The intermittent border warfare between Sakastan and Carmania ended with the deaths of Peroz and Hamide, the demise of the queen mother having reduced the previously poisonous relations between the two kingdoms. Phraates stripped Phanes of his title of Lord High General in the East, which demoralised the king even further and led to what Alcaeus informed me had been an attack of apoplexy. As a result, he was rarely seen in public and rumours told of slurred speech and the loss of the use of his right arm. His misfortune was Parthia’s gain, though, with the first meeting between Salar and Babak going extremely well and paving the way for improving relations between Carmania and Sakastan.

  Salar himself made extensive enquiries as to who was responsible for the murder of his parents at his wedding but discovered no answers. The satrap of Persis, Osrow, aware that the assassins had come from the region he supervised, undertook punitive raids against the hill tribes that inhabited Persis, sending Salar the heads of the chiefs his men captured. But the gesture was intended to save his own head due to his fear that the kings of Dura and Sakastan might demand his execution for the outrage of Indira and her followers. He was fortunate that neither Salar nor I were vengeful individuals and so he kept his position and his head.

  Phraates and all of us were focused on the eastern frontier and the Kushan menace beyond the Indus, and I had forgotten Dobbai’s warning concerning the ruler of Gordyene. Mark Antony’s invasion had been defeated and the Roman world was at war with itself. As a result, things were very quiet on the Syrian border and so the kingdom of Dura and I relaxed. Just as Gordyene launched a full-scale war against Armenia.

  Historical notes

  Most histories of the Parthian Empire concentrate on its struggles against the Romans but the Parthians also faced other threats to their empire, especially in the east where rising powers threatened their trade and lands. The Kushans were originally from China but were driven out of that land by another group, the Xiongnu, around 170BC. They settled in northern India, though at this time they were a loose confederation of tribes rather than a united people. It was under the leadership of their first emperor, Kujula, that the Kushans united in the 1st Century BC and began to advance west. They gradually encroached upon the Parthian Empire, wresting control of lands in modern-day northern Afghanistan and Pakistan. In addition to their campaigns of conquest, the Kushans engaged in seagoing trade and in commerce along the Silk Road between China and the Mediterranean. In this way the Kushans rose in power and wealth, eventually becoming a world power to rival China and Rome in the 1st and 2nd Centuries AD (by which time Parthian power had greatly waned).

  The location of Sigal, the capital of Parthian Sakastan, remains a mystery but many scholars believe it is sited in the Bost area in modern-day Afghanistan. Today there are only the remains of a fortress built there by Alexander the Great, but in antiquity Sigal was recorded as being a prosperous city located in the triangle formed by the confluence of the Erymanthus (Helmand) and Argandab rivers. There were well-irrigated orchards between the rivers and the waterways also supported the growing of crops, as well as providing water for sheep, goats, cows and chickens. We also know that Sigal served as a guard post for the caravan trade from eastern Parthia to India. The city had a strong fortress constructed of mud-bricks, in the centre of which was a deep well with seven galleries encircling its shaft. The well is still extant today.

  Ukku steel, later to be known as Damascus steel, was legendary for producing blades that were both harder and more flexible than wrought iron, features critical in the making of a long-bladed weapon. In ancient times producing such blades was incredibly expensive but resulted in swords that were of the highest quality. The metal was sourced from India, being provided as a ‘cake’ of cast high-carbon steel that was then elongated to produce a sword blade.

  Readers may be interested to know that the demon Pazuzu featured in the 1973 film The Exorcist , appearing as a stone statue in the opening scenes where he faces the priest Father Merrin, who battles him later in the film following his possession of a teenage girl in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. Pazuzu was originally a Babylonian demon-god whose popularity reached its zenith in the 1st Century BC. Ancient Mesopotamians regarded him as capable of great wrongdoing, but he was also invoked as a defence against evil. For example, pregnant women wore Pazuzu talismans as a protection against the Goddess Lamashtu who preyed on unborn and newborn babies. So when he was not possessing American teenage girls, Pazuzu was scaring off lesser demons and ghosts on behalf of defenceless mortals.

 

 

  Peter Darman, Usurper

 

 

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