Lucian speaks of the goddess and her temple and ceremonial in
his treatise 'On the Syrian Goddess' (iii. p. 451, ed. Hemsterhuis).
Lucian had visited the place. Josephus adds (_Jewish Antiq._ xiv. 7)
that Crassus stripped the temple of Jerusalem of all its valuables to
the amount of ten thousand talents. The winter occupation of the Roman
general was more profitable than his campaign the following year
turned out.]
[Footnote 60: This was a general name of the Parthian kings, and
probably was used as a kind of title. The dynasty was called the
Arsakidae. The name Arsakes occurs among the Persian names in the Persae
of Aeschylus. Pott (_Etymologische Forschungen_, ii. 272) conjectures
that the word means 'King of the Arii,' or 'the noble King.' The
prefix _Ar_ or _Ari_ is very common in Persian names, as Ariamnes,
Ariomardus, and others.
Plutarch in other passages of the Life of Crassus calls this Arsakes,
Hyrodes, and other authorities call him Orodes. He is classed as
Arsakes XIV. Orodes I. of Parthia, by those who have attempted to form
a regular series of the Parthian kings.
Crassus replied that he would give his answer in Seleukeia, the large
city on the Tigris, which was nearly pure Greek. The later Parthian
capital was Ktesiphon, in the neighbourhood of Seleukeia, on the east
bank of the Tigris and about twenty miles from Bagdad. The foundation
of Ktesiphon is attributed by Ammianus Marcellinus (xxiii.
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