Phraates, weakened in his struggle against Antiochus, had called upon the powerful Saka nomads to the north of his frontiers for aid, promising them payment.

The reinforcements having arrived too late to be of use, he sends them back, which provokes them to revolt and pillage the countryside.

The Greek prisoners drafted by Phraates into his army participate in the pillage, and Phraates loses his life fighting them in 128 in a great battle inside and around Media.

His uncle succeeds him as Artabanus I.

The Seleucid kingdom, prevented from retaking the Parthian lands it once controlled, begins to rapidly disintegrate.

The defeat of Antiochus has finally ended Seleucid dominion over the countries east of the Euphrates River, and marks the beginning of small principalities in both the north and south of Mesopotamia.

In Mesene (also called Characene, Persian Meshan), a Seleucid satrap with an Iranian name, Hyspaosines (also called Aspasine, or Spasines, who reigns from 127 BCE to about 121 BCE, refortifies Antiochia, a town originally founded by Alexander the Great near the junction of the Eulaeus (Karun) and Tigris rivers, and calls it Spasinou Charax (“Fort of Spasines”).

The Yuezhi are apparently involved in a war against the Parthians in 124 BCE, during which the Parthian king Artabanus I of Parthia is wounded in the arm and dies immediately; his successor is Mithridates II.