ria; and more
frequently kings took the epithet of [Greek], which implied the divinity
of their father. After his death a monarch seems generally to have been
the object of a qualified worship; statues were erected to him in the
temples, where (apparently) they were associated with the images of the
great luminaries.

Of the Parthian Court and its customs we have no account that is either
complete or trustworthy. Some particulars, however, may be gathered of
it on which we may place reliance. The best authorities are agreed that
it was not stationary, but migrated at different times of the year to
different cities of the Empire, in this resembling the Court of the
Achaemenians. It is not quite clear, however, which were the cities thus
honored. Ctesiphon was undoubtedly one of them. All writers agree
that it was the chief city of the Empire, and the ordinary seat of
the government. Here, according to Strabo, the kings passed the winter
months, delighting in the excellence of the air. The town was situated
on the left bank of the Tigris, opposite to Seleucia, twelve or thirteen
miles below the modern Baghdad. Pliny says that it was built by the
Parthians in order to reduce Seleucia to insignificance, and that when
it failed of its purpose they built another city.

Vologesocerta, in the same neighborhood with the same object; but the
account of Strabo is more probable--viz., that it grew up gradually out
of the wish of the Parthian kings to spare Seleucia the unpleasantness
of having the rude soldiery, which followed the Court from place to
place, quartered upon them The remainder of the year, Strabo tells us,
was spent by the Parthian kings either at the Median city of Ecbatana,
which is the modern Hamadan, or in the province of Hyrca--In Hyrcania,
the palace, according to him, was at Tape and between this place and
Ecbatana he no doubt regarded the monarchs as spending the time which
was not passed at Ctesiphon. Athenaeus, however, declares that Rhages
was the spring residence of the Parthian kings; and it seems not
unlikely that this famous city, which Isidore, writing in Parthian
times, calls "the greatest in Media," was among the occasional
residences of the Court. Parthia itself was, it would seem, deserted;
but still a city of that region preserved in one respect a royal
character, being the place where all the earlier kings were interred.

The pomp and grandeur of the Parthian monarchs are described only in the