Tiridates I

In 34 and 33 BCE, the Roman commander Mark Antony attacked the Parthian Empire in a war that is presented in the Roman sources (which are hostile toward Mark Antony) as a calamity. The reality may have been less disastrous, because the Parthians revolted against their king, Phraates IV, and made him flee. Their new king was Tiridates.

Phraates returned with support from the Scythians and forced Tiridates to flee to Roman Syria, from where he unsuccessfully attempted to regain his throne. The emperor Augustus, sole ruler of the Roman world after he had defeated Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII in the battle of Actium (31 BCE), refused to extradite him.

Note

The chronology of the Arsacid kings of the Parthian Empire is less well-understood than, for example, the sequence of Seleucid and Ptolemaic kings or the emperors of Rome. This information is based on the researches by G.R.F. Assar, as published in "Iran under the Arsakids, 247 BC – AD 224/227" in: Numismatic Art of Persia (2011).