Roman-Persian Wars Totally Explained

Everything about The Roman-persian Wars totally explained

The Roman-Persian Wars were a series of conflicts between the Greco-Roman world and two successive Iranian empires that began as a war between the late Roman Republic and the Parthian Empire in 92 BC before being carried over to the Roman Empire and the Sassanid Empire of Persia. The bitter, long-running conflict between the two rivals finally concluded as a conflict between the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) and the Sassanid Empire in 627 AD, followed soon after by Arab invasions into Eastern Roman and Sassanid territories from 632 AD onwards.
Although warfare lasted for seven centuries between the Romans and the Persians, neither side was ever able to dominate the other. A game of "Tug of War" basically ensued with towns, fortifications, and provinces being continuously sacked, captured, destroyed, and changing sides frequently. Neither side had the logistical strength or manpower to maintain such lengthy campaigns so far from their borders, and thus neither could advance too far without risking stretching their frontiers too thin.
All of the energy expended over the Roman-Persians Wars amounted to little more than nothing for either side as the Muslim onslaught during the 6th century defeated the war-exhausted Persian Empire and deprived the Eastern Roman Empire of its Near Eastern and North African territories soon after the end of the Roman-Persian conflict.

Historical background

The Eastern world was of particular importance for the Romans, since it was regarded as a source of wealth, and as a road to glory for Roman leaders and generals from Pompey to Heraclius. "Above all, the East was the only area which held another great power that could match Rome: Iran." In Rome there was understandable preoccupation with eastern policies, although the same was probably not as true for the Iranian empires, which particularly under the Sassanids, faced important powers to the East as well, and conquered a great empire: the Kushans. According to Warwick Bell, "the East was of far more importance to Iran than Rome ever was: the Parthians established relations with China, for example, before they did with Rome."
The other majoir power in the Mediterranean that could resist Rome was the Seleucid Empire of Antiochus III the Great. His kindom was however declining; the Romans routed him at Thermopylae, and in 190 BC set foot for the first time in Asia. In 189 BC the Seleucid army was once again completely routed at the Battle of Magnesia by the Romans who expanded their conquests in Asia Minor. By the time of Pompey, more than a century later, the rump Seleucid Empire had become a Roman province. Pompey's arrival in Antioch in the summer of 64 BC marked the end of one empire and the beginning of another.
At the same time, a new power loomed in the Iranian plateau: the Parthians, the last of the great Indo-Iranian tribal confederations to migrate westwards from Central Asia. Ruled by the Arsacid dynasty, the Parthias were ready by the middle of the second century BC to launch a full-scale invasion of Seleucid-held Iran; they soon re-established most of the Achaemenid Empire (the old Persian Empire), they fended off several Seleucid attempts to regain their lost territories, and they extended their rule deep into India.

Roman-Parthian Wars

Roman Republic vs Parthia Parthian enterprise in the West began in the time of Mithridates I, and were revived by Mithridates II, who conducted unsuccessful negotiations with Sulla for a Roman-Parthian alliance (c. 105 BC). Roman-Parthian contact was restored, when Lucullus invaded Southern Armenia, and defeated Tigranes in 69 BC, but again no definite agreement was made. In 66/65 BC Pompey came to an agreement with Phraates III, and Roman-Parthian troops invaded Armenia, but soon a dispute arose over Euphrates boundary. Finally, Phraates asserted his control over Mesopotamia, except for the western district of Osroene, which became a Roman dependency. In 53 BC, Crassus led an invasion of Mesopotamia, with catastrophic results; at the Battle of Carrhae, the worst Roman defeat since the Battle of Cannae, Crassus and his son, Publius, were killed by the Parthians under General Surena The following year, the Parthians raided Syria, and in 51 BC they mounted a major invasion, but their army was caught in an ambush near Antigonea by the Romans under Cassius and Parthian general Osaces was killed.
During Caesar's civil war the Parthians made no move, but maintained relations with Pompey. After his defeat and death, a force under Pacorus I came to the aid of the Pompeian general Caecilius Bassus, who was besieged at Apamea Valley by the Caesarian forces. With the civil war over, Julius Caesar elaborated plans for a campaign against Parthia, but his assassination averted the war. During the ensuing Liberators' civil war, the Parthians actively supported Brutus and Cassius, sending a contingent which fought with them at the Battle of Philippi in 42 B. After that defeat, the Parthians invaded Roman territory in 40 BC in conjunction with Quintus Labienus, a Roman erstwhile supporter of Brutus and Cassius. They swiftly overran Syria, and defeated Roman forces in the province; all the cities of the coast, with the exception of Tyre admitted the Parthians. Pacorus then advanced into Judaea, overthrowing the Roman client Hyrcanus II and installing his nephew Antigonus in his place. For a moment, the whole of the Roman East seemed to be either in Parthian hands or on the point of capture. The conclusion of the second Roman civil war was soon to bring about a revival of Roman strength in Asia.
Meanwhile Mark Antony had already sent Ventidius to oppose Labienus who had invaded Anatolia. Soon Labienius was driven back to Syria by Roman forces, and, though his Parthians allies came to his support, he was defeated, taken prisoner and then put to death. After suffering a further defeat near the Syrian Gates, the Parthians withdrew from Syria. They returned in 38 BC, but were decisively defeated by Ventidius and Pacorus was killed. In Judaea, Antigonus was ousted with Roman help by Herod in 37 BC. With Roman control of Syria and Judaea restored, Mark Antony led a huge army into Azerbaijan, but his siege train and its escort were isolated and wiped out, while his Armenian allies under Artavasdes II deserted. Failing to make progress against Parthian positions, the Romans withdrew with heavy casualties. In 33 BC Antony was again in Armenia, contracting an alliance with the Median king against both Octavian, and the Parthians, but other preoccupations obliged him to withdraw, and the whole region passed under Parthian control.

