ABSTRACT
In his critique ofMommsen's interpretation ofRoman rule and strategy in the Near East, the great Strasbourg orientalist Theodor Noldeke (1885: 347) affirmed he considered it unlikely that the Parthians had ever controlled the Arabian side of the Gulf, a feat which even the Sasanians had achieved with only limited success. Five years later, however, Eduard Glaser (1890: 192) asserted, based on his interpretation of the Periplus, that not only had the Parthians controlled the east coast of Arabia, but also, in the first century AD, all ofOman and the important al-Yamama region of the Arabian interior as far west as the Tuwayq escarpment and the Wadi Dawasir. Needless to say, few scholars today would endorse the view expressed by Glaser. Many would, however, agree with Noldeke, witness a recently published paper by R. Boucharlat and I.-F. Salles (1987: 301), where the question is asked, "Y a-t-il une presence parthe dans Ie Golfe, et dans ce cas, comment se manifesterait-elle? Le premier element de reponse est negatif' Quite obviously, if I subscribed to this view, there would be no justification for the present study. Rather, I hope to show here why I believe there was a Parthian presence in the Gulf, and how that presence manifested itself.
