Parthia was situated south-west of the Caspian Sea (today parts of Iran and Iraq) that became an empire stretching from Syria to India, ruling from Ctesiphon and Ecbatana.
It was conquered by Alexander the Great and, after his death, became part of the Seleucid empire. The Parthians revolted sometime in the middle of the 3nd Cent BC, and restored their own cultural traditions and way of life. Though religiously they were Mazdaic they were also tolerant of other people's religion. Parthians, ideally situated at the western end of the trade routes, developed a lucrative economy as middlemen between the West and China. They also made formidable enemies, as the Roman discovered; they routed the vast Roman army led by Crassus outside the city of Carrhae (modern day Harran in Turkey), while Crassus himself was cut down in the bloody fiasco.
Josephus reports the trouble the Parthians caused Herod the Great. In 40 BC the Parthians invaded Palestine and captured Hyrcanus and Herod's brother, Phasael. Phasael took the imprisonment badly and killed himself. Hyrcanus had his ear mutilated, and thus disqualifying him from the priesthood. Herod himself had to flee for his life. Once he had secured the safety of his family at Masada, he left to seek help from his Nabatean wife's relatives. Rejected by them, he made his way to Egypt and then Rome, where he managed to convince his Roman masters of his worth, and with the backing esp.,, of Mark Antony, he was declared "King of the Jews" by the Roman Senate. With their help he returned and was able to reestablish his power in the land with an ever stronger hand.
The Parthians are only mentioned once in the Bible: Parthians were among those present on the day of Pentecost when they heard the Christian disciples praising God "in their own native tongue" (Acts 2:8). These may have been Jews born to those who had been exiled there under the Babylonians and who chose to remain there afterwards, or they may be converts to Judaism from there.
In the 3rd Cent AD Parthia was absorbed into the Sassanid empire.
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