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Vagises’ Virtuous Hand: An Unforeseen Note on Plutarch, Life of Crassus 18, 3

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Gilles Courtieu
Gilles Courtieu*
Affiliation:
Histoire ancienne, Université Jean Moulin Lyon III
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Abstract

When Crassus met the Parthian ambassador Vagises on the eve of his disastrous expedition ending at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC, Vagises mocked his boldness and showed the palm of his hand, on which, according to him, no hair would ever grow unless the Roman were to reach Mesopotamia, the heart of Parthian empire. This bizarre gesture and statement, usually assumed to be frivolous, can only be understood in the context of Zoroastrian sexual and cathartic ethics, which of course no Roman or Greek could understand. The source of this information therefore could not have been Plutarch, but rather someone conversant with Persian culture, from either Parthian or Armenian stock.

Keywords

ParthiansZoroastrianismCarrhaeCrassussexuality
Type
Review Essay
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 51 , Issue 4 , July 2018 , pp. 633 - 642
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 2018

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Footnotes

The author is especially grateful to R. M. Kerr and C. A. Segovia for their stylistic improvements of this text.

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