ents derives its interest, not so much from any
sympathy that we can feel with any of the actors in it as from the
light which it throws upon the character of the Parthian rule, and the
condition of the countries under Parthian government. In the details
given we seem once more to trace a near resemblance between the Parthian
system and that of the Turks; we seem to see thrown back into the mirror
of the past an image of those terrible conflicts and disorders which
have passed before our own eyes in Syria and the Lebanon while under
acknowledged Turkish sovereignty. The picture has the same features of
antipathies of race unsoftened by time and contact, of perpetual feud
bursting out into occasional conflict, of undying religious animosities,
of strange combinations, of fearful massacres, and of a government
looking tamely on, and allowing things for the most part to take their
course. We see how utterly the Parthian system failed to blend together
or amalgamate the conquered peoples; and not only so, but how impotent
it was even to effect the first object of a government, the securing of
peace and tranquillity within its borders. If indeed it were necessary
to believe that the picture brought before us represented truthfully the
normal condition of the people and countries with which it is concerned,
we should be forced to conclude that Parthian government was merely
another name for anarchy, and that it was only good fortune that
preserved the empire from falling to pieces at this early date, within
two centuries of its establishment But there is reason to believe
that the reign of Artabanus III. represents, not the normal, but an
exceptional state of things--a state of things which could only arise
in Parthia when the powers of government were relaxed in consequence of
rebellion and civil war. We must remember that Artabanus was actually
twice driven from his kingdom, and that during the greater part of his
reign he lived in perpetual fear of revolt and insurrection. It is
not improbable that the culminating atrocities of the struggle above
described synchronized with the second expulsion of the Parthian
monarch, and are thus not so much a sign of the ordinary weakness of the
Parthian rule as of the terrible strength of the forces which that rule
for the most part kept under control.

The causes which led to the second expulsion of Artabanus are not
distinctly stated, but they were probably not very different from tho