Persia from the Earliest Period to the Arab

136
HISTORY OF PERSIA.
Pompey, had a reasonable dread of the proscriptions
of the victors. Hence a characteristic outburst, in
which their hosts of cavalry overran a great portion
of Syria, taking even such towns as Apamaea and
Antioch, and a further raid by the Parthian king
(Pacorus) himself, into Phoenicia and Palestine, and
by Labienus into Asia Minor. In this war Jerusalem
submitted to the indignity of receiving as its ruler
Antigonus, the last of the Asmonaean princes, from
the hands of Pacorus, who had been bribed to espouse
his cause against John Hyrcanus by the gifts of
1000 talents and 500 Jewish women: the spectacle
was then witnessed of its last priest-king, sitting on
the throne of David from B.C. 40 to B.C. 37,
as the
satrap and dependent vassal of a foreign monarchy.
But these successes were of short duration. In
the autumn of B.C. 39, the lieutenant of Antony,
Ventidius, in a campaign of remarkable rapidity and
brilliancy, cleared Syria of the invaders, and,
in the
following spring, completely routed the Parthian
army and slew Pacorus. Indeed, it is manifest
throughout their whole history, that, for long-sustained
efforts the Parthians were no match for
the Romans; their military system, never varying,
lacked elasticity and the power of adaptation to
new and changing circumstances; and, though ad-
mirably adapted for the great plains of Asia, failed
in more contracted and difficult regions. Hence,
when Rome, to meet her new enemy, changed
her armament accordingly, the Parthians gave up
their previous policy of aggression, preferring rather
to stand at bav than to commence the attack: it