for over eight hundred years. Ctesiphon was capital of the Sasanian Empire from 226–637 until the Muslim conquest of Persia in 651 AD.
Shapur I was the second Sasanian King of Kings of Iran. The precise dating of his reign is disputed, but it is generally agreed that he ruled from 240 to 270, with his father Ardashir I as co-regent until the death of the latter in 242. During his co-regency, he helped his father with the conquest and destruction of the Arab city of Hatra, whose fall was facilitated, according to Islamic tradition, by the actions of his future wife al-Nadirah. Shapur also consolidated and expanded the empire of Ardashir I, waged war against the Roman Empire, and seized its cities of Nisibis and Carrhae while he was advancing as far as Roman Syria. Although he was defeated at the Battle of Resaena in 243 by Roman emperor Gordian III, he was the following year able to win the Battle of Misiche and force the new Roman emperor Philip the Arab to sign a favorable peace treaty that was regarded by the Romans as "a most shameful treaty".
Mithridates I, also known as Mithridates I the Great, was king of the Parthian Empire from 165 BC to 132 BC. During his reign, Parthia was transformed from a small kingdom into a major political power in the Ancient East as a result of his conquests. He first conquered Aria, Margiana and western Bactria from the Greco-Bactrians sometime in 163–155 BC, and then waged war with the Seleucid Empire, conquering Media and Atropatene in 148/7 BC. In 141 BC, he conquered Babylonia and held an official investiture ceremony in Seleucia. The kingdoms of Elymais and Characene shortly afterwards became Parthian vassals. In c. 140 BC, while Mithridates was fighting the nomadic Saka in the east, the Seleucid king Demetrius II Nicator attempted to regain the lost territories; initially successful, he was defeated and captured in 138 BC, and shortly afterwards sent to one of Mithridates I's palaces in Hyrcania. Mithridates I then punished Elymais for aiding Demetrius, and made Persis a Parthian vassal.
Legio III Parthica was a legion of the Imperial Roman army founded in AD 197 by the emperor Septimius Severus for his campaign against the Parthian Empire, hence the cognomen Parthica. The legion was still active in the Eastern provinces in the early 5th century. The legion's symbol was probably a bull.
Vologases III was king of the Parthian Empire from 110 to 147. He was the son and successor of Pacorus II.
Osroes I was a Parthian contender, who ruled the western portion of the Parthian Empire from 109 to 129, with a one-year interruption. For most of his reign he contended with the rival king Vologases III who was based in the eastern provinces. In 116, Osroes I was briefly ousted from his throne at Ctesiphon during an invasion by Roman emperor Trajan, who installed Osroes' son, Parthamaspates. After Trajan's death the following year, Osroes I's rule was reinstated by the Parthian nobility. In 129, he was removed from power by Vologases III.
Vologases IV was King of Kings of the Parthian Empire from 147 to 191. He was the son of Mithridates V. Vologases spent the early years of his reign re-asserting Parthian control over the Kingdom of Characene. From 161 to 166, he waged war against the Roman Empire; although initially successful, conquering Armenia and Syria, he was eventually pushed back, briefly losing control of the Parthian capitals of Seleucia and Ctesiphon to the Romans. The Romans suffered heavy losses from a plague erupting from Seleucia in 166, forcing them to withdraw. The war ended soon afterward, with Vologases losing most of northern Mesopotamia to the Romans. He died in 191 and was succeeded by his son Vologases V.
Vologases V was King of Kings of the Parthian Empire from 191 to 208. As king of Armenia, he is known as Vologases II. Not much is known about his period of kingship of Armenia, except that he put his son Rev I on the Iberian throne in 189. Vologases succeeded his father Vologases IV as king of the Parthian Empire in 191; it is uncertain if the transition of power was peaceful or if Vologases took the throne in a civil war. When Vologases acceded the Parthian throne, he passed the Armenian throne to his son Khosrov I.
