Phraates IV

Phraates III  (also spelled Frahad III;  Frahāt), was King of Kings of the Parthian Empire from 37 to 2 BC. He was appointed successor to the throne in 37 BC, after the death of his brother Pacorus I. He soon murdered his father and all his brothers.

Name 
Phraátēs () is the Greek form of the Parthian Frahāt (𐭐𐭓𐭇𐭕), itself from the Old Iranian *Frahāta- ("gained, earned"). The Modern Persian version is Farhād ().

Reign 
Phraates was attacked in 36 BC by the Roman general Mark Antony, who marched through Armenia into Media Atropatene, and was defeated and lost the greater part of his army. Antony, believing himself betrayed by Artavasdes, king of Armenia, invaded his kingdom in 34 BC, took him prisoner, and concluded a treaty with another Artavasdes, king of Media Atropatene.

But when the war with Octavian broke out, Antony could not maintain his conquests; Phraates recovered Media Atropatene and drove Artaxias, the son of Artavasdes, back into Armenia. But by his many cruelties Phraates had roused the indignation of his subjects, who raised Tiridates II to the throne in 32 BC. Phraates was restored by the Scythians, and Tiridates fled into Syria. 

The Romans hoped that Augustus would avenge the defeat of the Roman general Marcus Licinius Crassus on the Parthians, but in 20 BC he contented himself with a treaty, by which Phraates gave back the prisoners from the recent fighting and the captured battle standards from the Battle of Carrhae; the kingdom of Armenia also was recognized as a Roman dependency. Soon afterwards Phraates, whose greatest enemies were his own family, sent five of his sons as hostages to Augustus, thus acknowledging his dependence on Rome (the hostages included Tiridates III, whom the Romans later tried to install as a vassal king in AD 35). This plan he adopted on the advice of an Italian woman, a gift of Caesar, "Thea Muse" whom he made his favored wife; her son Phraates V, commonly called Phraataces (a diminutive form), he appointed successor.

Succession and aftermath 
In 2 BC, Musa had Phraates IV poisoned and made herself along with Phraates V (who was an illegitimate son) the co-rulers of the empire. However, after a mere rule of four years, they were both executed by the disgruntled Parthian nobility, who put a certain Orodes III on the throne two years later.

Family

Marriages
Phraates IV had the following wives:
 Musa
 Olennieire
 Cleopatra
 Baseirta
 Bistheibanaps

Issue
 Vonones I, eldest son and Parthian king from 8 to 12. Subsequently king of Armenia from 12 to 18.
 Phraates, one of his first-born sons, attempted to take the Parthian throne from Artabanus II in 35.
 Phraates V, Parthian king from 2 BC to 4 CE.
 Karen, the eponymous founder of the House of Karen, one of the Seven Great Houses of Iran.
 Unnamed daughter, who was the wife of a Dahae prince and mother of Artabanus II.

References

Sources 
 
  
  
  
  
 
  
  
  
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 

Category:1st-century BC births
Category:2 BC deaths
Category:1st-century BC Parthian monarchs
Category:People of the Roman–Parthian Wars
Category:Murdered Persian monarchs
Category:1st-century BC murdered monarchs