Bibliographia Iranica

A predominantly bibliographic blog for Iranian Studies

Tag: Arsacid

  • The Parthians at War

    The Parthians at War

    Overtoom, Nikolaus Leo. 2025. The Parthians at war: Combat, logistics, reputation, and the first war with Rome. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

    Nikolaus Leo Overtoom provides a comprehensive study to evaluate and understand the military capabilities and accomplishments of the greatest enemy of the Seleucids and Romans, the Parthians.

    Overtoom draws on a wide variety of sources to reassess the militarism of the Parthians and origins and events of their first war with Rome. This book emphasizes source criticism of Greco-Roman writers to challenge traditional Rome-centric understandings of the Parthians and their military success by considering, as much as possible, the Parthians and their agency on their own terms. Through his study, the author characterizes the Parthians as capable, aggressive, and successful actors on the world stage and the role of the Romans (particularly that of the villainized Crassus) in the early stages of Parthia and Rome’s rivalry is reconsidered drastically. The Parthians at War assesses broader issues of militarism and logistics, state decision-making, royal identity and ideology, imperial rivalry, propaganda, and state security concerns. Overtoom concludes that the innovations of the Parthian military were exceptional and that the realities of the origins and legacy of the first war between Parthia and Rome are significantly different from the traditional narrative.


  • Anabasis, vols. 14-15

    Anabasis, vols. 14-15

    Volumes 14-15 (2023-2024) of Anabasis. Studia Classica et Orientalia, edited by Marek Jan Olbrycht, is out now. Several papers and reviews of the issue relate to ancient Iran:

    • Michał Podrazik: Cyrus the Younger in Syria and Mesopotamia, Abrokomas, and the Great King’s Defensive Strategy (401 BC)
    • Heckel: Alexander and the Amazon Queen
    • Harry Falk: Zariaspa and the “Kunduz” Hoards
    • Karlheinz Kessler: More about Nwt/Nōd and Adiabene
    • Andreas Luther: Artabanos und die Meder
    • Marek Jan Olbrycht: Parthian Weapons and Military Equipment: Some Remarks
    • Review Articles / Reviews:
    • Marek Jan Olbrycht: Recent Perspectives on Parthian History: Research Approaches and Methodological Concerns
    • Jeffrey D. Lerner: Seleucid History: New Perspectives and Current Challenges
    • Sabine Müller: [Review of] Marek Jan Olbrycht, Early Arsakid Parthia (ca. 250-165 B.C.) At the Crossroads of Iranian, Hellenistic, and Central Asian History, Leiden / Boston: Brill 2021 (Mnemosyne Supplements 440)
    • Lang Xu: [Review of] Juping Yang (ed.), Ancient Civilizations and the Silk Road, Beijing: China Social Science Press, 2021
  • Palmyra, the Roman Empire, and the Third Century Crisis

    Palmyra, the Roman Empire, and the Third Century Crisis

    Raja, Rubina & Eivind Heldaas Seland. eds. 2025. Palmyra, the Roman Empire, and the Third Century Crisis: Zooming in and Scaling up from the Evidence. Stuttgart: Steiner.

    The third century is often seen as a period of crisis in the Roman world, marked by political upheaval, violence, war, religious strife, hyperinflation, climatic instability, pandemics, and border incursions. These troubled times, however, coincided with the peak of Palmyra’s prosperity. They encompassed the Syrian city’s drift towards centralized rulership and short-lived political hegemony in the Near East, as well as its reach for imperial power and downfall in the years 270–272 CE.

    How can this discrepancy between metropolitan crisis and peripheral prosperity be explained? Along with experts on different aspects of Palmyra, this volume gathers contributions from leading scholars working with the Roman Empire, and with neighboring regions inside and beyond the imperial borders. Highlighting parallels, discrepancies, connections, and disconnections between developments in Palmyra and other parts of the world with which Palmyra interacted, the aim is a more critical, detailed, and nuanced understanding of the situation in the Roman Near East in the third century CE.

    Table of contents: click here.

  • Greek Citizenship under Arsacid Rule

    Greek Citizenship under Arsacid Rule

    Nabel, Jake. 2025. The verb empoliteuō and Greek citizenship under Arsacid rule. Classical Journal 120(3). 249–276.

    The primary translation for the ancient Greek verb ἐμπολιτεύω in several dictionaries is “to be a citizen, have civil rights.” That definition is untenable. The connotations of ἐμπολιτεύω for citizen status are usually indeterminate, but where they are clear, the verb has the opposite meaning and refers to non-citizens rather than citizens. This sense is crucial to the study of Greek citizenship in the Arsacid empire, because ἐμπολιτεύω appears twice in a key passage from Josephus on Greco-Babylonian relations in the poleis of Arsacid Mesopotamia. The verb’s dictionary definition has led some historians to the conclusion that non-Greeks were citizens of these poleis. Along with local evidence in Akkadian, a review of ἐμπολιτεύω‘s appearances in literature and epigraphy suggests the opposite.

    Abstract
  • The Arsacids of Rome

    The Arsacids of Rome

    Nabel, Jake. 2025. The Arsacids of Rome: Misunderstanding in Roman-Parthian relations. California: University of California Press.

