te, with
some reason, to Mithridates the introduction at this time of various
practices and usages, whereby the Parthian Court was assimilated to
those of the earlier Great Monarchies of Asia, and became in the eyes
of foreigners the successor and representative of the old Assyrian and
Persian Kingdoms. The assumption of new titles and of a new state--the
organization of the Court on a new plan--the bestowal of a new character
on the subordinate officers of the Empire, were suitable to the new
phase of its life on which the monarchy had now entered, and may with
the highest probability, if not with absolute certainty, be assigned to
this period.

It has been already noticed that Mithridates appears to have been the
first Parthian sovereign who took the title of "King of Kings."
The title had been a favorite one with the old Assyrian and Persian
monarchs, but was not adopted either by the Seleucidae or by the Greek
kings of Bactria. Its revival implied a distinct pretension to that
mastery of Western Asia which had belonged of old to the Assyrians and
Persians, and which was, in later times, formally claimed by Artaxerxes,
the son of Sassan, the founder of the New Persian Kingdom. Previous
Parthian monarchs had been content to call themselves "the King," or
"the Great King"--Mithridates is "the King of Kings, the great and
illustrious Arsaces."

At the same time Mithridates appears to have assumed the tiara, or tall
stiff crown, which, with certain modifications in its shape, had
been the mark of sovereignty, both under the Assyrians and under the
Persians. Previously the royal headdress had been either a mere cap of
a Scythic type, but lower than the Scyths commonly wore it; or the
ordinary diadem, which was a band round the head terminating in two long
ribbons or ends, that hung down behind the head on the back. According
to Herodian, the diadem, in the later times, was double; but the coins
of Parthia do not exhibit this peculiarity. [PLATE 1, Fig. 4.]

Ammianus says that among the titles assumed by the Parthian monarchs was
that of "Brother of the Sun and Moon." It appears that something of a
divine character was regarded as attaching to the race. In the civil
contentions, which occur so frequently throughout the later history,
combatants abstained from lifting their hands knowingly against an
Arsacid, to kill or wound one being looked upon as sacrilege. The
name of _Deos_ was occasionally assumed, as it was in Sy