page_title: Phraates IV
section_title: Consolidation of power
hierarchical_section_title: Phraates IV / Consolidation of power
caption_attribution_description: English: Denarius of Mark Antony, minted in 38 BC.
context_page_description: Phraates IV, was King of Kings of the Parthian Empire from 37 to 2 BC. He was the son and successor of Orodes II, and was given the throne after the death of his brother Pacorus I. Phraates IV soon murdered all his brothers, and also possibly his father. His actions allienated the Armenians and also some of his nobles, including the distinguished Monaeses, who fled to the Roman triumvir Mark Antony, but shortly returned and reconciled with Phraates IV.
  Phraates IV was attacked in 36 BC by 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 II, king of Armenia, invaded his kingdom in 34 BC, took him prisoner, and concluded a treaty with Artavasdes I, king of Media Atropatene. But when the war with Octavian broke out, Antony could not maintain his conquests; Phraates IV recovered Media Atropatene and made Artaxias, the son of Artavasdes II, king of Armenia.
  Around the same time, Phraates IV's throne was usurped by Tiridates II, but he quickly managed to reestablish his rule with the aid of Scythian nomads.
context_section_description: In 38 BC, the heir to the Parthian throne, Pacorus I was defeated and killed at the Battle of Mount Gindarus by a Roman force. His death spurred a succession crisis in which Orodes II, deeply afflicted by the death of his favourite son, relinquished the throne to his other son Phraates IV. Orodes II died soon afterwards. His cause of death is uncertain. According to Cassius Dio, he had either died of grief due to Pacorus' death, or of old age. Plutarch, however, states that Orodes was murdered by Phraates IV. Fearing that his position might become endangered, Phraates IV executed all his half-brothers–the sons of Orodes and his Commagenian wife Laodice, partially due to their maternal descent being greater than that of his own. Laodice was probably killed as well. 
  Phraates IV also had supporters of his brothers and his own opponents sent into exile; one of them, Monaeses, a Parthian nobleman who had distinguished himself as a military leader under Orodes II, fled to Syria, where he took refuge with the Roman triumvir Mark Antony. There Monaeses urged him to attack Parthia, and promised him to spearhead the troops and conquer the empire without any difficulties. Antony granted Monaeses three cities—Larissa, Hierapolis and Arethusa, and promised him the Parthian throne. Around the same time, Antony had restored Roman rule in Jerusalem, and executed the Parthian puppet king Antigonus II Mattathias, who was succeeded by Herod the Great. The relations between Parthia and Armenia had also been damaged, due to the death of Pacorus I (who was married into the Armenian royal house) and Phraates IV's treatment of his brothers and some of the nobility, which aroused the Armenians. The Parthians took the defection of Monaeses very serious, and as a result Phraates IV invited Monaeses back to the country and reconciled with him.
caption: Coin of Mark Antony
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