Roman Empire vs Parthia

Under the threat of an impending war between the two powers, Gaius Caesar and Phraataces worked out a rough compromise in 1 AD. According to the agreement, Parthia undertook to withdraw its forces from Armenia, and to recognize a de facto Roman protectorate over the country. Nonetheless, Roman-Persian rivalry over control and influence in Armenia continued unabated for the next several decades. The decision of the Parthian king Artabanus II to place his son, Arsaces, on the vacant Armenian throne triggered a war with Rome in 36 AD. Artabanus reached an understanding with the Roman general, Lucius Vitellius, renunciating Parthian claims to a Parhian sphere of influence in Armenia. A new crisis was triggered in 59 AD, when the Romans invaded Armenia after the Parthian king Vologases I forcibly installed his brother Tiridates on the throne there. Roman forces under Corbulo overthrew Tiridates and replaced him with a Cappadocian prince. The war came to an end in 64 AD, when the Romans agreed to allow Tiridates and his descendants to rule Armenia on condition that they received the kingship from the Roman emperor.
A new series of wars began in the second century AD, during which the Romans consistently held the upper hand over Parthia. In 114 and 115 AD the Roman Emperor Trajan invaded Armenia and Mesopotamia, annexed them as Roman provinces, and killed Parthamasiris who was placed on the Armenian throne by his brother, the king of Parthia, Osroes I. The Romans then captured the Parthian capital, Ctesiphon, before sailing downriver to the Persian Gulf. However, in that year revolts erupted in Palestine, Syria and northern Mesopotamia, while a major Jewish revolt broke out in Roman territory, severely stretching Roman military resources. Simultaneously, Parthian forces began attacking key Roman positions; at the same time the Roman garrisons at Seleucia, Nisibis and Edessa had been attacked and evicted by the local populaces. Trajan subdued the rebels in Mesopotamia, but having installed the Parthian prince Parthamaspates on the throne there as a client ruler he withdrew his armies, and proceeded to Syria, where he set up his headquarters at Antioch. In 117, before he could reorganize the effort to consolidate Roman control over the Parthian provinces, Trajan died.
Trajan's successor, Hadrian, decided that it was in Rome's interest to re-establish the Euphrates as the limit of its direct control, and willingly returned to the status quo ante, surrendering the territories of Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Adiabene back to their previous rulers and client-kings. Once again, at least for another half century, Rome was to avoid active intervention east of the Euphrates. In 195-197 AD another Roman offensive under the emperor Septimius Severus led to the Roman acquisition of northern Mesopotamia, as far as the areas around Nisibis and Singara. A final war against the Parthians was launched by the emperor Caracalla, who sacked Arbela in 216 AD, but after his assassination his successor Macrinus was defeated by the Parthians near Nisibis and was obliged to make a payment of reparations for the damage done by Caracalla in exchange for peace.

