First, then, it should be borne in mind that the Parthian rule must have been from the beginning distasteful to the Persians, owing to the rude and coarse character of the people.  At the moment of Mithridates’s successes, the Persians might experience a sentiment of satisfaction that the European invader was at last thrust back, and that Asia had re-asserted herself; but a very little experience of Parthian rule was sufficient to call forth different feelings.  There can be no doubt that the Parthians, whether they were actually Turanians or no, were, in comparison with the Persians, unpolished and uncivilized.  They showed their own sense of this inferiority by an affectation of Persian manners.  But this affectation was not very successful.  It is evident that in art, in architecture, in manners, in habits of life, the Parthian race reached only a low standard; they stood to their Hellenic and Iranian subjects in much the same relation that the Turks of the present day stand to the modern Greeks; they made themselves respected by their strength and their talent for organization; but in all that adorns and beautifies life they were deficient.  The Persians must, during the whole time of their subjection to Parthia, have been sensible of a feeling of shame at the want of refinement and of a high type of civilization in their masters.

Again, the later sovereigns of the Arsacid dynasty were for the most part of weak and contemptible character.  From the time of Volagases I. to that of Artabanus iv., the last king, the military reputation of Parthia had declined.  Foreign enemies ravaged the territories of Parthian vassal kings, and retired when they chose, unpunished.  Provinces revolted and established their independence.  Rome was entreated to lend assistance to her distressed and afflicted rival, and met the entreaties with a refusal.  In the wars which still from time to time were waged between the two empires Parthia was almost uniformly worsted.  Three times her capital was occupied, and once her monarch’s summer palace was burned.  Province after province had to be ceded to Rome.  The golden throne which symbolized her glory and magnificence was carried off.  Meanwhile feuds raged between the different branches of the Arsacid family; civil wars were frequent; two or three monarchs at a time claimed the throne, or actually ruled in different portions of the Empire.  It is not surprising that under these circumstances the bonds were loosened between Parthia and her vassal kingdoms, or that the Persian tributary monarchs began to despise their suzerains, and to contemplate without alarm the prospect of a rebellion which should place them in an independent position.