Arsaces

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A ruler of the ancient Parthian Empire in Persia, a title borne by the dynasty founded by its first king
2. The name of the kings who ruled the ancient Parthian Empire in what is now Iran and neighboring lands
3. A monarch of the Parthian dynasty that governed ancient Persia from the third century BC until about AD 224

Etymology: Arsaces was not a single ruler's name but a dynastic title. The Parthian kings who ruled Iran and Mesopotamia from about the third century BC took the name of their founder, Arsaces I, and every king of that line was called Arsaces in royal and Greek-language records. The name reached the Greeks through their own writing, which rendered the Old Persian form "R̥šaka" (with a cluster of consonants that Greek turned into "Arsákēs") and from there it passed into Latin as "Arsacēs." English took the word directly from that Latin form, so the spelling still points to the long chain of transmission. Its use in English is almost entirely historical, confined to scholarship on the Parthian Empire, which Rome knew as its great eastern rival for centuries.