strongholds and fortresses. The chief of these, which he captured, was Volandum, a place we cannot identify. It seems that he penetrated quite into the heart of the country. The people were utterly cowed, and Tiridates had fled from his kingdom, whither, it was uncertain. When he was near the capital, Artaxata,* on the Araxes, the inhabitants hastened to submit. The place was burnt and destroyed, as it would have been unprofitable to garrison it, and, from its wide extent, it would have required a large force. This was the end of Corbulo's first campaign.

His second campaign was in A.D. 60. In this he probably entered the country on the south-west, Syria being his startingpoint. His object was to possess himself of Tigranocerta, the southern capital of Armenia. The city, which stood on the river Nicephorius, a tributary of the Tigris, in the south-western part of the country, had been founded early in the first century B.C. by Tigranes, the son-in-law of the great Mithridates, and it seems to have become the chief capital of the kingdom. Corbulo's army suffered much on the march, from heat, drought, and a scanty supply of corn, which they had to supplement with the flesh of cattle. Meat without bread appears to have been, even for a few days, an extreme hardship to a Roman soldier. Corbulo's route must have been through the north-eastern districts of Mesopotamia, a dreary and barren country. On crossing the Tigris he was in a cultivated district, where supplies would be plentiful. Two fortresses were speedily captured, and news was brought that Tigranocerta had thrown open its gates and submitted unconditionally. The Parthian king too was entangled in a war with the Hyrcanians, who had solicited alliance with Rome. Corbulo's success thus seemed decisive. Tiridates ventured indeed to enter Armenia from the side of Media, but was quickly repulsed. The Roman general carried his arms beyond Tigranocerta, ravaged the lands of all whom he knew to be disaffected towards Rome, and in fact, thoroughly reduced Armenia. Tigranes, a Cappadocian noble, who had long lived at Rome as a hostage, was made king of the country, and a majority sullenly acquiesced in the Roman choice. Armenia was thus now again under the power of Rome. Corbulo returned to Syria, and became governor of the province. The supreme control of Rome's eastern provinces was in his hands. He was thus as great a man as Pompeius had been a century earlier.

In A.D. 62, the Parthian king Vologeses resolved to restore * The building of Artaxata, which took its name from Artaxias, the founder of the kingdom of Armenia, was directed by Hannibal, who sought refuge with the king. The city cannot be accurately identified. It was the ancient and northern capital of Armenia.

In the De Bello Gallico, vII. 17, Cæsar's soldiers are said to have been nearly starved, as they were without bread and could procure only meat.

TAC. ANN.

26

his brother Tiridates to the throne of Armenia. As soon as

Corbulo heard of his preparations, which were on a great scale, he at once took measures for the defence of his province, Syria, and having written to the emperor to the effect that Armenia required for its protection a general and army to itself, he advanced to the Euphrates to resist the threatened invasion. He was unfortunate in the coadjutor whom the emperor gave him. Cæsennius Pætus, who was charged with the defence of Armenia, was a vain and incompetent man. He talked as Crassus had done about establishing the Roman power in the East. He ended by bringing a terrible humiliation on the Roman name. He crossed the Taurus, and entered Armenia from the south at the head of two legions, intending to push on to Tigranocerta. He gained a few small successes, when he was suddenly confronted by a powerful Parthian host under Vologeses. Although he seems to have had a thoroughly efficient army, with some of the excellent cavalry from Pannonia, he allowed himself, by bad generalship, to be completely hemmed in by the enemy, and to be reduced to such straits, that he was obliged to send to Corbulo and beg to be rescued from his peril. He was now encamped on the Arsanias, a tributary of the Euphrates, so that he had done little more than just enter the south-western corner of Armenia. The Roman soldiers, it appears, had become quite demoralized, probably by the painful consciousness of their general's incapacity, and the Parthian king could not draw them out of their lines and bring on an engagement. Pætus then began to try to treat with him, but he had at last to extricate himself from a state of siege by promising to quit Armenia immediately. The Romans had the mortification of seeing the Parthians enter their camp before they had themselves left it. It was, altogether, a miserably disgraceful affair. Pætus might have easily held his position till Corbulo came to his relief, as his army was abundantly supplied with provisions. Corbulo too was distant only three days' march. He declined to invade Armenia, though Pætus urged him to it. It was stipulated between him and Vologeses that the country should be free and independent, and that the Euphrates should be the boundary of the two empires. Thus the disgrace sustained by the arms of Rome remained unavenged.

Armenia was now really under Parthian control. When the facts were known at Rome, there was an unanimous feeling in favour of war, and Corbulo was of course the man to direct it. In the beginning of the following year, A.D. 63, he was invested with supreme power in the East. He assembled four legions, with a large number of auxiliaries, at Melitene, in the extreme east of Cappadocia, on a small branch of the Euphrates. Thence he marched into Armenia, pursuing the route by which Lucullus had entered the country in B.C. 69, and advanced on Tigrano

certa.

