Trajan's Parthian campaign
Roman invasion of Parthia ended by revolts and Trajan's death.
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Trajan's Parthian campaign was a Roman military effort from 113 to 117 against the Parthian Empire in Mesopotamia. Initially successful, it saw the annexation of Armenia and northern Mesopotamia, but ended in Roman withdrawal after widespread revolts and the emperor's death. The campaign is considered the climax of centuries of Roman-Parthian rivalry and the first successful Roman invasion of Mesopotamia.
Background
The campaign was provoked by the Parthian Empire placing an unacceptable king on the Armenian throne, a kingdom over which both empires had shared hegemony for about 50 years. Many modern historians consider economic motives may have driven Trajan's decision. After annexing Arabia, Trajan built the Via Traiana Nova from Bostra to Aila on the Red Sea. Charax on the Persian Gulf remained the only western terminus of the Indian trade route outside direct Roman control, and controlling it could lower import prices and limit the drain of precious metals from trade with the Far East.
Connections between Charax and Palmyrene merchants are documented in a contemporary epigraph, and Charax's rulers may have held the Bahrain islands, where a Palmyrene citizen served as satrap after Trajan's death. The campaign's rationale may have been to break Parthian-controlled trade through small Semitic cities and place it under Roman control. Trajan had already used Syrian auxiliary units in Dacia and recruited Palmyrene units, including a camel unit, suggesting Palmyrene support for annexing Charax.
Some historians suggest that annexing Armenia made annexing all of Mesopotamia necessary to prevent Parthian interference with Persian Gulf trade or trouble on the Danube frontier.
Timeline
The campaign was carefully planned, with ten legions concentrated in the Eastern theatre. Provincial authorities in Bithynia organized supplies for passing troops, and local councils bore part of the increased costs. Trajan marched first on Armenia, deposed the Parthian-appointed king, who was later murdered while in Roman custody in an incident described by Fronto as a breach of good faith, and annexed Armenia as a province. Various tribes in the Caucasus and on the eastern Black Sea coast acknowledged Roman hegemony through late 114.
Meanwhile, legate Lusius Quietus, a cavalry general from Mauretania, crossed the Araxes river into Media Atropatene and the land of the Mardians, possibly to extend the Roman border eastward toward the Caspian Sea. In early 115, Trajan launched a Mesopotamian campaign, marching toward the Taurus mountains to consolidate territory between the Tigris and Euphrates, placing permanent garrisons. Quietus moved from the Caspian Sea westward, and both armies performed a pincer movement establishing Roman presence in the Parthian Empire.
Trajan took Nisibis and Batnae, organized a province of Mesopotamia including the Kingdom of Osrhoene, whose King Abgar VII submitted publicly as a Roman protectorate. By 116, coins announced Armenia and Mesopotamia under Roman authority. The area between the Khabur River and the mountains around Singara was considered the new frontier and received a road surrounded by fortresses.
More in Military Campaigns Involving the Roman Empire
Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Trajan's Parthian campaign (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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