Parthian failures in Roman-Parthian Wars: Why?

I recently started reading a book by Cam Rea called Leviathan vs. Behemoth: The Roman-Parthian Wars, 66 BC-217 AD and I realized that despite the successes the Parthians had at Carrhae in 53 BC, and Antony's Parthian War (40-33/20 BC), the Parthians tended to end up on the short stick during the various Wars in the AD period.

Rather than a typical What if they were more successful, I'll go on the bat and say, why that was the case. Why did Parthia ultimately fall apart in the wars to come later on, and could anything have been done to prevent this?
 
I recently started reading a book by Cam Rea called Leviathan vs. Behemoth: The Roman-Parthian Wars, 66 BC-217 AD and I realized that despite the successes the Parthians had at Carrhae in 53 BC, and Antony's Parthian War (40-33/20 BC), the Parthians tended to end up on the short stick during the various Wars in the AD period.

Rather than a typical What if they were more successful, I'll go on the bat and say, why that was the case. Why did Parthia ultimately fall apart in the wars to come later on, and could anything have been done to prevent this?
They suck at siege warfare.
 
The parthians had to fight usurpators in the first centuries AD much more often than the roman principate. Actually the roman emperors of the 1st century treated the parthian empire more like a client-state and engaged heavily in internal politics.

It also seems that the parthians often had to fight a multi-front war. Therefore they had less forces to defend against the romans on their western front. Unfortunately sources about battles of the parthians at their eastern fronts are rather sparse.
 
So it was a combination of internal instability coupled with the Roman-Parthian Wars and conflicts with the Indo-Scythians?

What could be done to strengthen the internal power of the Parthians so as to not deal with rival claimants to the throne of Ctesiphon?
 
Simply because it was Parthia, and not Rome.

Rome was a quite centralized state with a professional army and a strong administration. Parthia was a feudal monarchy, often hit by civil wars (e.g., when Trajan marched into Parthia, two kings were competing for power).

Also, while the Roman had a superb organization and the best logistics of the world, Parthia's sole strenght was its cavalry. Parthia could achieve a singe, smashing victory against an incautious Roman general, but winnig a longer war against a strong Roman army with a well thought out allocation of means between infantry, cavalry and siege weapons was very difficult for them.

Often, the Parthians only survived - as a major power - because the Romans thought the wars were to expensive (as Hadrian did) or beacuse their western foe was stricken by a plague and a coincident Germanic incursion on the Danube (under Marcus Aurelius).
 
.... or beacuse their western foe was stricken by a plague and a coincident Germanic incursion on the Danube (under Marcus Aurelius).

Let's assume, that the Marcomanns do not attack. And the plague does not hit the roman army. Do you really believe, that Lucius Verus was willing (or able) to provincialise the parthian empire? The romans usually sacked Ctesiphon and called it a day. By very good reasons.
 
Evidence?

At least for the later Sassanids we know that they sieged Hatra sucessfully. Something the romans never managed to happen.

Take what I say with a grain of salt.

The Sassanids were fundamentally a different and far more dangerous animal than the Parthians, part of the Sassanid success story is them pretty much doing everything the Parthians got wrong or weren't able to do properly and effectively. Any evidence of Sassanid competence doesn't do much to uphold Parthian ability.
 
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