His name seems to have been enough to have deterred the enemy from meeting him in the field. He was willing, however, to arrange_matters by negotiation, and told the envoys of Vologeses, that Rome and Parthia might settle their differences without the risks of war. At the same time he showed what his army could do if necessary. The Parthian king had a sincere respect for his opponent, and acted on his suggestions. An interview was arranged between his brother Tiridates and the Roman general. They met on the spot where Pætus's army had been disgraced in the preceding year. Tiridates now acknowledged the superiority of Rome. He consented to lay down his crown at the foot of a statue of the emperor, to go to Rome and receive it from the emperor's hand. This was, apparently, a glorious result for the Roman people. Peace at last had been concluded with Parthia on honourable terms, and it lasted for many years—in fact, to the time of Trajan's invasion of the East, A.D. 115, when Armenia was definitely reduced to a Roman province.

Corbulo's successes provoked Nero's jealousy, and this able soldier, who seems to have been a perfectly unambitious man, was added to the list of the tyrant's "illustrious and innocent" victims. He was summoned from the East, and on his arrival at Cenchreæ, the port of Corinth, was ordered to despatch himself. This occurred in A.D. 67. There is a reference to it in History, II. 76, in a speech of Vespasian.

* Annals, XIV. 58.

ROME AND BRITAIN.*

Two passages of the Annals treat of Roman operations in Britain; XII. 31—40; XIV. 29—39. Of the events related in the first passage Tacitus says (XII. 40) that they occupied several years. During these years Ostorius Scapula, and . vius Diclius Gallus were the governors of Britain; the first from A.D. 47 to A.D. 50, the latter from A.D. 50 to A.D. 57. The second passage narrates the decisive successes of Suetonius Paulinus in A.D. 61, which thoroughly established Rome's dominion in the already conquered part of the country.

Unfortunately Tacitus's account of the conquest of Britain and its reduction to a Roman province is lost to us. This was far the most memorable event of Claudius's reign. It was accomplished in great part in the years A.D. 43 and 44. From A.D. 37 to 47 we are without the historian's guidance. Tacitus, it seems, had by no means a clear and distinct knowledge of our country, and his narrative in the passages above mentioned is often vague and confused. We are not able to identify localities or to trace the Roman military operations with certainty. We cannot say with anything like precision what extent of Britian was really conquered under Claudius. Nor could the historian have easily indicated this, even had his knowledge been more accurate and extensive. As it was, it was limited to the names of a few chiefs, tribes, and stations with which Rome's armies came in contact. Still, we may be sure that his narrative of this important conquest would have told us some facts of great interest, and the loss of it is poorly compensated by the only detailed account we have, that of Dion Cassius, who, though he had Tacitus and other authors before him, did not always use his materials with much critical sagacity. Suetonius, as might be expected, gives only a few lines to the subject, and speaks of it as a mere trifle.

Britain, it is to be borne in mind, had been left to itself by Rome for nearly a century previous to Claudius's expedition. Cæsar's invasions of it were in B.C. 55 and 54, and he, as Tacitus † says in his life of Agricola, "rather showed it to posterity

*The best account, as far as we know, of the conquest of Britain by the Romans is to be found in Dean Merivale's History, chap. LI.

† Agricola, 13.

"than handed it down to them as a conquest." The inhabitants were then in a stage of very rudimentary civilisation; in fact, in many respects they were mere savages. South of the Thames, however, we may assume that there was a considerable population, which maintained itself by regular agriculture and had its fixed settlements. There was, too, some capacity for organisation among the people generally, so that the work of an invader was by no means easy. Cæsar was resisted by a confederation of tribes under a chief Cassivelaunus, who must have been a man of the same type as Arminius or Maraboduus. His headquarters were at Verulamium, near St. Albans, a place buried amid forests and swamps, which could not be dignified with the name of an "oppidum" or town. It seems, however, to have been the only approach to a town known to Cæsar. We now lose sight of Britain altogether for almost a century. Rome relinquished the idea of what she must have felt would be a difficult and unprofitable conquest. We have the express testimony of Tacitus and Suetonius to the effect that no attempt was made on the country from Cæsar's second invasion B.C. 55 to A.D. 43. Tacitus could hardly have been mistaken in this, and a lately discovered fragment of Livy, or rather perhaps of the epitome of Livy, which speaks of Augustus as returning from Britain, cannot be allowed to set aside his positive statement in the life of Agricola.

When we hear again of the country, it appears to have been much changed. It had, in fact, ceased to be barbarous. It had a coinage, and some system of roads. There had been a growing tendency towards union among its tribes. Cunobelin, of the family of Cassivelaunus, chief of the Trinobantes, who are generally supposed to have occupied Hertfordshire, Essex, and the south of Suffolk, seems to have exercised an overlordship over other tribes, and to have, in fact, controlled Southern Britain. Londinium and Camulodunum, of which we hear first in Tacitus, were really considerable towns, and Londinium by the time of Claudius had become a centre of trade. It is clear that after Cæsar's invasion a stream of commerce began steadily to flow into the country. From the mouths of the Rhine to the estuary of the Thames the passage was easy. As Gaul became more civilized under Roman influences, Britain, too, which had hitherto seemed a singularly unattractive corner of the world, began once more to tempt the ambition of the great ruling city. Romans and Romanised Gauls were now settling there, and more or less civilising the southern portions. The petty chiefs Tacitus tells us (Annals II. 24) restored to Germanicus some of his shipwrecked soldiers. This looks like the growth of a friendly acquaintance between Rome and Britain, and implies that in the time of Tiberius the barbarism of the country had been softened. A few years later, it is quite possible that, with its connection