Tiridates, who was proclaimed king, could no longer maintain himself, because he appeared to be a vassal of the Romans; Artabanus returned from Hyrcania with a strong army of Scythian (Dahan) auxiliaries, and was again acknowledged by the Parthians.
The most famous Arsaces was the chief of the Parni, one of the nomadic Scythian or Dahan tribes in the desert east of the Caspian Sea.
This double identification enabled Cassiodorus to bring the favoured race into line with the peoples of classical antiquity, to interweave with their history stories about Hercules and the Amazons, to make them invade Egypt, to claim for them a share in the wisdom of the semi-mythical Scythian philosopher Zamolxis.
They probably are aborigines fundamentally, with a mixture of what are now called the Scythian tribes, which at a very early time overran India.
The Scythian nomads became the ruling race; they were invested with large landed property, and formed the council of the king, who appointed the successor.