Page 82 - Life & Land Use on the Bahrain Islands (Curtis E Larsen)

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conditions of the times, piracy was in common practice during the Parthian and
Roman periods as well. Archeological evidence for an occupation of Bahrain during
the first and second centuries A.D. has been shown by Bibby (1954) and more
recently by During Caspers (1972), who identified Roman glass from one of the
Parthian period graves. The presence of Roman glass on Bahrain suggests a period
when Roman shipping and goods may have traveled the Arabian Gulf route via
Charax.
Many of the commercial pressures that affected Bahrain during the
Seleucid and Parthian periods were related to competition for the control of trade
routes to the West. The Seleucid Empire hoped to direct the India trade to Antioch
via the gulf. It found itself not only in competition with Gerrha but also with the
Ptolemaic Empire, which controlled the Red Sea. The transition to Parthian
control of the preexisting distribution system in Mesopotamia met the same
competitive struggle. Rome avoided high tariffs on goods transported from eastern
Asia through Parthian-controlled territories by direct sailing from the Bab
al-Mandab to India, in imitation of the Greeks. Even during the decline of the
Roman Empire, the India trade was carried on by intermediaries of the Axumite
and Himyarite kingdoms on either side of the mouth of the Red Sea. Parthia and
its vassal state of Characene were able, however, to maintain a caravan route to
the West through Palmyra. Overland trade to the Mediterranean through Gerrha
and Nabataean Petra was crippled by Roman reliance on the Red Sea and Parthian
commercial relations with Palmyra in Syria. Palmyra became the major recipient
of the overland trade from the gulf in the second century A.D.

Sasanian Influence in the Arabian Gulf
In the third century A.D., a new empire appeared in the region and sought to utilize
the gulf trade route from India and China. This was the Sasanian Empire, which
from its inception, set out to succeed where the Greeks and Parthians had been
only marginally successful. The first Sasanian king, Ardashir I, overthrew the
remaining Parthians in A.D. 224 and began a four hundred year dynasty. The
Sasanians made a determined and, for the most part, successful effort to control