FEUDALISM IN PERSIA DE MORGAN. 583 



revived some appanages. One King, Bacasis, probably of the Par- 

 thian race, imposed a tax on the Medes, and the old aristocracy 

 was humbled by the new, the princes of Perside among others.^ It 

 was at about this time that were founded the principalities of 

 Characene^ and Elymaide,^ as well as the Kingdom of Armenia,* 

 which later was the cause of all the wars between the Romans and the 

 Persians. 



Elymaide and Characene had become dependent provinces of the 

 empire, but kept the right to mint money ,^ a privilege of which only 

 traces are found in these principalities and which Mithridates prob- 

 ably tolerated only because of its immediate neighborhood to Syria 

 and the services that the dynasties of these countries had been able to 

 render to his cause during the conflicts between Persia and the 

 Seleucida?. 



But this changing of government did not modify the deep-seated 

 composition of society. To the old great feudatories were joined the 

 new, and the lesser seigniors became possessors of their lands, passing 

 only from the authority of Greek governors to that of the new- 

 comers. The Parthians were not concerned in feudalism as a whole 

 for that mode of government was already in accord with their tradi- 

 tions.*^ 



In Elymaide, under the reign of the great king Osroe,^ the ancient 

 djTiastj'' of the Kamnaskires made place for the new princes all car- 

 rying Arsacid names,^ dynasties which, like those of Characene,^ 

 could no longer from the beginning of this epoch coin money with 

 the portrait of their ruler, the King of Kmgs," though bearing their 

 name in the legend. It was feudalism which started the upheaval 

 that overthrew the Arsacid dynasty. A prince of Perside, Ar- 

 taxerxes, son of Papek,^^ profiting by the instability of the throne of 



1 Sti'abo, Liv. XV, ch. 3, 23. The first period of Persian numismatic autonomy com- 

 mences about 220 B. C, and stops at about the epoch of the rise of the power of the 

 Arsacidie. 



2 Hypsaosines (about 124 B. C.) was the first prince of CharacSne of whom we have 

 medals. He was doubtless the founder of his dynasty and the restorer of the city of 

 Charax. Cf. Lucien, Macrobii XVI. 



3 The earliest medal that we know of Elymaide is a tertadrachm of Kamnaskires (I?) 

 struck about 160 B. C, under the reign of Antiochus IV or of Demetrius I of Syria. 



* Mithridates I had given the crown of Armenia to his son Valarsace. Cf. Molse de 

 Khoresie, Langlois Translation, II, 3-7. 



*Cf. E. Babelon, Sur la numismatique et la chronologie de Charac&ne, in Journ. 

 d'arch^ol. et de numismatique ; Athens, 1848, I, pp. 381-404. Col. Allotte de la Fuye, 

 Sur la numismatique de I'Elymaide dans M6m. Deleg. en Perse, 1905, Rev. numism., 

 1902, La Dynastle des Kamuaskirfes. 



8 Toward the end of the dynasty the Parthian nobility called Vonon&s II to the 

 throne, when that prince was viceroy of Media, and incited M^herdatfe to revolt against 

 Gotarzes, which brought Cinnamus to the throne, which recalled Artaban III, after 

 having dethroned him, etc. 



' J. de Morgan, Numismatique de la Perse antique, a work In preparation. 



8 Col. Allotte de la Fuye, op. cit., 1905. 



'■> Cf. Ed. Dronin, Journ. Asiat., June, 1889, ed., Rev. num., 1883, 2d quarter, p. 373 seq. 



1" J. de Morgan, Num. Perse antique, in preparation. 



" Cf. vou Gudschmidt, Zeitschr. d. Deut. Gesell., 34, 734. 



