Notes on the Parthian Campaigns of Trajan

Abstract

These notes are designed to supplement, rather than to supplant, existing accounts of the Parthian campaigns of Trajan. I have therefore not tried to include an account of such matters as did not seem to me to be essential for an understanding of the main course of events and which are adequately and picturesquely reproduced elsewhere. But it is not too much to say that the times, places and purposes of Trajan's campaigns are alike obscure. The evidence is, of course, fragmentary; it is scattered, and much of it is of inferior quality; but since the scope of general histories has not allowed their authors to present a detailed argument, their handling of these important campaigns has of necessity been somewhat cursory. There is thus some reason to look at the evidence again. The first of these notes reviews the difficulties of the chronology, and continues with a partial reconstruction of the sequence of the campaigns based on the chronology adopted. The second discusses the antecedents of the war and attempts to probe the causes which were at work both before and during the campaigns.