inhabited by Turanians, but of a little more settled sort; the satrap was Andragoras, who, like Diodotus in Bactria (only not quite so much so), had made himself independent of the reigning Antiochus (II).  With him Arsaces found refuge after his defeat by Diodotus, and there spent the next seven years:—­whether enjoying Andragoras’ hospitality, or making trouble for him, this deponent knoweth not.  In 248, however, he proceeeded to slay him and to reign in his stead.  Two years later, Arsaces died, and his brother Tiridates succeeded him and carried on the good work; he was driven out by Seleucus II in 238, but returned to it when the latter was called westward by rebellions soon after.  Thenceforward the Parthian kingdom was, as you might say, a fact in nature; though until a half-cycle had passed, a small and unimportant one, engaged mostly in reinvogorating the native Turanianism of the Parthians with fresh Parnian importations from the northern steppes.  Then, in 170, Mithradates I came to the throne, and seriously founded an empire.  He fought Eucratidas of Bactria, and won some territory from him.  He fought eastward as far as to the Indus; then conquered Meida and Babylonia in the west.  In 129 Demetrius II Nicator, the reigning Seleucid, attacked Mithradates’ son, Phraates II, and was defeated; and the lands east of the Euphrates definitely passed from Seleucid to Parthian control.

Why not, then, count as manvantaric doings in West Asia this rise of the Parthians to power?  Why relegate them and their activities to the dimness of pralaya?  Says the Encyclopaedia Britannica:

“The Parthian Empire as founded by the conquests of Mithradates I and restored, once by Mithradates II (the Great, c. 124 to 88 B.C.), and again by Phraates II (B.C. 76 to 70), was, to all exterior appearances, a continuation of the Achaemenid dominion.  Thus the Arsacids now began to assume the old title ’King of kings’ (the shahanshah of modern Persia), though previously their coins as a rule had borne only the legend ‘great king.’  The official version preserved by Arrian in his Parthica, derives the line of These Parnian nomads from [the Achaemenian] Artaxerxes II.  In reality however the Parthian empire was totally different from its predecessor, both externally and internally.  It was anything rather than a world empire.  The countries west of the Euphrates never owned its dominion, and even of Iran itself not one half was subject to the Arsacids.  There were indeed vassal states on every hand, but the actual possessions of the kings—­the provinces governed by their satraps—­consisted of a rather narrow strip of land stretching from the Euphrates and north Babylonia through southern Media and Parthia as far as north-western Afghanistan...  Round these provinces lay a ring of minor states which as a rule were dependent on the Arsacids.  They might, however, partially transfer their allegiance on the rise of a new power (e.g.  Tigranes in Armenia) or a Roman invasion.  Thus it is not without justice that the Arsacid period is described, in the later Persian and Arabian tadition, as the period of the ’kings of the part-kingdoms’—­among which the Ashkanians (i.e. the Arsacids) had won the first place....