f the Parthians, at any rate from the year
A.D. 216. It appears, however, from the Parthian coins, that both the
brothers claimed and exercised sovereignty during the entire term
of seventeen or eighteen years which intervened between the death of
Volagases IV. and the revolt of the Persians. Artabanus must beyond all
doubt have acquired the sole rule in the western portions of the empire,
since (from A.D. 216 to A.D. 226) he was the only monarch known to the
Romans. But Volagases may at the same time have been recognized in the
more eastern provinces, and may have maintained himself in power in
those remote regions without interfering with his brother's dominion in
the West. Still this division of the empire must naturally have tended
to weaken it; and the position of Volagases has to be taken into account
in estimating the difficulties under which the last monarch of the
Arsacid series found himself placed--difficulties to which, after a
struggle, he was at last forced to succumb. Domestic dissension, wars
with a powerful neighbor (Rome), and internal disaffection and rebellion
formed a combination, against which the last Parthian monarch, albeit a
man of considerable energy, strove in vain. But he strove bravely; and
the closing scenes of the empire, in which he bore the chief part, are
not unworthy of its best and palmiest days.

An actual civil war appears to have raged between the two brothers for
some years. Caracallus, who in A.D. 211 succeeded his father, Severus,
as Emperor of Rome, congratulated the Senate in A.D. 212 on the strife
still going on in Parthia, which could not fail (he said) to inflict
serious injury on that hostile state. The balance of advantage seems at
first to have inclined towards Volagases, whom Caracallus acknowledged
as monarch of Parthia in the year A.D. 215. But soon after this the
fortune of war must have turned; for subsequently to the year A.D. 215,
we hear nothing more of Volagases, but find Caracallus negotiating with
Artabanus instead, and treating with him as undisputed monarch of the
entire Parthian empire. That this was not his real position, appears
from the coins; but the classical evidence may be accepted as showing
that from the year A.D. 216, Volagases ceased to have much power,
sinking from the rank of a rival monarch into that of a mere pretender,
who may have caused some trouble to the established sovereign, but did
not inspire serious alarm.

Artabanus, having succe