Edward Dąbrowa. Greek: a Language of the Parthian Empire

Abstract

The special status enjoyed by Greek language in the Parthian empire was due to the role of the Greeks and the weight of the Seleucid heritage in the building by the Arsacids of an ideological community to support their new state. Indeed, the legends of coins struck all across the empire show that the Arsacids used Greek to communicate not only with Greeks. The quality of the legends and of the engraving on coins started to decline from the early 1st century BC, and we can accordingly determin...