Aesacid Empire

History

The Arsacid Empire (Persian: اشکانیان [Ashkanian]) was an Iranian significant political and cultural power in the ancient Near East and a counterweight to the Roman Empire in the region. Its ruling dynasty was founded by Arsaces, hence the origin of the term "Arsacid". The Arsacid dynasts were from Parthia ("roughly western Khurasan" in Iran's north-east), and the Empire is thus also referred to as the Parthian Empire.

Overlapping with, and a regional successor of, the Seleucids and other Diadochi epigonoi, the Arsacids were – unlike the epigonoi – an indigenous Iranian dynasty, albeit a Hellenistic one whose monarchs identified themselves on their coins as philhellenes "friend of Greeks." The Arsacid's Hellenism was subsequently portrayed by the Persians as a betrayal of Iranian values, and thus a justification to overthrow them. This portrayal as morally and culturally corrupt was followed by academia for decades, but there is today significant evidence that the Arsacids not only saw themselves as legitimate heirs of the "(divinely bestowed) Iranian glory", but were committed to the idea of an Iranian nation.

During the peak of the empire, the Arsacids had subjugated most of Greater Iran, Mesopotamia, and Armenia. But unlike most other Iranian monarchies, the Arsacids followed a vassalary system, which they adopted from the Seleucids. The Arsacid Empire was thus not a single coherent state, but instead made up of numerous tributary (but otherwise independent) kingdoms.

The Arsacids were in an almost perpetual state of war, either to capture and hold territory from the Seleucids, or to prevent vassal states from breaking away, or defending themselves against the Roman Empire in the west and nomadic tribes in the east. Economically and militarily severely weakened by the incessant warring, and from the infighting among the Parthian nobility, the Parthian Arsacids were finally vanquished by the Persian Sassanids, a minor vassal from southwestern Iran, around AD 220. In Armenia, a branch of the Arsacid dynasty continued to rule their kingdom until the 5th century.

Rumor

It is rumored that Rome is turning a blind eye to the Aesacid Empire's War against Egypt and is secretly assisting them.

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