Roman-Sassanid Wars

Early Roman-Sassanid conflicts

Persian-Roman conflict was renewed shortly after the overthrowing of the Parthian rule and the foundation of the Sassanid empire by Ardashir I, who raided in Mesopotamia and Syria in 230, demanding the restitution of the Achaemenid possessions in Europe. After fruitless negotiations, Alexander Severus set out against Ardashir in 232; Ardashir was finally repulsed, and Alexander Severus celebrated a triumph in Rome. In 238-240, towards the end of his reign, Ardashir attacked again, taking several citied in Syria and Mesopotamia, including Carrhae, Nisibis and Hatra. The struggle resumed and intensified under Ardashir's successor Shapur I; he invaded Mesopotamia but his forces were defeated at a battle near Resaena in 243; Carrhae and Nisibis were retaken by the Romans. Encouraged by this success, the emperor Gordian III advanced down the Euphrates but was defeated near Ctesiphon in the Battle of Misiche in 244, and the Romans paid 500,000 denarii to the Persians.
In the early 250s, the emperor Philip was involved in a struggle over the control of Armenia. Shapur had the Armenian king murdered, and re-opened hostilities against Rome; he defeated the Roman troops at the Battle of Barbalissos, and then probably took and plundered Antioch. Some time between 258 and 260, Shapur captured the emperor Valerian I after crushing his army at the Battle of Edessa, but his subsequent advance into Anatolia ended, when the army of Palmyra attacked detachments of the Persians, causing them to retreat to their homeland. In 283 the emperor Carus launched a successful invasion of Persia, sacking its capital, Ctesiphon; the Romans would probably have extended their conquests, if Carus hadn't died in December of the same year. After a brief period of peace during Diocletian's early reign, the Persians renewed hostilities, invading Armenia and defeating the Romans not far from Carrhae in 296 or 297. In 298 however Galerius captured the Persian treasury and the royal harem. The Roman victory was the most decisive for many decades: all the territories that had been lost, all the debatable lands, and control of Armenia were now in Roman hands.
The arrangements of 299 proved long-lasting. It was Shapur II who broke the long peace between the two empires in mid 330s, and mounted a series of offensives against the Romans with little lasting effect. Shapur launched a new campaign in 359, and provoked a major offensive in 363 by the Roman Emperor Julian. Despite victory at the Battle of Ctesiphon, Julian was unable to take the Persian capital; he was killed the same year at the Battle of Samarra. The Romans were forced to hand over their former possessions east of the Tigris, as well as Nisibis and Singara; Armenia was also soon conquered by Shapur. In 384, a definitive peace treaty was signed by Shapur III and Theodosius I, which divided Armenia between the two states. With both empires preoccupied by barbarian threats from the north, a largely peaceful period followed, interrupted only by two brief wars, the first in 421-422, and the second in 440.

Anastasian and Iberian Wars

War broke out, when the Roman emperor Anastasius I refused to provide financial support to the Persian king, Kavadh I, who tried to gain the money by force. In 502 Kavadh quickly captured the unprepared city of Theodosiopolis, and then besieged Amida. The siege of the fortress-city proved to be a far more difficult enterprise than Kavadh expected; the defenders repelled the Persian assaults for three months before they were finally beaten. In 503 the Romans attempted an ultimately unsuccessful siege of the Persian-held Amida while Kavadh invaded Osroene, and laid siege to Edessa with the same results. Finally in 504, the Romans gained the upper hand with the renewed investment of Amida leading to the hand-over of the city. That year an armistice was agreed as a result of an invasion of Armenia by the Huns from the Caucasus. Negotiations between the two powers took place, but it wasn't until November 506 that a treaty was finally agreed. Procopius states that peace was agreed for seven years, and it's likely that some payments was made to the Persians. In 505 Anastasius ordered the building of a great fortified city at Dara. The dilapidated fortifications were also upgraded at Edessa, Batnac and Amida. Although no further large-scale conflict took place during Anastasius' reign, tensions continued, especially while work continued at Dara; Anastasius pursued the project despite teh Persian reactions, and the walls were completed by 507/508.
In 524/525 Kavadh proposed Justin I to adopt his son, Khosrau, but the negotiations soon broke down. It wasn't until 530, however, that full-scale warfare on the main eastern frontier broke out. Tensions between the two powers were further heightened by the defection of the Iberian king Gourgen to the Romans in 524/525. By 526-527, overt Roman-Persian fighting had broken out in the Transcaucasus region and upper Mesopotamia. The early years of war favored the Persians: by 527 the Iberian revolt had been crushed, a Roman offensive against Nisibis and Thebetha in that year was unsuccessful and forces trying to fortify Thannuris and Melabasa were prevented from doing so by Persian attacks. Attempting to remedy the deficiencies revealed by these Persian successes, the new Roman emperor, Justinian I, reorganized the eastern armies. In 528 Belisarius tried unsuccessfully to protect Roman workers in Thannuris, undertaking the construction of a fort right on the frontier. In 530 the Romans defeated the Persian troops at Dara and Satala. In 531 Belisarius was defeated by Persian and Lakhmid forces at the Battle of Callinicum, but, during the summer of the same year, the Romans captured some forts in Armenia, and effectively repulsed Persian offensive. Immediately after the Roman failure at Callinicum, which resulted in the dismissal of Belisarius, unsuccessful negotiations between the Perians and the Romans took place. Negotiations re-opened in spring 532 and the two sides finally came to an agreement; the Eternal Peace, which lasted less than eight years, was signed in September 532. Both powers agreed to return all occupied territories and the Romans to make a one-off payment of 110 centenaria (11,000 lbs of gold). The Romans recovered the Lazic forts, Iberia remained in Persian hands, but the Iberians who had left their country were allowed to remain in Roman territory or to return to their native land.

