The Provinces of the Roman Empire 5

The Provinces of the Roman Empire 5

When at length, in 718 {36 B.C.}, he escaped from the arms, not of

Octavia, but of Cleopatra, and set the columns of the army in motion, a

good part of the appropriate season of the year had already elapsed.

Still more surprising than this delay was the direction which Antonius

chose. All aggressive wars of the Romans against the Parthians, earlier

and later, took the route for Ctesiphon, the capital of the kingdom

and at the same time situated on its western frontier, and so the

natural and immediate aim of operations for armies marching downward

on the Euphrates or on the Tigris. Antonius too might, after he had

reached the Tigris through northern Mesopotamia, nearly along the

route which Alexander had traversed, have advanced down the river upon

Ctesiphon and Seleucia. But instead of this he preferred to go in a

northerly direction at first towards Armenia, and from that point,

where he united his whole military resources and reinforced himself

in particular by the Armenian cavalry, to the table-land of Media

Atropatene (Aderbijân). The allied king of Armenia may possibly have

recommended this plan of campaign, seeing that the Armenian rulers at

all times aspired to the possession of this neighbouring land, and

King Artavazdes of Armenia might hope now to subdue the satrap of

Atropatene of the same name, and to add the latter’s territory to his

own. But Antonius himself cannot possibly have been influenced by such

considerations. He may have rather thought that he should be able to

push forward from Atropatene into the heart of the enemy’s country, and

might regard the old Persian court-residences of Ecbatana and Rhagae

as the goal of his march. But, if this was his plan, he acted without

knowledge of the difficult ground, and altogether underrated his

opponents’ power of resistance, besides which the short time available

for operations in this mountainous country and the late beginning of

the campaign weighed heavily in the scale. As a skilled and experienced

officer, such as Antonius was, could hardly deceive himself on such

points, it is probable that special political considerations influenced

the matter. The rule of Phraates was tottering, as we have said;

Monaeses, of whose fidelity Antonius held himself assured, and whom he

hoped perhaps to put into Phraates’s place, had returned in accordance

with the wish of the Parthian king to his native country;[25] Antonius

appears to have reckoned on a rising on his part against Phraates,

and in expectation of this civil war to have led his army into the

interior of the Parthian provinces. It would doubtless have been

possible to await the result of this design in the friendly Armenia,

and, if operations thereafter were requisite, to have at least the full

summer-time at his disposal in the following year; but this waiting was

not agreeable to the hasty general. In Atropatene he encountered the

obstinate resistance of the powerful and half independent under-king,

who resolutely sustained a siege in his capital Praaspa or Phraarta

(southward from the lake of Urumia, presumably on the lower course

of the Jaghatu); and not only so, but the hostile attack brought, as

it would seem, to the Parthians internal peace. Phraates led on a

large army to the relief of the assailed city. Antonius had brought

with him a great siege-train, but impatiently hastening forward, he

had left this behind in the custody of two legions under the legate

Oppius Statianus. Thus he on his part made no progress with the siege;

but king Phraates sent his masses of cavalry under that same Monaeses

to the rear of the enemy, against the corps of Statianus laboriously

pursuing its march. The Parthians cut down the covering force,

including the general himself, took the rest prisoners, and destroyed

the whole train of 300 waggons. Thereby the campaign was lost.

 

[Sidenote: Progress of the struggle.]

 

The Armenian, despairing of the success of the campaign, collected his

men and went home. Antonius did not immediately abandon the siege,

and even defeated the royal army in the open field, but the alert

horsemen escaped without substantial loss, and it was a victory without

effect. An attempt to obtain from the king at least the restitution

of the old and the newly lost eagles, and thus to conclude peace, if

not with advantage, at least with honour, failed; the Parthian did

not give away his sure success so cheaply. He only assured the envoys

of Antonius that, if the Romans would give up the siege, he would

not molest them on their return home. This neither honourable nor

trustworthy promise of the enemy would hardly have induced Antonius

to break up. It was natural to take up quarters for the winter in the

enemy’s country, seeing that the Parthian troops were not acquainted

with continuous military service, and presumably most of their forces

would have gone home at the commencement of winter. But a strong basis

was lacking, and supplies in the exhausted land were not secured; above

all Antonius himself was not capable of such a tenacious conduct of

the war. Consequently he abandoned the machines, which the besieged

immediately burnt; and entered on the difficult retreat, either too

early or too late. Fifteen days’ march (300 Roman miles) through a

hostile country separated the army from the Araxes, the border river of

Armenia, whither in spite of the ambiguous attitude of the ruler the

retreat could alone be directed. A hostile army of 40,000 horsemen,

in spite of the given promise, accompanied the returning force, and,

with the marching off of the Armenians, the Romans had lost the best

part of their cavalry. Provisions and draught animals were scarce,

and the season of the year far advanced. But in the perilous position

Antonius recovered his energy and his martial skill, and in some

measure also his good fortune in war; he had made his choice, and the

general as well as the troops solved the task in a commendable way.

Had they not had with them a former soldier of Crassus, who, having

become a Parthian, knew most accurately every step of the way, and,

instead of conducting them back through the plain by which they had

come, guided them by mountain paths, which were less exposed to cavalry

attacks--apparently over the mountains about Tabreez--the army would

hardly have reached its goal; and had not Monaeses, paying off in his

way his debt of thanks to Antonius, informed him in right time of the

false assurances and the cunning designs of his countrymen, the Romans

would doubtless have fallen into one of the ambushes which on several

occasions were laid for them.

 

[Sidenote: Difficulties of the retreat.]

