The Son of King Phraates IV and ruler of the Parthian Empire from circa 7 to 12 C.E. Vonones had been one of the children sent to Rome to serve as a hostage of good faith and to prevent his murder at the hands of his own family. As it was, Phraates was assassinated by Phraataces, his adopted son.
There followed a period of instability as Phraataces and his successor, Orodes III, were killed. The Parthian nobility then requested that Vonones assume the throne, but from around 7 to 12 C.E. he ruled with such ineptness and foreign manner that a palace coup was inevitable. Parthian nobles especially resented his Greek habits.
With the connivance of the palace, Artabanus, an Arsacid from Media, launched a rebellion that ultimately ousted Vonones, who fled to Syria and took refuge in Antioch. He lived royally there on the money that he had taken with him and in 16 asked Emperor Tiberius to sanction his seizing the vacant throne of Armenia as a springboard for regaining Parthia.
Tiberius, however, detested him and with Artabanus promising war if Vonones was not restrained, Creticus Silanus, governor of Syria, was ordered to arrest the fallen king. In 18, Germanicus, then administering the Eastern provinces, agreed to a request from Artabanus and moved Vonones to Pompeiopolis in Cicilia.
Knowing that he probably would not live to see another such move, Vonones bribed his guards and fled to Armenia, where the Roman cavalry caught up with him. An officer named Remmius, charged with his safety, ran him through, a death desired by Parthia and Rome.
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