Justinian vs Khosrau I

In 540, the Persians broke the "Treaty of Eternal Peace" and Khosrau I invaded Syria, extorted large sums of money from the cities of Syria and Mesopotamia, and systematically looted the key cities. Belisarius was quickly recalled by Justinian to the East to deal with the Persian threat; the Roman general took the field and waged an inconclusive campaign against Nisibis in 541. In 542 Khosrau launched another offensive in Mesopotamia, and unsuccessfully attempted to capture Sergiopolis. He soon withdrew in the face of an army under Belisarius, en route sacking the city of Callinicum. Attacks on a number of Roman cities were repulsed and Persian forces were defeated and captured at Dara by John Troglita. In 543, the Romans fielded a force of 30,000 troops, and launched an offensive against Dvin, but were defeated by a small Persian force at Anglon. In 544 Khosrau besieged Edessa without success and was eventually bought off by the defenders. In the wake of the Persian retreat, Roman envoys proceeded to Ctesiphon for negotiations. A five-year truce was agreed in 545, secured by Roman payments to the Persians.
In early 548 AD, king Gubazes of Lazica, having found Persian protection oppressive, asked Justinian to restore the Roman protectorate. The emperor seized the chance, and in 548/549 AD combined Roman and Lazic forces won a series of victories against Persian armies, but failed in repeated attempts to take the fort of Petra; the city was finally subjected in 551 AD. That year the truce which had been established in 545 AD was renewed outside Lazica for a further five years, with the Romans paying 2,000 lbs of gold each year. The Romans failed to completely expel the Sassanids from Lazica, and in 554 AD Mihr-Mihroe launched a new attack, and captured the fortress of Telephis, which was commanded by general Martin. In 557 AD Khosrau, who had now to deal with the White Huns, renewed the truce, this time without excluding Lazica; negotiations continued for a definite peace treaty. Finally, in 561 AD, the envoys of Justinian and Khosrau put together a 50-year peace. The Persians agreed to evacuate Lazica, and received an annual subsidy of 30,000 nomismata annually. Both sides agreed not to build new fortifications near the frontier and to ease restrictions on diplomacy and trade between the two empires.

