I've been listening to the History if Rome podcast and just got to the Great Revolt. I was thinking about how this would play out today and started to wonder why the Jews never asked the Parthians for help in their revolt against the Romans. The Parthians were more than match for Rome, it would seem, and were much closer to the region.
Did this kind of thing, asking the international community for aid, happen in those days, or was it just understood these problems would be dealt with internally?
I've never heard of Parthian involvement in the revolt, but I'll give you an interesting related story:
During the Jewish revolt against the Seleucid empire in the 100s B.C., the Jews sent an embassy to Rome, of all places, and signed a treaty of friendship with the Senate. There's no evidence of any concrete help coming from Rome outside of a threatening letter sent to the Seleucid king, but bringing in outside powers was definitely in the cards in the ancient world.
If you want more info, this article is a good staring place: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman%E2%80%93Jewish_Treaty