 

The soldierly nature of Antonius was often brilliantly conspicuous

during these troublesome days, in his dexterous use of any favourable

moment, in his sternness towards the cowardly, in his power over

the minds of the soldiers, in his faithful care for the wounded and

the sick. Yet the rescue was almost a miracle; already had Antonius

instructed a faithful attendant in case of extremity not to let him

fall alive into the hands of the enemy. Amidst constant attacks of

the artful enemy, in weather of wintry cold, without adequate food

and often without water, they reached the protecting frontier in

twenty-seven days, where the enemy desisted from following them. The

loss was enormous; there were reckoned up in those twenty-seven days

eighteen larger engagements, and in a single one of them the Romans

counted 3000 dead and 5000 wounded. It was the very best and bravest

that those constant assaults on the vanguard and on the flanks swept

away. The whole baggage, a third of the camp-followers, a fourth of

the army, 20,000 foot soldiers, and 4000 horsemen had perished in this

Median campaign, in great part not through the sword, but through

famine and disease. Even on the Araxes the sufferings of the unhappy

troops were not yet at an end. Artavazdes received them as a friend,

and had no other choice; it would doubtless have been possible to pass

the winter there. But the impatience of Antonius did not tolerate

this; the march went on, and from the ever increasing inclemency of

the season and the state of health of the soldiers, this last section

of the expedition from the Araxes to Antioch cost, although no enemy

hampered it, other 8000 men. No doubt this campaign was a last flash

of what was brave and capable in the character of Antonius; but it was

politically his overthrow all the more, as at the same time Caesar by

the successful termination of the Sicilian war gained the dominion in

the West and the confidence of Italy for the present and all the future.

 

[Sidenote: Last years of Antonius in the East.]

 

The responsibility for the miscarriage, which Antonius in vain

attempted to deny, was thrown by him on the dependent kings of

Cappadocia and Armenia, and on the latter so far with justice, as

his premature marching off from Praaspa had materially increased the

dangers and the losses of the retreat. For the plan of the campaign,

however, it was not he who was responsible, but Antonius;[26] and the

failure of the hopes placed on Monaeses, the disaster of Statianus, the

breaking down of the siege of Praaspa, were not brought about by the

Armenian. Antonius did not abandon the subjugation of the East, but set

out next year (719) {35 B.C.} once more from Egypt. The circumstances

were still even now comparatively favourable. A friendly alliance was

formed with the Median king Artavazdes; he had not merely fallen into

variance with his Parthian suzerain, but was indignant above all at

his Armenian neighbour, and, considering the well-known exasperation

of Antonius against the latter, he might reckon on finding a support

in the enemy of his enemy. Everything depended on the firm accord of

the two possessors of power--the victory-crowned master of the West and

the defeated ruler in the East; and, on the news that Antonius proposed

to continue the war, his legitimate wife, the sister of Caesar,

resorted from Italy to the East to bring up to him new forces, and to

strengthen anew his relations to her and to her brother. If Octavia was

magnanimous enough to offer the hand of reconciliation to her husband

in spite of his relations to the Egyptian queen, Caesar must--as was

further confirmed by the commencement, which just then took place, of

the war on the north-east frontier of Italy--have been still ready at

that time to maintain the subsisting relation.

 

The brother and sister subordinated their personal interests

magnanimously to those of the commonwealth. But loudly as interest and

honour called for the acceptance of the offered hand, Antonius could

not prevail on himself to break off the relation with the Egyptian

queen; he sent back his wife, and this was at the same time a rupture

with her brother, and, as we may add, an abandonment of the idea of

continuing the war against the Parthians. Now, ere that could be

thought of, the question of mastery between Antonius and Caesar had

to be settled. Antonius accordingly returned at once from Syria to

Egypt, and in the following year undertook nothing further towards the

execution of his plans of Oriental conquest; only he punished those to

whom he assigned the blame of the miscarriage. He caused Ariarathes

the king of Cappadocia to be executed,[27] and gave the kingdom to an

illegitimate kinsman of his, Archelaus. The like fate was intended for

the Armenian. If Antonius in 720 {34 B.C.} appeared in Armenia, as

he said, for the continuance of the war, this had simply the object

of getting into his power the person of the king, who had refused

to go to Egypt. This act of revenge was ignobly executed by way of

surprise, and was not less ignobly celebrated by a caricature of the

Capitoline triumph exhibited in Alexandria. At that time the son of

Antonius, destined for lord of the East, as was already stated, was

installed as king of Armenia, and married to the daughter of the new

ally, the king of Media; while the eldest son of the captive king of

Armenia executed some time afterwards by order of queen Cleopatra,

Artaxes, whom the Armenians had proclaimed king instead of his father,

took refuge with the Parthians. Armenia and Media Atropatene were

thus in the power of Antonius or allied with him; the continuance

of the Parthian war was announced doubtless, but remained postponed

till after the overcoming of the western rival. Phraates on his part

advanced against Media, at first without success, as the Roman troops

stationed in Armenia afforded help to the Medians; but when Antonius,

in the course of his armaments against Caesar, recalled his forces

from that quarter, the Parthians gained the upper hand, vanquished the

Medians, and installed in Media, as well as also in Armenia, the king

Artaxes, who, in requital for the execution of his father, caused all

the Romans scattered in the land to be seized and put to death. That

Phraates did not turn to fuller account the great feud between Antonius

and Caesar, while it was in preparation and was being fought out, was

probably due to his being once more hampered by the troubles breaking

out in his own land. These ended in his expulsion, and in his going

to the Scythians of the East. Tiridates was proclaimed as great-king

in his stead. When the decisive naval battle was fought on the coast

of Epirus, and thereupon the overthrow of Antonius was completed in

Egypt, this new great-king sat on his tottering throne in Ctesiphon,

and at the opposite frontier of the empire the hordes of Turan were

making arrangements to reinstate the earlier ruler, in which they soon afterwards succeeded.