After the Lydians come a long string of peoples whose histories and cultures in Achaemenid times are too poorly-documented to put together a good article. Skipping through more than a dozen such names finally brings us to the Parthians.
Geographical definition
Parthia (O.P. Parthava) lay on the southwest corner of the Caspian, west of Hyrcania, south of the Kopet Dag mountains that separate modern Iran and Turmenistan, and north of the deserts of central Iran.
History
Parthia may have been subject to the Medes and acknowledged Persian suzerainty after Cyrus conquered Media. The country first appears in the Behistun inscription, where its satrap is Darius the Great's father, Hystaspes. After Darius seized the throne, the Parthians joined Phraortes' revolt and besieged Hystaspes in the Parthian city of Vishpauzâtish, but he defeated them on March 8, 521 and again at Patigrabana on July 11.
With the Arians, Chorasmians and Sogdians, the Parthians made up the 16th tax district, paying 300 talents yearly. At times Parthia formed a joint satrapy with Hyrcania. At the Apadana, they are illustrated bringing bowls and a Bactrian camel. Parthians took part in the 480 invasion of Greece as infantry, marching with the Chorasmians under Artabazus son of Pharnaces. They are not mentioned at the major battles.
Parthia drops off the radar for a century and a half following Xerxes' invasion. We next hear of them at Gaugamela in 331, where together with the Hyrcanians, they fought as cavalry under the joint satrap Phrataphernes in the Persian left wing (commanded overall by Mazaeus). Phrataphernes remained with Darius on his final flight toward Parthia, but after the Persian king was murdered, Phrataphernes submitted peacefully to Alexander and thus retained his office.
Diodorus has Phratapernes still holding this office at the Partition of Babylon, but at Triparadiscus it was reassigned to Philip, formerly of Sogdiana. Philip was deposed and killed in 318 by Peithon, who made his brother Eudamus governor, but the following year the other eastern satraps expelled them and in 316 Seleucus gave Parthia to a satrap of his choosing, Stasander.
The Seleucids maintained nominal control over Parthia until 247, when a political crisis in Antioch motivated the satrap Andragoras to declare Parthia an independent state. Just nine years later, however, a tribe of Eastern Iranian nomads known as the Parni invaded from the north and conquered Parthia. This was the beginning of the Arsacid dynasty, which in the second century BC came to rule most of Greater Iran.
The Arsacids were deposed early in the third century AD by a resurgent Persia under the Sassanids. The Sassanids dissolved Parthia as an administrative unit and made it part of a larger province, Khorasan. While the Parthian language continued to be used (judging from bilingual inscriptions) early in the Sassanid period, the region seems to have become Persianized at least by the time of Ferdowsi in the 10th century. Today the area is divided among several Iranian provinces and is home mostly to native Persian-speakers with Kurds and Turkmens in the north.
By the Arsacid period, the name Parthava had been worn down into Pahlav or Pahlaw, which (as the adjective Pahlavi) survived as a designation of things originating in northeastern Iran.
Language
Parthian was a Western Iranian language and thus more closely related to Persian than Avestan or other Eastern languages, but belonged to the Northwestern sub-branch, whereas Persian belongs to the Southwestern. Parthian is attested in Pahlavi (a script derived from Aramaic) from the Arsacid and early Sassanid dynasties, and was probably different in the Achaemenid period, perhaps resembling Old Persian a little more.
Religion
I can find nothing on Parthian religion under the Achaemenids, but a reasonable guess would be something similar to the Persians, in a transitional state between ancient Iranian polytheism and early Mazdaism.
Clothing
Parthians in royal art wear pullover tunics, loose-fitting trousers and mid-calf pull-on boots. The Apadana delegation wear what look like tiaras that are very full and made of soft woven fabric, though they could instead be a complex kind of turban wrap. The one at Naqs-e Rostam wears a more standard cut of tiara.
Weapons
Herodotus has the Parthians armed like Bactrians, who carry "reed bows" and spears. I think you would be safe using trilobate bronze arrowheads, which were common in both western Iran and Scythia. In Arsacid times the Parthians were known for their cavalry, but they probably took heavy influence from the Arsacids' nomadic ancestors. The Parthian at Naqs-e Rostam wears a Medo-Persian akinakes. It is probable that the Parthian akinakes was more like the Scythian in style.
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