Poetry as the History of Ancient Iran: Achaemenians and Parthians in the Odes of Horace

Odes is a collection in four books of poems by Quintus Horatius Flaccus, the Roman writer and poet of the first century BC. The poems cover a wide range of topics about human relationships, everyday issues, and historical events. Parthians as one of the most important neighbors and rivals of the Roman Empire, and Achaemenids as Parthians’ descendants have been mentioned in different parts of this collection. Considering the shortage of sources on some parts of the history of Ancient Iran, especially the Parthian period, that has made the researchers encounter problems, this literary work would be a good source for contemporary historians who intend to study the foreign relations of Parthians with the Roman Empire, and the viewpoints of Romans on Iranians in the Achaemenid period. This research adopts an analytical-descriptive method to study how the Ancient Iranians are depicted in Odes of Horace and to compare critically the historical materials contained therein with other historical texts of the ancient world.