The War
With the aid of Mark Antony, Triumvir and lover of Egyptian Ptolemaic Queen Cleopatra VII, the son-in-law of Hyrcanus, Herod, returned to Judea and recaptured Jerusalem in 37 BC. Antony then went on to attack the Parthian Empire itself, marching into Atropatene (present-day Iranian Azerbaijan) with some 100,000 legionaries, aided by the Roman client kings in Armenia, Galatia, Cappadocia and sovereign Pontus. The campaign proved a disaster however, after a Roman slipup at Phraaspa, capital of Atropatene, and thousands of Romans and auxiliaries died during the retreat due to the cold winter. Antony lost more than a quarter of its strength in the course of the campaign.
Again with Egyptian money, Antony invaded Armenia, this time successfully. In the return, a mock Roman Triumph was celebrated in the streets of Alexandria. The parade through the city was a pastiche of Rome's most important military celebration. For the finale, the whole city was summoned to hear a very important political statement. In 34 BC, surrounded by Cleopatra and her children, Antony ended his alliance with Octavian.
Read more about this topic: Antony's Parthian War
Famous quotes containing the word war:
“It is inhuman to continue a war which could easily be ended.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)
“I realized how for all of us who came of age in the late sixties and early seventies the war was a defining experience. You went or you didn’t, but the fact of it and the decisions it forced us to make marked us for the rest of our lives, just as the depression and World War II had marked my parents.”
—Linda Grant (b. 1949)