The Provinces of the Roman Empire 8

The Provinces of the Roman Empire 8

Notwithstanding this defeat of Roman policy in the Parthian kingdom,

Armenia remained with the Romans, so long as the weak Gotarzes ruled

over the Parthians. But so soon as a more vigorous hand grasped the

reins of sovereignty, and the internal conflicts ceased, the struggle

for that land was resumed. King Vologasus, who after the death of

Gotarzes and the short reign of Vonones II. succeeded this his father

in the year 51,[30] ascended the throne, exceptionally, in full

agreement with his two brothers Pacorus and Tiridates. He was an

able and prudent ruler--we find him even as a founder of towns, and

exerting himself with success to divert the trade of Palmyra towards

his new town Vologasias on the lower Euphrates--averse to quick and

extreme resolutions, and endeavouring, if possible, to keep peace with

his powerful neighbour. But the recovery of Armenia was the leading

political idea of the dynasty, and he too was ready to make use of any

opportunity for realising it.

 

[Sidenote: Rhadamistus.]

 

This opportunity seemed now to present itself. The Armenian court had

become the scene of one of the most revolting family tragedies which

history records. The old king of the Iberians, Pharasmanes, undertook

to eject his brother Mithradates, the king of Armenia, from the throne

and to put his own son Rhadamistus in his place. Under the pretext of

a quarrel with his father Rhadamistus appeared at the court of his

uncle and father-in-law, and entered into negotiations with Armenians

of repute in that sense. After he had secured a body of adherents,

Pharasmanes, in the year 52, under frivolous pretexts involved his

brother in war, and brought the country into his own or rather his

son’s power. Mithradates placed himself under the protection of the

Roman garrison of the fortress of Gorneae.[31] Rhadamistus did not

venture to attack this; but the commandant, Caelius Pollio, was well

known as worthless and venal. The centurion holding command under him

resorted to Pharasmanes to induce him to recall his troops, which the

latter promised, but did not keep his word. During the absence of the

second in command Pollio compelled the king--who doubtless guessed what

was before him--by the threat of leaving him in the lurch, to deliver

himself into the hands of Rhadamistus. By the latter he was put to

death, and with him his wife, the sister of Rhadamistus, and their

children, because they broke out in cries of lamentation at the sight

of the dead bodies of their parents. In this way Rhadamistus attained

to sovereignty over Armenia. The Roman government ought neither to have

looked on at such horrors, of which its officers shared the guilt, nor

to have tolerated that one of its vassals should make war on another.

Nevertheless the governor of Cappadocia, Julius Paelignus, acknowledged

the new king of Armenia. Even in the council of the governor of Syria,

Ummidius Quadratus, the opinion preponderated that it might be a matter

of indifference to the Romans whether the uncle or the nephew ruled

Armenia; the legate, sent to Armenia with a legion, received only

instructions to maintain the _status quo_ till further orders. Then the

Parthian king, on the assumption that the Roman government would not

be zealous to take part for king Rhadamistus, deemed the moment a fit

one for resuming his old claims upon Armenia. He invested his brother

Tiridates with Armenia, and the Parthian troops marching in possessed

themselves, almost without striking a blow, of the two capitals,

Tigranocerta and Artaxata, and of the whole land. When Rhadamistus made

an attempt to retain the price of his deeds of blood, the Armenians

themselves drove him out of the land. The Roman garrison appears to

have left Armenia after the giving over of Gorneae; the governor

recalled the legion put upon the march from Syria, in order not to fall

into conflict with the Parthians.

 

[Sidenote: Corbulo sent to Cappadocia.]

 

When this news came to Rome (at the end of 54) the emperor Claudius had

just died, and the ministers Burrus and Seneca practically governed for

his young successor, seventeen years old. The procedure of Vologasus

could only be answered by a declaration of war. In fact the Roman

government sent to Cappadocia, which otherwise was a governorship

of the second rank and was not furnished with legions, by way of

exception the consular legate Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo. He had come

rapidly into prominence as brother-in-law of the emperor Gaius, had

then under Claudius been legate of lower Germany in the year 47 (I.

125), and was thenceforth regarded as one of the able commanders, not

at that time numerous, who energetically maintained the stringency of

discipline--in person a Herculean figure, equal to any fatigue, and of

unshrinking courage in presence not of the enemy merely but also of

his own soldiers. It appeared to be a sign of things becoming better

that the government of Nero gave to him the first important command

which it had to fill. The incapable Syrian legate of Syria, Quadratus,

was not recalled, but was directed to put two of his four legions at

the disposal of the governor of the neighbouring province. All the

legions were brought up to the Euphrates, and orders were given for

the immediate throwing of bridges over the stream. The two regions

bordering immediately on Armenia to the westward, Lesser Armenia and

Sophene, were assigned to two trustworthy Syrian princes, Aristobulus,

of a lateral branch of the Herodian house, and Sohaemus, of the ruling

family of Hemesa, and both were placed under Corbulo’s command.