    At the beginning of the common era, the two major imperial powers of the ancient Mediterranean and Near East were Rome and Parthia. In this book, Jake Nabel analyzes Roman-Parthian interstate politics by focusing on a group of princes from the Arsacid family—the ruling dynasty of Parthia—who were sent to live at the Roman court. Although Roman authors called these figures “hostages” and scholars have studied them as such, Nabel draws on Iranian and Armenian sources to argue that the Parthians would have seen them as the emperor’s foster children. These divergent perspectives allowed each empire to perceive itself as superior to the other, since the two sides interpreted the exchange of royal children through conflicting cultural frameworks. Moving beyond the paradigm of great powers in conflict, The Arsacids of Rome advances a new vision of interstate relations with misunderstanding at its center.

    A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more.

  • Parthica (vol. 25)

    Parthica (vol. 25)

    Volume 25 of the journal Parthica (2023) contains several contributions of relevance to Iranian Studies.

    • Ronald Wallenfels: On the reuse of personal seals in the Hellenistic Near East
    • Robert S. Wójcikowski, Daniele Morandi Bonacossi, Michał Marciak, Bartłomiej Szypuła: Memorials of the battle of Gaugamela in the Navkur Plain
    • Roberto Dan: Hellenistic/Artaxiad remains in the Van fortress? Some thoughts on trench A6 excavated by the American expedition (1938-1939)
    • Francesca Michetti: Antroponimi battriani sulla monetazione pre-kušānide: tre proposte di etimologia
    • Edward Dąbrowa: Arsacid crudelitas: some observations
    • Enrico Foietta: A new altar with an enthroned goddess from Hatra (Iraq)
    • Valentina Gallerani: Parthian and sasanian settlement patterns in the Qadis survey area (Qadisiyah, Iraq)

  • Cities, Trade, and Roads

    Two new volumes of Anabasis are out; vols. 12–13 (2021-2022) are special issues with thematic papers edited by Marek Jan Olbrycht and Sabine Müller: Cities, trade, and roads: From the Mediterranean to Iran and the Indus Valley.

    (more…)

  • The Persian World and Beyond

    Garrison, Mark B. & Wouter F.M. Henkelman (eds.). The Persian world and beyond. Achaemenid and Arsacid studies in honor of Bruno Jacobs (Melammu Workshops and Monographs 6). Münster: Zaphon.

    The 17 essays gathered in this festschrift celebrate the scholarship of Bruno Jacobs. While the range of topics in these essays is extensive, most relate to the Achaemenid world. They represent the diversity of Achaemenid studies as a discipline that Bruno Jacobs enriched with his many contributions and sparkling ideas. Some papers move beyond the Achaemenid period, notably the contribution on Parthian and Elymaean countermarks (S.R. Hauser), and acknowledge the breadth of Bruno Jacob’s research interests, which extend from Greece to eastern Iran, span the Mediterranean Bronze Age to the Roman period, and concern the disciplines of history, archaeology, art history, religion, and Iranology. Among others, M.C. Root examines “Medes and Iranian identity in the Achaemenid social imaginary” as represented in the Persepolis Apadana, while J. Wiesehöfer focusses on “Greek exiles in the Achaemenid Empire” and Chr. J. Tuplin on “The place of Cyropaedia in Xenophon’s oeuvre”. The “winged symbol in Persepolitan glyptic” is debated by M.B. Garrison and the roles of gold and wine in Herodotus’ depiction of the Persians by R. Bichler and K. Ruffing.

    (more…)

  • The Roman-Parthian border area as a conflict and contact zone

    Hartmann, Udo, Frank Schleicher & Timo Stickler (eds.), Imperia sine fine? Der römisch-parthische Grenzraum als Konflikt- und Kontaktzone vom späten 1. bis zum frühen 3. Jahrhundert n. Chr. Stuttgart: Verlag W. Kohlhammer.

    Wenn Vergil Rom als ein “Reich ohne Grenzen” (Aen. 1, 279) bezeichnet, mag dies im übertragenen Sinn zutreffen, tatsächlich verfügte das Imperium jedoch über lange und tief gestaffelte Festlandgrenzen auf allen drei Kontinenten. Dabei kam der Orientgrenze besondere Bedeutung zu, da den Römern hier mit dem Reich der Parther eine ebenbürtige Gesellschaft entgegentrat. Allerdings stießen die beiden Großreiche nur selten unmittelbar aufeinander, da sich zwischen ihnen ein Saum von Kleinstaaten erstreckte. In diesem Grenzraum trafen nicht nur zwei große Reiche mit ihren jeweiligen Sprachen und Organisationsstrukturen, sondern auch Ackerbau und nomadische Weidewirtschaft, unterschiedliche religiöse Vorstellungen und verschiedene Rechtsauffassungen aufeinander.Der Band versammelt Beiträge der Jenaer Tagung “Imperia sine fine?”, die eine Vielzahl unterschiedlicher Aspekte des Grenzraums zwischen Rom und Parthien als Konflikt- und Kontaktzone vom 1. bis zum 3. Jh. n. Chr. darstellen.

  • Parthica (vol. 22)

    Volume 22 of the journal Parthica (2020) contains several contributions of relevance to Iranian Studies.

    • Henri-Paul Francfort: Nisa Parthica rhyton nr. 76 : a note on images of hunt and deities in Central Asia : Saiga tatarica and steppe connection
    • Antonio Invernizzi: On the post-Achaemenid rock reliefs at Bisutun
    • Torben Schreiber: In the name of the King? : New considerations on the classification of seals from Hellenistic archive contexts
    • Alexander B. Nikitin & Vasif A. Gaibov: Sealings of the Parthian frontier
    • Vito Messina & Lucinda Dirven: Reproducing divine images in Hellenized Mesopotamia : the case of Nabu of Hierapolis at Hatra
    • Wathiq Al-Salihi: Architecture and layout of the ‘North Palace’ at Hatra