Parthia

Anyway.

But before Sassanus Paetus gets there, Corbulo's already defeated the Parthians.

Yeah, he don't play this.

Because according to Tacitus, Corbulo didn't want to share the glory.

For all agree that the apostles were dispersed into several regions at once, and Origen has set down the time, telling us that in the beginning of the Judaic war, the apostles and disciples of our Lord were scattered into all nations.

Thomas into Parthia, Andrew into Scythia, John into Asia, and Peter first into Asia, where he preached to the dispersion, and thence into Italy.

Dionysius Corinthius saith that Peter went from Asia by Corinth to Rome, and all antiquity agrees that Peter and Paul were martyred there in the end of Nero's reign.

Mark went with Timothy to Rome, 2nd Timothy chapter 4 verse 11, Colossians chapter 4 verse 10, Silvanus was Paul's assistant, and by the companions of Peter mentioned in his first epistle, we may know that he wrote from Rome, and that the ancients generally agree that in this epistle he understood Rome by Babylon.

From Thapsacus the army marched to the north-eastward, and crossed the Tigris likewise without difficulty, some distance above Nineveh, and then halted for a few days' rest prior to the impending struggle.

Impending it clearly was, for some Persian scouts had been taken prisoners, who announced that Darius was close at hand with an army far larger than that which had fought and been routed at Issus, and more formidable because levied from the more warlike tribes of Parthia and Bactria.

Alexander rode forward in person with a few squadrons of cavalry to reconnoitre, and having had a smart skirmish with some outposts of the enemy, ascertained that Darius was immediately before him, encamped in the broad plain between the Tigris and the mountains of Kurdistan, at a place called Gaugamela, or the Camel's House, with a force estimated at the lowest at 200,000 infantry and 40,000 cavalry, with 200 scythe chariots and 15 elephants.

Every endeavour, moreover, had been made that the fight should be fought under circumstances favourable to the Persian arms.

This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

Read by Pamela Nagami.

Chapter Thirteen The Death of Darius Reduction of Parthia Execution of Philotas and Parmenion Part One Darius, meanwhile, who had fled through the mountains to the eastward, was resting at Agbatana.

There were still thirty thousand infantry and three thousand cavalry with him.

His son, Alexander the Great, carried out Philip's intentions.

Within 12 years, 334 to 323 B.C., he had conquered Persia, Parthia, India in a strict sense, i.e. the Valley of the Indus, and egypt after his death this huge empire was divided up among his generals but except in the extreme east the whole of it was administered on greek methods a greek-speaking person could pass from one end to the other without difficulty and we can understand how a knowledge of the whole tract of country between the adriatic and the indus could be obtained by the greek scholars alexander founded a large number of cities all bearing his name at various points of his itinerary but of these the most important was at the mouth of the nile known to this day as alexandria here was the intellectual center of the whole hellenic world and accordingly it was here as we have seen that eratosthenes first wrote down in a systematic manner all the knowledge about the habitable earth which had been gained mainly by alexander's conquests important as was the triumphant march of alexander through western asia both in history and in geography it cannot be said to have added so very much to geographical knowledge for herodotus was roughly acquainted with most of the country thus traversed except towards the east of persia and the northwest of india but the itineraries of alexander and his generals must have contributed more exact knowledge of the distances between the various important centres of population and enabled eratosthenes and his successors to give them a definite position on their maps of the world what they chiefly learned from alexander and his immediate successors was a more accurate knowledge of northwest india even as late as strabo the sole knowledge possessed at alexandria of indian places was that given by megisthenes the ambassador to india in the third century b c meanwhile in the western portion of the civilized world a similar process had gone on in the italian peninsula the usual struggle had gone on between the various tribes inhabiting it the fertile plain of lombardy was not in those days regarded as belonging to italy but was known as cisalpine gaul the south of italy as we have seen was mainly inhabited by greek colonists and was called great greece between these tracts of country the italian territory was inhabited by three sets of federate tribes the etrubrians the samnites and the latins during the two hundred and thirty years between five ten b c and two eighty b c rome was occupied in obtaining the supremacy among these three sets of tribes and by the latter date may be regarded as having consolidated central italy into an italian federation centralized at rome At the latter date, the Greek king Pyrrhus of Epirus attempted to arouse the Greek colonies in southern Italy against the growing power of Rome, but his interference only resulted in extending the Roman dominion down to the heel and big toe of Italy.

If Rome was to advance further, Sicily would be the next step, and just at that moment, Sicily was being threatened by the other great power of the West, Carthage.

carthage was the most important of the colonies founded by the phoenicians probably in the ninth century b c and pursued in the western mediterranean the policy of establishing trading stations along the coast which had distinguished the phoenicians from their first appearance in history they seized all the islands in that division of the sea or at any rate prevented any other nation from settling in corsica sardinia and the balearic isles in particular carthage took possession of the western part of sicily which had been settled by sister phoenician colonies while rome did everything in its power to consolidate its conquests by admitting the other italians to some share in the central government carthage only regarded its foreign possessions as so many openings for trade in fact it dealt with the western littoral of the mediterranean something like the east india company treated the coast of hindostan It established factories at convenient spots.