eudal
lord with impunity, why might not others? Accordingly, within a few
years the example set by Bactria was followed in the neighboring country
of Parthia, but with certain very important differences. In Bactria the
Greek satrap took the lead, and the Bactrian kingdom was, at any rate at
its commencement, as thoroughly Greek as that of the Seleucidae. But in
Parthia Greek rule was from the first cast aside. The natives rebelled
against their masters. An Asiatic race of a rude and uncivilized type,
coarse and savage, but brave and freedom-loving, rose up against the
polished but effeminate Greeks who held them in subjection, and claimed
and established their independence. The Parthian kingdom was thoroughly
anti-Hellenic. It appealed to patriotic feelings, and to the hate
universally felt towards the stranger. It set itself to undo the work
of Alexander, to cast out the Europeans, to recover to the Asiatics the
possession of Asia. It was naturally almost as hostile to Bactria as to
Syria, although danger from a common enemy might cause it sometimes
to make a temporary alliance with that kingdom. It had, no doubt, the
general sympathy of the populations in the adjacent countries, and
represented to them the cause of freedom and autonomy.

The exact circumstances under which the Parthian revolt took place are
involved in much obscurity. According to one account the leader of the
revolt, Arsaces, was a Bactrian, to whom the success of Diodotus was
disagreeable, and who therefore quitted the newly-founded kingdom, and
betook himself to Parthia, where he induced the natives to revolt and to
accept him for their monarch. Another account, which is attractive from
the minute details into which it enters, is the following:--"Arsaces and
Tiridates were brothers, descendants of Phriapites, the son of Arsaces.
Pherecles, who had been made satrap of their country by Antiochus Theus,
offered a gross insult to one of them, whereupon, as they could not
brook the indignity, they took five men into counsel, and with their aid
slew the insolent one. They then induced their nation to revolt from
the Macedonians, and set up a government of their own, which attained to
great power." A third version says that the Arsaces, whom all represent
as the first king, was in reality a Scythian, who at the head of a body
of Parnian Dahce, nomads inhabiting the valley of the Attrek (Ochus),
invaded Parthia, soon after the establishment of Bactrian inde