Rome, Parthia, and the Politics of Peace: The Origins of War in the Ancient Middle East by Jason M. Schlude

Abstract

Reviewed by: Rome, Parthia, and the Politics of Peace: The Origins of War in the Ancient Middle East by Jason M. Schlude Everett L. Wheeler Rome, Parthia, and the Politics of Peace: The Origins of War in the Ancient Middle East. By Jason M. Schlude. London, UK and New York, NY: Routledge, 2020. Pp. xvi+ 221. Hardback, $128.00. ISBN: 978-0-815-35370-6. From Antiquity on, nearly everyone has misinterpreted Roman-Parthian relations—even contemporaries like Tacitus and Cassius Dio, who experienced Parthian wars (9). Rather than hostility, we should consider peace and cooperation of the two major powers and frame supposed hostility within the effects of rhetorical posturing, largely for domestic consumption, which could then justify conflicts. This work departs from the victimology of the “no-Roman-strategy” school’s innocent, non-threatening Parthians beset by Roman aggression in conceding Parthian initiation of some conflicts, even if sometimes ripostes to Roman provocation. A “glory” motive for Roman campaigns, here “imperialist self-display,” is not entirely abandoned. Few specialists, however, will be deceived. The contrived arguments and myopic bibliographical gaze (largely anglophone) fail to capture the tension and delicacy of Roman-Parthian relations. Throughout, peace is assumed the norm, until disrupted by “troublemakers” like Crassus and Trajan. A certain naïveté about international relations permeates the volume, as if “peace” can be defined solely as the absence of armed conflict, thus ignoring the psychological dimensions of suspicion about a rival’s bona fides and potential threats, whether real or imagined. The author correctly recognizes that “peace” and mutual restraint coincided with practicality (13). Expediency might be the better term. After all, neither power realistically ever hoped to conquer the other except in rhetorical fantasies and Rome never attempted to advance beyond Mesopotamia into the Iranian plateau. Peace and cooperation are emphasized rather than limits on power, which for both states domestic issues and troublesome [End Page 479] frontiers elsewhere checked, even if both occasionally attempted to exploit the other’s woes. A larger context of Roman-Parthian relations is not addressed. Every generation from the 50s BCE to the 220s CE experienced a Parthian crisis or war. Yet Schlude’s “peaceful co-existence” of two rival powers misconstrues the situation. If head-on armed clashes were generally avoided, Armenia, the chief cause of Roman-Parthian conflicts directly or indirectly, became the circumscribed theater for proxy operations, where prestige could be won (or lost) at minimal risk.1 But the author’s superficial understanding of the Armenian problem is clear, particularly in treating the Neronian compromise (63 CE), termed “cooperative imperialism” (139 n.45). If Nero, like Augustus (20 BCE), disguised peace with images of conquest, Tiridates I’s crowning at Rome obscured a Parthian victory. Festus’ terse but accurate assessment (Brev. 20) is essentially ignored: “Nero lost Armenia.” Arsacid rule in Armenia reversed the policy from Augustus on of having an Armenian king with at least a drop of Artaxiad blood in his veins. Vologaeses I’s (temporary) withdrawal from the war with delivery of hostages in 55 reflected expediency, not restraint, as a pretender loomed besides a revolt in Hyrcania. Nor can Tacitus (Ann. 13.34.2, 37) be used to argue that the compromise of 63, already envisioned in the war’s early years, awaited only displays of Roman military might to obtain Parthian acceptance—revival of a view of the 1920s and 1930s (without acknowledgement). The war was originally thought to be over with the installation of Tigranes VI in 59.2 Nor will many favor an assertion (5) that East-West conflict begins with Carrhae (53 BCE), a notion generally associated with Herodotus’ view of the Persian Wars. Despite citation of some earlier bibliography (misguided in Schlude’s view), it remains unclear against whom the anti-hostility thesis is aimed, except for the claim in a popular book that Roman-Parthian conflict was “inevitable.”3 Should such weight be assigned to a popular book? No one has ever argued for a permanent state of war. [End Page 480] A decade’s gestation of the work from a 2009 Berkeley dissertation under Erich Gruen, whose stylistic influence can be discerned, did not...