Seleucia, also known as Seleucia-on-Tigris or Seleucia on the Tigris or Seleucia ad Tigrim, was a major Mesopotamian city, located on the west bank of the Tigris River within the present-day Baghdad Governorate in Iraq. It was founded around 305 BC by Seleucus I Nicator as the first capital of the Seleucid Empire, and remained an important center of trade and Hellenistic culture after the imperial capital relocated to Antioch. The city continued to flourish under Parthian rule beginning in 141 BC; ancient texts claim that it reached a population of 600,000. Seleucia was destroyed in 165 AD by Roman general Avidius Cassius and gradually faded into obscurity in the subsequent centuries. The site was rediscovered in the 1920s by archaeologists.
Relations between the Roman and Iranian states were established c. 92 BC. It was in 69 BC that the two states clashed for the first time; the political rivalry between the two empires would dominate much of Western Asia and Europe until 628. Initially commencing as a rivalry between the Parthians and Rome, from the 3rd to mid-7th centuries the Roman Empire and its rival Sassanid Persia were recognized as two of the leading powers in the world.
The Battle of Ctesiphon took place on 29 May 363 between the armies of Roman Emperor Julian and an army of the Sasanian Empire outside the walls of the Persian capital Ctesiphon. The battle was a Roman victory, but eventually the Roman forces found themselves unable to continue their campaign as they were too far from their supply lines.
The Roman–Persian Wars, also known as the Roman–Iranian Wars, were a series of conflicts between states of the Greco-Roman world and two successive Iranian empires: the Parthian and the Sasanian. Battles between the Parthian Empire and the Roman Republic began in 54 BC; wars began under the late Republic, and continued through the Roman and Sasanian empires. A plethora of vassal kingdoms and allied nomadic nations in the form of buffer states and proxies also played a role. The wars were ended by the early Muslim conquests, which led to the fall of the Sasanian Empire and huge territorial losses for the Byzantine Empire, shortly after the end of the last war between them.
Assyria was a short-lived Roman province in Mesopotamia that was created by Trajan in 116 during his campaign against the Parthian Empire. After Trajan's death, the newly proclaimed emperor Hadrian ordered the evacuation of Assyria in 118.
The Parthian Empire, also known as the Arsacid Empire, was a major Iranian political and cultural power in ancient Iran from 247 BC to 224 AD. Its latter name comes from its founder, Arsaces I, who led the Parni tribe in conquering the region of Parthia in Iran's northeast, then a satrapy (province) under Andragoras, who was rebelling against the Seleucid Empire. Mithridates I greatly expanded the empire by seizing Media and Mesopotamia from the Seleucids. At its height, the Parthian Empire stretched from the northern reaches of the Euphrates, in what is now central-eastern Turkey, to present-day Afghanistan and western Pakistan. The empire, located on the Silk Road trade route between the Roman Empire in the Mediterranean Basin and the Han dynasty of China, became a center of trade and commerce.
The SasanianEmpire or Sassanid Empire, officially known as Eranshahr, was the last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th–8th centuries AD. Named after the House of Sasan, it endured for over four centuries, from 224 to 651 AD, making it the longest-lived Persian imperial dynasty. The Sasanian Empire succeeded the Parthian Empire, and re-established the Persians as a major power in late antiquity alongside its neighbouring arch-rival, the Roman Empire. The empire ended with the Arab conquest of Iran.
The Battle of Ctesiphon was a battle fought between the Roman and Parthian empires. The Roman emperor Septimius Severus, faced by fierce resistance, succeeded in sacking the Parthian capital, and also deported some of its inhabitants.
The Roman–Parthian Wars were a series of conflicts between the Parthian Empire and the Roman Republic and Roman Empire. It was the first series of conflicts in what would be 682 years of Roman–Persian Wars.
Vistahm or Bistam, was a Parthian dynast of the Ispahbudhan house, and maternal uncle of the Sasanian king of kings of Iran, Khosrow II. Vistahm helped Khosrow regain his throne after the rebellion of another Parthian noble Bahram Chobin, of House of Mihran, but later led a revolt himself, and ruled independently over a region which encompassed the entire Iranian East until he was defeated by Khosrow and his allies.
Romans in Persia is related to the brief invasion and occupation of western and central areas of Parthia by the Romans during their empire. Emperor Trajan was even temporarily able to nominate a king of western parts of Parthia, Parthamaspates, as ruler of a Roman "client state" in Parthia.
