empire.  Cyrus had, it is probable, little difficulty in obtaining their submission.  It is possible that they resisted; but perhaps it is more probable that their course on this occasion was similar to that which they pursued when the Macedonian conqueror swept across these same regions.  The Parthians at that period submitted without striking a blow.  There is no reason to believe that they caused any greater trouble to Cyrus.

When the Persian empire was organized by Darius Hystaspis into satrapies, Parthia was at first united in the same government with Chorasmia, Sogdiana, and Aria.  Subsequently, however, when satrapies were made more numerous, it was detached from these extensive countries and made to form a distinct government, with the mere addition of the comparatively small district of Hyrcania.40 It formed, apparently, one of the most tractable and submissive of the Persian provinces.  Except on the single occasion already noticed, when it took part in a revolt that extended to nearly one-half the empire, it gave its rulers no trouble; no second attempt was made to shake off the alien yoke, which may indeed have galled, but which was felt to be inevitable.  In the final struggle of Persia against Alexander, the Parthians were faithful to their masters.  They fought on the Persian side at Arbela; and though they submitted to Alexander somewhat tamely when he invaded their country, yet, as Darius was then dead, and no successor had declared himself, they cannot be taxed with desertion.  Probably they felt little interest in the event of the struggle.  Habit and circumstance caused them to send their contingent to Arbela at the call of the Great King; but when the Persian cause was evidently lost, they felt it needless to make further sacrifices.  Having no hope of establishing their independence, they thought it unnecessary to prolong the contest.  They might not gain, but they could scarcely lose, by a change of masters.

CHAPTER III.

Condition of Western Asia under the earlier Seleucidce.  Revolts of Bactria and Parthia.  Conflicting accounts of the establishment of the Parthian Kingdom.  First War with Syria.

The attempt of Alexander the Great to unite the whole civilized world in a single vast empire might perhaps have been a success if the mind which conceived the end, and which had to a considerable extent elaborated the means, had been spared to watch over its own work, and conduct it past the perilous period of infancy and adolescence.  But the premature decease of the great Macedonian in the thirty-third year of his age, when his plans of fusion and amalgamation were only just beginning to develop themselves, and the unfortunate fact that among his “Successors” there was not one who inherited either his grandeur of conception or his powers of execution, caused his scheme at once to collapse; and the effort to unite and consolidate led only to division and disintegration.