War for the Caucasus

The war began, when the Armenians revolted against Sassanid rule in early 572 AD. Justin II took them under his protection, and Roman troops under Justin's nephew, Marcian, raided Arzanene, invaded Persian Mesopotamia, and defeated its local forces. Marcian's sudden dismissal, however, and the arrival of troops under Khosrau resulted in the ravaging of Syria, the failure of the Roman siege of Nisibis, and the falling of Dara. At a cost of 45,000 solidi a one-year truce (later in the year extended to five years) was arranged, though the Persians still wanted to restore control in Armenia. In 576 AD Khosrau I attempted to combine aggression in Armenia with discussion of a permanent peace. He failed however to take Theodosiopolis, and after a confrontation near Melitene the Persian royal baggage was captured. The Romans exploited Persian disarray by invading deep into Persian territory, and raiding Atropatene. In the spring of 578 AD the Persians raided Roman Mesopotamia, but the Roman general Maurice retaliated by invading Arzanene; he also took and garrisoned the stronghold of Aphumon, and sacked Singara in Persian Mesopotamia. Khosrau I died early the next year, defeated after so many victories.
During the 580s the war continued in inconclusive fashion, with victories on both sides. In 582 AD Maurice defeated Tamkhusro, who was killed, but the Roman general didn't follow up his victory; he'd to hurry to Constantinople to pursue his imperial ambitions. In 589 AD the Persians captured Martyropolis through treachery, but in the same year the stalemate was shattered when the Persian general Bahram Chobin, having been dismissed and humiliated by Hormizd IV, raised a rebellion. Hormizd was overthrown in a palace coup in 590 AD and replaced by his son Khosrau II, but Bahram pressed on with his revolt regardless and the defeated Khosrau was soon forced to flee for safety to Roman territory, while Bahram took the throne as Bahram VI. With support from Maurice, Khosrau raised a rebellion against Bahram, and in 591 AD the combined forces of his supporters and the Romans restored Khosrau II to power. In exchange for their help, Khosrau not only returned Dara and Martyropolis but also agreed to cede the western half of Iberia and more than half of Persian Armenia to the Romans.

Climax

During Maurice’s Balkan campaigns, he and his family were murdered by Phocas in November 602. Khosrau II used the pretext to attack the Eastern Roman Empire, and reconquer the province of Mesopotamia. The war initially went the Persians' way, partly because of Phocas' brutal repression and the succession crisis that ensued as the general Heraclius sent his nephew Nicetas to attack Egypt, enabling his son Heraclius the younger to claim the throne in 610 AD. Phocas was eventually deposed by Heraclius, who sailed to Constantinople from Carthage with an icon affixed to the prow of his ship. By this time the Persians had conquered Mesopotamia and the Caucasus, and in 611 AD they overran Syria and entered Anatolia. A major counter-attack led by Heraclius in 613 AD was decisively defeated outside Antioch, and the Roman position collapsed; the Persians devastated parts of Asia Minor, and captured Chalcedon on the Bosporus. Over the following decade the Persians were able to conquer Palestine and Egypt (by mid-621 AD the whole province was in their hands) and to devastate Anatolia, while the Avars and Slavs took advantage of the situation to overrun the Balkans, bringing the Roman Empire to the brink of destruction.
During these years, Heraclius strove to rebuild his army, slashing non-military expenditure, devaluing the currency and melting down, with the backing of Patriarch Sergius, Church plate to raise the necessary funds to continue the war. On April 5, 622, Heraclius left Constantinople, entrusting the city to Sergius and general Bonus as regents of his son. He assembled his forces in Asia Minor, probably in Bithynia, and, after he revived their broken morale, he launched a new counter-offensive, which took on the character of a holy war. The Roman army proceeded to Armenia, inflicted a defeat on an army led by a Persian-allied Arab chief, and then won a victory over the Persians. On March 25, 624 Heraclius left again Constantinople with his wife, and his two children; after he celebrated Easter in Nicomedia on April 15, he campaigned in the Caucasus, winning a series of victories in Azerbaijan and Armenia against Khosrau and his generals. In 626 AD the Avars and Slavs besieged Constantinople, supported by a Persian army commanded by Shahrbaraz, but the siege ended in failure (the victory was attributed to the icons of the Virgin which were led in procession by Sergius about the walls of the city), while a second Persian army under Shahin suffered another crushing defeat at the hands of Heraclius' brother Theodore.
Late in 627 AD Heraclius launched a winter offensive into Mesopotamia, where, despite the desertion of the Turkish contingent which had accompanied him, he defeated the Persians at the Battle of Nineveh. Continuing south along the Tigris he sacked Khosrau's great palace at Dastagird and was only prevented from attacking Ctesiphon by the destruction of the bridges on the Nahrawan Canal. Discredited by this series of disasters, Khosrau was overthrown and killed in a coup led by his son Kavadh II, who at once sued for peace, agreeing to withdraw from all occupied territories. In 629 AD Heraclius restored the True Cross to Jerusalem in a majestic ceremony.

