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On the withdrawal of Antony into Armenia a quarrel broke out between Phraates and his Median vassal. The latter regarded himself as wronged in the division made of the Roman spoils, and expressed himself with so much freedom on the subject as to offend his suzerain. He then began to fear that he had gone too far, and that Phraates would punish him by depriving him of his sovereignty.
It is uncertain whether policy or inclination dictated the step which Phraates soon afterwards took of allaying himself by marriage with the Seleucidae. He had formally given his sister, Ehodogune, as a wife to Demetrius, and the marriage had been fruitful, Rhodogune having borne Demetrius several children. The two houses of the Seleucidae and Arsacidae were thus already allied to some extent.
Upon this he was put into close arrest, and reserved for the triumph. Not long after this Phraates, king of Parthia, sent to Pompey, and demanded to have young Tigranes, as his son-in-law, given up to him, and that the river Euphrates should be the boundary of the empires.
Phraates, on his part, advanced to meet his enemies, and in person or by his generals engaged Antiochus in three battles, but without success. Antiochus was three times a conqueror. The exact scene of the other combats is unknown, but they were probably in the same neighborhood.
But no sooner had Antony withdrawn into Asia Minor in preparation for his contest with Octavian than Phraates took the offensive. In combination with Artaxias, the new Armenian king, he attacked Antony's ally; but the latter repulsed him by the help of his Roman troops.
Phraates had sufficient warning of his coming decease to make preparations with respect to a successor.
Doubtful succession of the Monarchs. Accession of Sanatrceces, ab. Position of Parthia during the Mithridatic Wars. Accession of Phraates III. His relations with Pompey. His death. Civil War between his two sons, Mithridates and Orodes. Death of Mithridates. The successor of Mithridates II. is unknown.
Hyrodes also lost his son Pacorus, who was defeated by the Romans in a battle; and having fallen into an illness which turned out to be dropsy, his son, Phraates, who had a design on his life, gave him aconite. But the poison only operated on the disease, which was thrown off together with it, and Hyrodes thereby relieved; whereupon Phraates took the shortest course and strangled his father.
The court of Ctesiphon would thus have had reason enough for going to war with Rome; it seemed the prelude to its doing so, when in 690 it declared war on Armenia on account of the question of the frontier. But Phraates had not the courage to come to an open rupture with the Romans at a time when the dreaded general with his strong army was on the borders of the Parthian empire.
Its capital city, from a remote antiquity, was Rbages, situated near the eastern extremity of the strip, probably at the spot now called Kaleh Erij, about twenty-three miles from the "Gates." On this region it is clear that Phraates cast a covetous eye.
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