Trajan’s Parthian War (113-116) [2/5]
In 113 Trajan, after seven years of civilian rule, set out with an army for the East after Osroes-I of Parthia (r.109*129) had put his brother Axidares (r.110-113) on the Armenian throne without Rome’s consent. To avoid war with Rome, Osroes now replaced Axidares by Parthamasiris (r.113-114). Trajan invaded Armenia in 114, encountered little resistance, rejected Parthamasiris’ request to retain his kingship and made the country an imperial province. In 115 he campaigned in northern Mesopotamia, reducing vassal Parthian states and establishing the provinces of Mesopotamia and Assyria
In 116 he began the main thrust against the Parthians. It seems that he divided his forces, one army marching eastwards through Adiabene and the other following the Euphrates south into Babylonia. Osroes was driven away and his capital at Ctesiphon captured. Trajan continued his advance south to the Parthian kingdom of Characene and received the submission of its king Attambelos VII (r.113-117)
His advance was cut short by disturbances to his rear. The provinces of Assyria and Mesopotamia broke out in revolt, while the Parthians under Osroes, driven back but not defeated, took the field again. However, Trajan managed to regain the northern part of the country and set up a son of Osroes, Parthamaspates (r.116/7), as an ephemeral monarch over Parthia. In 116 Trajan created Mesopotamia province, but it was abandoned by Hadrian the following year.
In 117 after besieging Hatra without success, Trajan named Vologases III of Parthia (r.105-147) as the client king Vologases-I (r.117-144) of Armenia and withdrew his forces from Parthian territory altogether.
Kitos (Second Jewish) Revolt (115-117)
Around 115 while Trajan was campaigning against the Parthians, a Jewish rebellion began in Cyrenaica and spread to Cyprus, Alexandria and Babylonia.
In Cyrenaica the rebels were led by a Cyrenean, Lukuas (and/or Andreas). His supporters wreaked havoc with the non-Jewish population and destroyed their temples and civil structures symbolic of Rome, such as their roads and public buildings. In 116 Lukuas led his army into Alexandria and set fire to the city after the Roman governor Marcus Rutilius Lupus and his troops had fled for their lives. The pagan temples, and the tomb of Pompey who had captured Jerusalem two centuries before, were destroyed.
On Cyprus the leader’s name was Artemion. Salamis appears to have been captured and sacked by the Jewish rebels, who slaughtered its Greek population. In Babylonia the Jewish rebellion seems to have been part of a general revolt of the population against Roman rule.
Trajan sent 14Marcius Turbo (fl.113-134) with a combined land and naval force to restore order, a task that took considerable time and involved a number of battles in which ten of thousands of Jews were killed. Lusius Quietus (‘Kitos’ is a later corruption of ‘Quietus’) organised a force that killed many Cypriote, Mesopotamian and Syrian Jews, wiping out all the pockets of resistance; as a reward, he was appointed governor of Judaea (117). In 117 Trajan on his way back to Rome, fell ill and died on 8 August in Cilicia.
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