Musa, the Spy Who Became Queen

She pulled him by the cock toward the bed. After lying down on her back, she placed a pillow underneath her buttocks.

She handed him the vial saying, "Dip you finger into it. Just make sure you get a lot of oil on it and take your time putting your finger in the first time."

Normally, Phraates would just force it in like he did to some of the women who were snatched for his pleasure. But he was surprisingly considerate this time because he didn't want her to scream and cause the guards to rush into the bedroom thinking that something had gone horribly wrong.

After he pushed his finger in and out of her rectum several times, Musa said, "Now stick your thumb in my ass but with no oil. It's your thickest finger. It'll help me get used to having your big thing inside my bottom."

He penetrated her anal ring with his finger and then, unbidden, swirled his thumb around the ring. Musa moaned with the unexpected sensation.

She grabbed another pillow and put it under her buttocks as well. "Now, put the mouth of the vial into against my anus and pour the rest of the oil inside. Once you do it, don't waste any time getting inside me."

Phraates put the cockhead against her rear aperture and then thrust forward enough to get his cockhead inside her back channel. The texture of the olive oil felt quite different from the moistness he usually encountered in her vagina. It served its purpose as his manhood gradually slid completely into her rectum.

Musa grimaced as his sexual sword slid into her Roman sheath. It was a little uncomfortable and, in some ways, also pleasant. She doubted that she would get an orgasm from it, but then again, that wasn't her main objective. Her main objective was to keep him in her sexual thrall until she finished her pregnancy.

When she felt him pulsing in her rectum, she knew he had deposited his seed in a place that produced fertilizer for agricultural use.

For the remainder of her pregnancy, Phraates used his newest wife's ass to satisfy his sexual desires for her.

Three months later, Musa gave birth to a boy. Phraates was overjoyed, claiming that his fifth son by his fifth wife was clear evidence of his sexual prowess and potency. Having been responsible for his father's death, Phraates decided it would be a bad omen to name his son after his murdered father Orodes. Even though he already had a son named Phraates by his second wife Cleopatra, he decided to give his fifth son the very same name. This was not an uncommon practice in the ancient world, the Romans were famous for it, and so it was not considered to be unusual.

With the birth of her son, Musa's position in Phraates harem became more secure, but because of her imaginative and creative ways of keeping her husband sexually entertained, she was able to maintain her position as his favourite wife.

Musa settled in her new role as a queen and the mother of a Parthian prince. Her subjects also discovered that, despite her foreign accent, she had a good command of the Parthian language.

From Wife to Queen

As the years passed, Phraates seemed to go into decline. He was getting old and doddering. He lost interest in everything from sex to politics. He turned inward, frequently mumbling to himself. He allowed his favourite wife to take on some of the burden for governing his empire.

Sixteen years after giving birth to her only child, Musa's son was approaching manhood while his father's mental and physical decline had become noticeable.

One, day, Musa overheard an argument among Phraates' four older sons. Clearly, they were already thinking about succeeding their father. She also saw them jockeying with each other for their father's favour in the hope of putting themselves in the best position to succeed him when he died.

Based on what she had learned about the history of court intrigues in the Arsacid dynasty, she surmised that a fight over the succession was inevitable. Such a fight would be a threat to her son but she also saw it as an opportunity for him to succeed his father as king.

Musa viewed the situation with considerable alarm. She might have been his favourite wife but she was also the mother of his still inexperienced youngest son. So, she hatched a plot which she hoped would benefit herself and her son.

One day, Musa decided the time had come to give some wifely advice to her increasingly senile husband and use her position as his favourite wife to advance her own son while hobbling her four step-sons.

"My dear husband," she said, "you sons are fighting amongst each other to be your favourite and to succeed you. If they keep this up, and don't see their way to the kingship, they may be plot against you or fight among themselves."

In her years at the palace, Musa had learned about her husband's role in having his father and brothers killed in order to secure the throne for himself. She reminded him of his role without ever being explicit about it. It was enough to plant the idea and feed his mistrust, to achieve her goals.

After thinking about what she said for a few weeks, Phraates asked his fifth wife what he should do.

"I think you should send them to Rome," she opined. "Their presence in Rome will be seen as a sign of your peaceful intentions."

"Rome?" he questioned. That's so far away. I don't trust the Romans."

"But they returned Vonones all those years, didn't they?" she pointed out. "I'm a Roman. You have come to trust me, don't you? And if it weren't for the Romans, you would not have me as your wife."

"True on both counts," he agreed. "But what about your son? Shouldn't he go too?"

"Oh no," she pleaded, "he's still too young. He isn't involved in the disputes among his older brothers."

Phraates acceded to his favourite wife's proposals and told his sons to go to Rome as his empire's emissaries. Once she was certain that her step-sons were truly gone, Musa carried out the rest of her plan to put her son on the throne. She poisoned her doddering husband, exiled his other wives from the court and made herself co-ruler with her teenage son who reigned as Phraates V.

From Queen to Refugee

For six years, Musa and her son Phraates V ruled the Parthian Empire but the thought of a female Roman ruling patriarchal Parthia with her half-Roman son was too much for the Parthian nobles to bear. In addition, they were appalled by Phraates V's apparent willingness to recognize Roman suzerainty over Armenia, a territory which they consider to belong to Parthia. They even spread rumors that the mother and son were having an incestuous relationship, all to justify their plot to overthrow the foreign queen and her son.

Finally, they succeeded. The nobles of Parthia deposed them and installed the son of Phraates IV's sister as King Orodes III. Musa and her son fled to Rome. They proved to be a treasure trove of knowledge about the Parthians.

Musa had spent almost 23 years of her life involved in Parthian dynastic politics of one form or another. When she returned to Rome, Augustus rewarded her a comfortable life. In contrast to her early years, she pointedly refused to even listen to the intrigues and plotting going on in Augustus' own burgeoning dynasty.

Fortunately for Phraates, Musa had made sure that he learned to speak Latin as he grew up. It enabled him to adapt a little more easily to his new life in Rome, where mother and son lived in relative obscurity for the rest of their lives.

After his youngest half-brother fled to Rome with his former slave-girl mother, Vonones, Phraates IV's oldest son, technically the rightful heir to his father's throne, attempted to depose Orodes III. But the Parthian lords would have none of it. Their antipathy to Rome was so strong that they were wary of putting someone on the throne who had lived in Rome and, they thought, probably had fallen under Roman influence.

And what happened to the other three brothers of Vonones and Phraates V? No one knows.