Aftermath

The devastating impact of this last war, added to the cumulative effects of a century of almost continuous conflict, left both empires crippled. When Kavadh II died only months after coming to the throne, Persia was plunged into several years of dynastic turmoil and civil war. The Sassanids were further weakened by economic decline, heavy taxation from Khosrau II's campaigns, religious unrest, and the increasing power of the provincial landholders. The Roman Empire was even more severely affected, with its financial reserves exhausted by the war, the Balkans now largely in the hands of the Slavs, Anatolia devastated by repeated Persian invasions and the empire's hold on its recently regained territories in the Caucasus, Syria, Mesopotamia, Palestine and Egypt loosened by many years of Persian occupation.
Neither empire was given any chance to recover, as within a few years they were struck by the onslaught of the Arabs, newly united by Islam. According to George Liska, the "unnecessarily prolonged Byzantine-Persian conflict opened the way for Islam." The Sassanid Empire rapidly succumbed to these attacks and was completely destroyed. During the Byzantine-Arab Wars, the exhausted Roman Empire's recently regained southern provinces were also lost during the Muslim conquest of Syria, Egypt and North Africa, reducing the empire to a territorial rump consisting of Anatolia and a scatter of islands and footholds in the Balkans and Italy. These remaining lands were thoroughly impoverished by frequent attacks, marking the transition from classical urban civilisation to a more rural, medieval form of society. However, unlike Persia the Roman Empire (in its medieval form usually termed the Byzantine Empire) ultimately survived the Arab assault, holding onto its residual territories and decisively repulsing two Arab sieges of its capital Constantinople in 674-678 and 717-718.

Assessments

Result

The Roman-Persian Wars have been characterized as "futile", and "both depressing and tedious to contemplate with." In the long series of wars between the two powers, the frontier in upper Mesopotamia remained more or less constant. Historians point out that the stability of the frontier over the centuries is remarkable, although Nisibis, Singara, Dara and other cities of upper Mesopotamia changed hands from time to time, and the possession of these frontier cities gave one empire a trade advantage over the other. As William Bayne Fisher states:
Religion John F. Haldon's analysis reveals another aspect of the wars, underscoring that, "although the conflicts between Persia and East Rome revolved around issues of strategic control around the eastern frontier, yet there was always a religious-ideological element present." A characteristic of the final phase of the conflict, when what had began in 611-612 as a war of raid was soon to be trasformed into a war of conquest, was the pre-emince of the Cross as a symbol of imperial victory, and of the strongly religious element in the Eastern Roman imperial propaganda; Heraclius himself cast Khosrau as the enemy of God, and authors of the sixth and seventh centuries were fiercely hostile to Persia.

Military tactics

Everett L. Wheeler asserts that the Parthians, like the Sassanids in the late third and fourth centuries, generally shunned sustained defense of Mesopotamia, when Romans invaded. The Iranian heartland would be, however, preserved, as the Roman expeditions exhausted their offensive impetus by the time they reached lower Mesopotamia, and their extended line of communications through territory not sufficiently pacified exposed them to revolts and counterattacks. Wheeler argues that "the Sassanids, administratively more centralized than the Parthians, formally organized defense of their territory, although they lacked a standing army until Khosrau I." In general the Romans regarded the Sassanids as a more serious threat than the Parthians; on the other side, the Sassanids regarded the Roman Empire as the enemy par excellence.
Militarily, the Sassanids continued the Parthians' heavy dependence on the combination of cataphracts (the heavy armored cavalry was provided by the aristocracy) and light-horse archers, adding a power force of war elephants obtained from India, but the traditional Persian weakness in the arm of infantry still applied, and their quality was inferior to the average Roman legion. This Persian heavy cavalry inflicted several defeats on the Roman foot-soldiers (against Crassus in 53 BC, Mark Antony in 36 BC, Valerian in 260 AD etc.); the Roman legions were not able to beat the Parthian-Sassanid cavalry decisively. This weakness led to the introduction of cataphractarii into the Roman army; as a result, the growth in importance of heavily armed cavalry was a feature of both Roman and Persian armies after the third century AD, and until the end of the wars.
As far as siege warfare is concerned, the Romans had achieved and maintained a high degree of sophistication, and had developed a range of siege machines. On the other hand, the Parthians were inept at besieging; their cavalry armies were more suited to the hit-and-run tactics that destroyed Antony's siege train in 36 BC. The situation changed with the rise of Sassanids, when Rome faced encountered an enemy equally skilled in siegecraft, who made use of artillery, machines captured from the Romans, embankments, and siege towers.

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