Parni

The Parni (/ˈpɑːrnaɪ/; Ancient Greek: Πάρνοι, Parnoi), Aparni (/əˈpɑːrnaɪ/; Ἄπαρνοι, Aparnoi) or Parnians were an East Iranian people who lived around the Ochus (Ancient Greek: Ὧχος Okhos) (Tejen) River, southeast of the Caspian Sea in Central Asia. It is believed that their original homeland may have been what is now southern Russia in Eastern Europe, from where they emigrated with other Scythian tribes. The Parni were one of the three tribes of the Dahae confederacy.

In the middle of the 3rd century BCE, the Parni invaded Parthia, "drove away the Greek satraps, who had then only just acquired independence, and founded a new dynasty", that of the Arsacids.

There is no unambiguous evidence of the Parni in native Iranian language sources,^cf. and all references to these people come from Greek and Latin accounts. In these accounts, which are not necessarily contemporaneous, it is difficult to unambiguously identify references to the Parni due to inconsistency of Greek/Latin naming and transliteration, and/or the similarity to names of other tribes such as the Sparni or Apartani and the Eparnoi or Asparioi. It may also be that the Parni are related to one or more of these other tribes, and that "their original homeland may have been southern Russia from where they emigrated with other Scythian tribes."

The location of the Parni Dahae immediately south-east of the Caspian Sea was derived from by Strabo's Geographica (Book 11, 1st century BCE). The ethnonym of the Dahae was the root of the later placename Dahestan or Dihistan – a region straddling the present regions of Turkmenistan and Iran. So little is known of the Dahae, including the Parni, that – in the words of A. D. H. Bivar – even the location and name of their capital city "if indeed they possessed one" is unknown. A later archaeological site in the region, known as Dehistan/Mishrian, is located in the Balkan Region of Turkmenistan.

The language^[c] of the Parni is not directly attested but is assumed to be one of the eastern substrates of the subsequently recorded Parthian language, which the Parni eventually adopted. To the "incoming Parni may be ascribed a form of speech showing a strong east Iranian element, resulting from their proximity on the steppe to east Iranian Sakas." Through the influence of the Parthians in Armenia, traces of the Parni language survive as "loan-words in Armenian."

The language of the Parni "was described by Justin as 'midway between Scythian and Median [and] contained features of both'" (41.1.10). Justin's late (3rd century) opinion is "no doubt slightly exaggerated," and is in any case of questionable veracity given the ambiguity of names.

In 247 BCE, Andragoras, the Seleucid governor (satrap) of Parthia ("roughly western Khurasan") proclaimed independence from the Seleucids, when—following the death of Antiochus II—Ptolemy III seized control of the Seleucid capital at Antioch, and "so left the future of the Seleucid dynasty for a moment in question."

Meanwhile, "a man called Arsaces, of Scythian or Bactrian^[a] origin, [was] elected leader of the Parni tribes." Following the secession of Parthia from the Seleucid Empire and the resultant loss of Seleucid military support, Andragoras had difficulty in maintaining his borders, and about 238 BCE—under the command of "Arsaces and his brother Tiridates"—the Parni invaded Parthia and seized control of Astabene (Astawa), the northern region of that territory, the administrative capital of which was Kabuchan (Kuchan in the vulgate).