t to the Syrians for sepulture.

Still, if we may believe Justin, he entertained the design of carrying
his arms across the Euphrates and invading Syria, in order to avenge
the attack of Antiochus upon his territories. But events occurred which
forced him to relinquish this enterprise. The Scythians, whom he had
called to his aid under the pressure of the Syrian invasion, and who had
arrived too late to take part in the war, demanded the pay which they
had been promised, and suggested that their arms should be employed
against some other enemy. Phraates was unwilling either to requite
services not rendered, or to rush needlessly into a fresh war merely
to gratify the avarice of his auxiliaries. He therefore peremptorily
refused to comply with either suggestion. Upon this, the Scythians
determined to take their payment into their own hands, and began to
ravage Parthia and to carry off a rich booty. Phraates, who had removed
the headquarters of his government to Babylonia, felt it necessary to
entrust affairs there to an officer, and to take the field in person
against this new enemy, which was certainly not less formidable than
the Syrians. He selected for his representative at the seat of Empire
a certain Himerus (or Evemerus), a youth with whom he had a disgraceful
connection, and having established him as a sort of viceroy, marched
away to the northeast, and proceeded to encounter the Scythians in that
remote region. Besides his native troops, he took with him a number
of Greeks, whom he had made prisoners in his war with Antiochus. Their
fidelity could not but be doubtful; probably, however, he thought that
at a distance from Syria they would not dare to fail him, and that with
an enemy so barbarous as the Scythians they would have no temptation to
fraternize. But the event proved him mistaken. The Greeks were sullen at
their captivity, and exasperated by some cruel treatment which they
had received when first captured. They bided their time; and when, in a
battle with the Scythians, they saw the Parthian soldiery hard pressed
and in danger of defeat, they decided matters by going over in a body
to the enemy. The Parthian army was completely routed and destroyed, and
Phraates himself was among the slain. We are not told what became of the
victorious Greeks; but it is to be presumed that, like the Ten Thousand,
they fought their way across Asia, and rejoined their own countrymen.

Thus died Phraates I., after a reign