Who Were the Parni?

The Parni were a race of people from the ancient Middle East from the south-east region of the Caspian Sea who went on to found the Parthian Empire. They were one of the three tribes in the Dahae Confederacy and most of our knowledge of them comes from Classical Greek and Roman sources.

There is much of the Parni tribe from before the foundation of the Parthian Empire that we still do not know much about. There have been many names which have been applied to them, including Sparni, Apartani, the Eparnoi or Asparioi. However it should be stressed that these names could be applied to other tribes in the area – we simply do not know if these names applied to the Parni or not.

The majority of our information of the Parni comes from Classical Greek sources and concerns the rise of Parthian Empire. This came about due to Arsaces and his brother Tiridates. They were leaders of the Parni tribe who invaded Persia from the north. They set about creating a revolt made up of the Parthians against Syria. This allowed them to establish an independent new kingdom out of Iran and part of Mesopotamia. This empire, known as the Parthian Empire, and the Arsacid dynasty, lasted from c. 250 BCE to 226 CE, despite its many troubles with the Romans.

The Parni adopted many of the administration practices from their neighbours, the Seleucid Empire. Before the Parni overtook this region, the area was heavily influenced by the Greeks and immediately after their conquest, the Parni discarded the Greek institutions. It is probably this that the following Greek quote was so heavily critical of the Parni leaders. “A coarse, rude and semi-barbarian character attached always even to the most advanced part of the nation, to the king the court and nobles generally, a character which, despite a certain I varnish of civilisation, was constantly showing itself i1i their dealings with each other and with foreign nations”.

As stated earlier, much of our knowledge comes from Greek sources and archaeological evidence for this race is sparse. We know that they were a nomadic people and according to scholars they shared cultural traditions with the Saka-Scythian tribal societies of South Russia and Central Asia. They spoke related Iranian languages and Pliny himself claimed they lived on equal terms with each other.

Bibliography:

Coyne, John J. A. (1912) Hellenism and the Oriental Reaction, Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, Irish Province of the Society of Jesus.

Hansman, John & Stronach, David & Bailey, Harold (1970) Excavations at Shahr-I Qumis, 1967, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland.

Robinson, David M. (1927) A Graeco-Parthian Portrait Head of Mithradates I, American Journal of Archaeology, Archaeological Institute of America.