Having conceived a dislike for the monarch personally, they began to look back with dissatisfaction on their own act in sending for him.

"Parthia," they said, "had indeed degenerated from her former self to have requested a king to be sent her who belonged to another world and had had a hostile civilization ingrained into him." All the glory gained by destroying Crassus and repulsing Antony was utterly lost and gone, if the country was to be ruled by Caesar's bond-slave, and the throne of the Arsacidse to be treated like a Roman province.

It would have been bad enough to have had a prince imposed on them by the will of a superior, if they had been conquered; it was worse, in all respects worse, to suffer such an insult, when they had not even had war made on them.

Under the influence of such feelings as these, the Parthians, after tolerating Vonones for a few years, rose against him (ab.

A.D.
16), and summoned Artabanus, an Arsacid who had grown to manhood among the Dahee of the Caspian region, but was at this time king of Media Atropatene, to rule over them.
It was seldom that a crown was declined in the ancient world; and Artabanus, on receiving the overture, at once expressed his willingness to accept the proffered dignity.