In The History of Parthian Empire, George Rawlinson traces the Arsacid rise from Parni chiefs to a dominion straddling Iran and Mesopotamia. Drawing on Greek and Latin historians alongside coins and inscriptions, he reconstructs wars with Seleucids and Rome, patterns of overlordship and vassalage, and the military ecology of horse archers and cataphracts. Attention to Ctesiphon, Armenia, and Silk-Road traffic situates Parthia between Hellenism and Iran. Composed in measured Victorian prose, the book couples narrative momentum with dense annotation and participates in a broader nineteenth-century reassessment of Eastern polities. Rawlinson-a classicist, churchman, and Oxford professor-brings philological discipline and comparative range to a subject long filtered through hostile Greco-Roman lenses. Engaging Strabo, Plutarch, Justin, and Tacitus, and informed by the contemporary circulation of numismatic and epigraphic finds, including work publicized by his brother, the Assyriologist Sir Henry Rawlinson, he seeks to extract Parthian agency from adversarial testimony and to correct teleologies that leap from Alexander to Sasanian empire. This is essential reading for students of ancient Iran, Roman foreign policy, and frontier warfare, as well as general readers who prize learned narrative history grounded in sources and material culture.
Quickie Classics summarizes timeless works with precision, preserving the author's voice and keeping the prose clear, fast, and readable-distilled, never diluted. Enriched Edition extras: Introduction · Synopsis · Historical Context · Brief Analysis · 4 Reflection Q&As · Editorial Footnotes.