Agrippa, the king of the remnant of the Jewish state still left at that

time, and Antiochus, king of Commagene, likewise received orders to

march.

 

[Sidenote: Character of his troops.]

 

At first, however, no fighting took place. The reason lay partly in

the state of the Syrian legions; it was a bad testimonial of poverty

for the previous administration, that Corbulo was compelled to describe

the troops assigned to him as quite unserviceable. The legions levied

and doing garrison duty in the Greek provinces had always been inferior

to the Occidentals; now the enervating power of the East with the long

state of peace and the laxity of discipline completely demoralised

them. The soldiers abode more in the towns than in the camps; not

a few of them were unaccustomed to carry arms, and knew nothing of

pitching camps and of service on the watch; the regiments were far from

having their full complement and contained numerous old and useless

men; Corbulo had, in the first instance, to dismiss a great number of

soldiers, and to levy and train recruits in still larger numbers. The

exchange of the comfortable winter quarters on the Orontes for those

in the rugged mountains of Armenia, and the sudden introduction of

inexorably stern discipline in the camp, brought about various ailments

and occasioned numerous desertions. In spite of all this the general

found himself, when matters became serious, compelled to ask that one

of the better legions of the West might be sent to him. Under these

circumstances he was in no haste to bring his soldiers to face the

enemy; nevertheless it was political considerations that preponderantly

influenced him in this course.

 

[Sidenote: The aims of the war.]

 

If it had been the design of the Roman government to drive out the

Parthian ruler at once from Armenia, and to put in his place not

indeed Rhadamistus, with whose blood-guiltiness the Romans had no

occasion to stain themselves, but some other prince of their choice,

the military resources of Corbulo would probably have at once sufficed,

since king Vologasus, once more recalled by internal troubles, had led

away his troops from Armenia. But this was not embraced in the plan

of the Romans; they wished, on the contrary, rather to acquiesce in

the government of Tiridates there, and only to induce and, in case of

need, compel him to an acknowledgment of the Roman supremacy; only

for this object were the legions, in case of extremity, to march. This

in reality came very near to the cession of Armenia to the Parthians.

What told in favour of this course, and what prevented it, has formerly

been set forth (p. 34 f.). If Armenia were now arranged as a Parthian

appanage for a second son, the recognition of the Roman suzerainty was

little more than a formality, strictly taken, nothing but a screen

for military and political honour. Thus the government of the earlier

period of Nero, which, as is well known, was equalled by few in insight

and energy, intended to get rid of Armenia in a decorous way; and that

need not surprise us. In fact they were in this case pouring water into

a sieve. The possession of Armenia had doubtless been asserted and

brought to recognition within the land itself, as among the Parthians,

through Tiberius in the year 20 B.C., then by Gaius in the year 2, by

Germanicus in the year 18, and by Vitellius in the year 36. But it was

just these extraordinary expeditions regularly repeated and regularly

crowned with success, and yet never attaining to permanent effect,

that justified the Parthians, when in the negotiations with Nero

they maintained that the Roman suzerainty over Armenia was an empty

name--that the land was, and could be, none other than Parthian. For

the vindication of the Roman supreme authority there was always needed,

if not the waging of war, at least the threat of it; and the constant

irritation thereby produced made a lasting state of peace between the

two neighbouring great powers impossible. The Romans had, if they were

to act consistently, only the choice between either bringing Armenia

and the left bank of the Euphrates in general effectively under their

power by setting aside the mere mediate government, or leaving the

matter to the Parthians, so far as was compatible with the supreme

principle of the Roman government to acknowledge no frontier-power

with equal rights. Augustus and the rulers after him had so far

decidedly declined the former alternative, and they ought therefore

to have taken the second course. But this too they had at least

attempted to decline, and had wished to exclude the Parthian royal

house from the rule over Armenia, without being able to do so. This the

leading statesmen of the earlier Neronian period must have regarded

as an error, since they left Armenia to the Arsacids, and restricted

themselves to the smallest conceivable measure of rights thereto. When

the dangers and the disadvantages, which the retention of this region

only externally attached to the empire brought to the state, were

weighed against those which the Parthian rule over Armenia involved

for the Romans, the decision might, especially in view of the small

offensive power of the Parthian kingdom, well be found in the latter

sense. But under all the circumstances this policy was consistent, and

sought to attain in a clearer and more rational way the aim pursued by Augustus.