of an old one.  However loose and seemingly flexible, it was rigid in its uniformity; it never altered; it remained under the thirtieth Arsaces such as it had been under the first, improved in details, perhaps, but essentially the same system.  The Romans, on the contrary, were ever modifying their system, ever learning new combinations or new manoeuvres or new modes of warfare from their enemies.  They met the Parthian tactics of loose array, continuous distant missiles, and almost exclusive employment of cavalry, with an increase in the number of their own horse, a larger employment of auxiliary irregulars, and a greater use of the sling.  At the same time they learnt to take full advantage of the Parthian inefficiency against walls, and to practice against them the arts of pretended retreat and ambush.  The result was, that Parthia found she could make no impression upon the dominions of Rome, and, having become persuaded of this by the experience of a decade of years, thenceforth laid aside for ever the idea of attempting Western conquests.  She took up, in fact, from this time, a new attitude, Hitherto she had been consistently aggressive.  She had labored constantly to extend herself at the expense successively of the Bactrians, the Scythians, the Syro-Macedonians, and the Armenians.  She had proceeded from one aggression to another, leaving only short intervals between her wars, and had always been looking out for some fresh enemy.  Henceforth she became, comparatively speaking, pacific.  She was content for the most part, to maintain her limits.  She sought no new foe.  Her contest with Rome degenerated into a struggle for influence over the kingdom of Armenia; and her hopes were limited to the reduction of that kingdom into a subject position.

The death of Pacorus is said to have caused Orodes intense grief.  For many days he would neither eat nor speak; then his sorrow took another turn.  He imagined that his son had returned; he thought continually that he heard or saw him; he could do nothing but repeat his name.  Every now and then, however, he awoke to a sense of the actual fact, and mourned the death of his favorite with tears.  After a while this extreme grief wore itself out, and the aged king began to direct his attention once more to public affairs.  He grew anxious about the succession.  Of the thirty sons who still remained to him there was not one who had made himself a name, or was in any way distinguished above the remainder.  In the absence of any personal ground of preference, Orodes—­who seems to have regarded himself as possessing a right to nominate the son who should succeed him—­thought the claims of primogeniture deserved to be considered, and selected as his successor, Phraa-tes, the eldest of the thirty.  Not content with nominating him, or perhaps doubtful whether the nomination would be accepted by the Megistanes, he proceeded further to abdicate in his favor, whereupon Phraates became king.  The transaction proved a most unhappy one.  Phraates, jealous of some of his brothers, who were the sons of a princess married to Orodes, whereas his own mother was only a concubine, removed them by assassination, and when the ex-monarch ventured to express disapproval of the act added the crime of parricide to fratricide by putting to death his aged father.  Thus perished Orodes, after a reign of eighteen years—­the most memorable in the Parthian annals.