Rome and Persia Make Love, Not War

Faeelin

WI: Rome and Persia make love, not war.

We've discussed Roman Mesopotamia, and (less so) a Syrian Levant which oddly is grimdark and dystopic in a way the former isn't. But what about a third option? Caracella gets a bum rap, but one of his more interesting proposals was to marry the daughter of Artabanus V of Parthia. As Herodian put it:

"The two most powerful empires were those of the Romans and the Parthians. If they were united by marriage, [they] would create one invincible power no longer separated by a river... Furthermore, the locally grown spices of the Parthians and their wonderful clothes, and on the other side, the metals produced by the Romans and their admirable manufactured goods would no longer be difficult to get and in short supply, smuggled in by merchants. Instead, both sides would have commerce and unimpeded advantage from the unification of their countries under a single rule."

And of course the Parthians were better neighbors for Rome than the Sassanids would end up being. Even so, the two states could and did cooperate on occassion, notably during the 5th Century. (And in an alternate universe against the space nazis from beyond time).

So, what about the idea of Persian-Roman coexistence?
 
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Velasco

I've sort of flirted with this in "After Actium", where Caesarion becomes the second Roman Emperor and his half-brother Alexander Helios becomes the King of Kings in Iran. Ultimately however I think any such coexistence is fated to be short-lived.
 

Arafeel

There are some real good that can come from this, the romans might adopt the seed techniques witch should boost agricultural production, and, even more important, accesses to gold and sliver.
 

katchen

Banned
The Arcsids would in effect have to become a client state of Rome, because the Romans would never see themselves as anyone's equal. And the Arcsids would have to have lost a big battle to and be very afraid of the Kushans to do something like that. And if the Arcsid Parthians were coming to Rome for protection against the Kushans, then Rome has real problems.
By the way, why would a Parthian Levant be grim?
I'd like to see that TL. It certainly wouldn't be grim for the Jews.
 
SlyDessertFox

SlyDessertFox

Faeelin said:
WI: Rome and Persia make love, not war.

We've discussed Roman Mesopotamia, and (less so) a Syrian Levant which oddly is grimdark and dystopic in a way the former isn't. But what about a third option? Caracella gets a bum rap, but one of his more interesting proposals was to marry the daughter of Artabanus V of Parthia. As Herodian put it:

"The two most powerful empires were those of the Romans and the Parthians. If they were united by marriage, [they] would create one invincible power no longer separated by a river... Furthermore, the locally grown spices of the Parthians and their wonderful clothes, and on the other side, the metals produced by the Romans and their admirable manufactured goods would no longer be difficult to get and in short supply, smuggled in by merchants. Instead, both sides would have commerce and unimpeded advantage from the unification of their countries under a single rule."

And of course the Parthians were better neighbors for Rome than the Sassanids would end up being. Even so, the two states could and did cooperate on occassion, notably during the 5th Century. (And in an alternate universe against the space nazis from beyond time).

So, what about the idea of Persian-Roman coexistence?
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Caracalla invite a huge number of the Parthian nobility for such a marriage or something of the sort, and then commence a slaughter?
 

Mipp

slydessertfox said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Caracalla invite a huge number of the Parthian nobility for such a marriage or something of the sort, and then commence a slaughter?
Click to expand...

According to Herodian, yes. When Artabanus and his nobles met Caracalla at Ctesiphon in 1216, Caracalla had then ambushed and killed many of the Parthians (Artabanus himself escaped). This may have been planned from the start, or possibly was some kind of revenge for Artabanus' reluctance to hand his daughter over to Caracalla. Knowing Caracalla's personality, either could be possible.

For the proposed Parthian-Roman marriage to bear fruit, so to speak, Caracalla not only has to marry Artabanus' daughter, but you've also got to give him several more years to reign to create much in the way of pay-off.
 

Mipp

I'd also like to point out that a possible factor behind Caracalla asking for Artabanus' daughter in the first place was his obsession with Alexander the Great. Alexander of course married the Sogdian princess Roxane, and Caracalla may have been trying to follow in his footsteps.
 
SlyDessertFox

SlyDessertFox

Mipp said:
According to Herodian, yes. When Artabanus and his nobles met Caracalla at Ctesiphon in 1216, Caracalla had then ambushed and killed many of the Parthians (Artabanus himself escaped). This may have been planned from the start, or possibly was some kind of revenge for Artabanus' reluctance to hand his daughter over to Caracalla. Knowing Caracalla's personality, either could be possible.

For the proposed Parthian-Roman marriage to bear fruit, so to speak, Caracalla not only has to marry Artabanus' daughter, but you've also got to give him several more years to reign to create much in the way of pay-off.
Click to expand...

Yeah, and I can't see Caracalla reigning much longer. Eventually, enough important people are gonna be pissed off enough to kill him.
 
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