SOME PARTHIAN QUEENS IN GREEK AND BABYLONIAN DOCUMENTS

Abstract

Documentary sources (the two Greek parchments from Avroman and an assortment of cuneiform tablets from Babylonia) make reference in their dating formulae to fourteen otherwise unknown Parthian queens of the last 150 years BC. Treated individually, as they are normally treated, these allusions perhaps tell us little. However, if considered together, they make a significant contribution to our knowledge of a group at the Parthian court about which the Greek and Roman literary sources provide an exceedingly limited amount of information. This article comments on problems in the evidence for the fourteen queens. It considers, too, their title in Greek and in cuneiform (as well as what is known of the titles of women of high status in Parthian), for all of them, unlike the royal women of the literary sources, have a title. In addition, it looks at the question of the ranking of such women, one in relationship to the others, and at the marital alliances of the kings - at sibling-marriage, for example, for which, despite what is sometimes claimed, credible evidence is very sparse.