Musa, also known as Thermusa, was an Italian slave who was sent by a Roman emperor to live in the exotic court of a Parthian king. She orchestrated a remarkable social ascent through slavery, concubinage, and courtly consort politics to become Queen of the Parthians and the mother of a future Parthian king. To understand her story, however, a quick recap of Roman-Parthian relations would be beneficial.
Parthia, an ancient empire roughly corresponding to Iran, Iraq, and parts of Syria and Armenia, was one of the few powers that Rome’s golden age legions could not conquer. The Parthians had devastated the Roman armies of Crassus (in 53 BCE), Decidius Saxa (in 40 BCE), and Mark Antony (in 35 BCE), taking prisoners and seizing prized Roman standards from the battlefields. Mark Antony’s defeat came during the reign of the Parthian ruler, Phraates IV (r. 38-2 BCE), an incredibly able (but extremely ruthless) statesman and military commander. Phraates watched on with interest in the year 30 BCE, when Antony and Cleopatra were crushed by their ascendant rival, Octavian, who later assumed the august title of Augustus.
Augustus (r. 32/27 BCE-14 CE), eager not to repeat the Parthian mistakes of his predecessors, decided to engage Parthia not with direct war, but with diplomacy and indirect proxy conflicts. As early as 30 BCE, Augustus was hosting envoys of Phraates IV, while also harboring Phraates’ greatest rival of the time, Tiridates II. In the course of this opening wave of diplomacy, Augustus obtained a son of Phraates IV as a hostage—this was likely the doing of Tiridates, who had been waging war against the Parthian king. Tiridates II, however, failed in his schemes to supplant Phraates. Therefore, Augustus decided to use Phraates’ son as a bargaining chip to normalize and stabilize the Roman-Parthian relationship. By 23 BCE, Augustus and Phraates IV negotiated an exchange; the Romans would return the Parthian king’s son, and the Parthians would hand over the Roman prisoners of war and battle standards they seized from the likes of Crassus and Antony. It was also around this time that Augustus sent Musa, the Italian slave woman, to the court of Phraates IV as part of the diplomatic exchange.
Phraates, when he saw Musa, became helplessly smitten with the Italian slave. Her exact path up the Parthian social ladder is unknown, but Musa climbed from slavery to concubinage, and then ascended beyond the role of the average concubine to become one of the most influential consorts of King Phraates IV. Musa eventually gave birth to a son named Phraataces shortly after 20 BCE, and by this point Musa had become the Parthian king’s primary consort. King Phraates was so infatuated with Musa and Phraataces that he began paving the way for Musa’s young boy to become his heir apparent, even though the king already had at least four older sons—Vonones, Phraates, Seraspadanes, and Rhodaspes—who were poised to rule. By around 10 BCE, Musa and her son Phraataces had fortified their supremacy in the royal family’s hierarchy to such an extent that the four older brothers were all sent abroad to live as honored guests in the Roman Empire. With the eldest princes forced into lavish Roman exile, Phraataces was left as the undisputed heir.
Phraates IV, a ruthless killer who had murdered his father and brothers for power, should have been paranoid about history repeating itself. Yet, he let his guard down around Musa. Around the year 3 or 2 BCE, Phraates died suspiciously (reportedly of poison), and power in Parthia was immediately seized by Musa and Phraataces (also known as Phraates V).
Phraataces and Musa ruled together and their relationship was strange, to say the least. The ancient historian, Josephus (c. 37/38-100), recorded the rise to power of this peculiar pair. In the following quote, there will be some treading on old ground, as it were, from the paragraphs above, but there are key details in this passage that should be pointed out. Josephus wrote:
“About this time died Phraates [IV], king of the Parthians, by the treachery of Phraataces his son, upon the occasion following: When Phraates had had legitimate sons of his own, he had also an Italian maid-servant, whose name was Thermusa, who had been formerly sent to him by Julius Caesar [Augustus], among other presents. He first made her his concubine; but he being a great admirer of her beauty, in process of time having a son by her, whose name was Phraataces, he made her his legitimate wife, and had a great respect for her. Now she was able to persuade him to do any thing that she said, and was earnest in procuring the government of Parthia for her son; but still she saw that her endeavors would not succeed, unless she could contrive how to remove Phraates’s legitimate sons, so she persuaded him to send those his sons as pledges of his fidelity to Rome; and they were sent to Rome accordingly, because it was not easy for him to contradict her commands. Now while Phraataces was alone brought up in order to succeed in the government…he therefore formed a treacherous design against his father, by his mother’s assistance, with whom, as the report went, he had criminal conversations” (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 18.2.4).
First and foremost, the “criminal conversations” allegation at the end of the quote is meant to be understood in the sense of ‘carnal knowledge’ parlance. Simply put, Musa and her son Phraataces were reportedly in an incestuous relationship, and there is evidence that they married after Phraataces ascended to the throne. Adding to the odd incestual situation was the curious coincidence that Musa and Phraataces were key allies of King Tigranes IV and Queen Erato of Armenia—a pair of married siblings. Together, the two incestuous allies fended off Roman interventions in Armenia, greatly frustrating Augustus. In the year 1 CE, Phraataces met with Augustus’ grandson, Gaius Caesar, and the Romans momentarily recognized Tigranes and Erato’s authority in Armenia (while also asserting that Armenia was in Rome’s sphere of influence.
Meanwhile, Musa had been orchestrating an interesting propaganda campaign back in Parthia. She titled herself “Thea” (or Goddess) and encouraged depictions of her being “Urania” (or Heavenly). This Goddess Musa, or Thea Musa, phrase is why her name is sometimes written as “Thermusa.” Musa’s heavenly terminology and symbolism were included on the official coinage of Phraataces’ reign.
Phraataces and Musa, despite their successes and propaganda, faced great unrest from the beginning of their reign. Loyalists of the slain king, Phraates IV, held a grudge over the late ruler’s murder, causing many of them to throw their support behind a faction loyal to Phraataces’ half-brother, Vonones (who was in exile at Rome). The incestuous marriage between Musa and her son, too, was reportedly a source of great dissension against the ruling royals. And in Rome, Augustus was eager to stoke the flames and gain an advantage against the Parthians. Augustus likely had a hand in the death of King Tigranes IV of Armenia in 2 or 3 CE, and the Romans subsequently rushed in to support pro-Roman kings on the Armenian throne. Around the same time, Phraataces and Musa in Parthia faced an outbreak of civil war. Phraataces was deposed by rebel forces in the year 2 or 3, and died by year 4. His death, and that of his successor, Orodes III (d. 6), set up the struggle in Parthia between the Roman-backed Vonones and his rival, Artabanus.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
Picture Attribution: (Front and back of a coin of Phraataces (Phraates V) and Musa, [Public Domain] via the Bibliothèque Nationale de France).
Sources:
- The Roman History by Cassius Dio, translated by Ian Scott-Kilvert. New York: Penguin Classics, 1987.
- Strabo’s Geography, translated by H.C. Hamilton and W. Falconer (1903 edition), republished in The Complete Works of Strabo (Delphi Classics, 2016).
- Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews, translated by William Whiston (1737), republished in Josephus: Complete Works (Delphi Classics, 2014).
- https://penelope.uchicago.edu/josephus/ant-18.html
- https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/phraates-iv/
- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Phraates-IV
- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Musa-queen-of-Parthia
- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Tiridates-II-king-of-Parthia
- https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/phraates-v/
- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Phraates-V
- https://www.livius.org/articles/person/gaius-caesar/
- https://www.livius.org/articles/person/tigranes-iv-of-armenia/
