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Trajan had planned to conduct the Euphrates through a channel into the Tigris, in order that boats might be floated down by this route, affording him an opportunity to make a bridge. But on learning that it had a much higher elevation than the Tigris, he did not do it, fearing that the water might rush pell-mell down hill and render the Euphrates unnavigable. So he conveyed the boats across by means of hauling engines at the point where the space between the rivers is the least--the whole stream of the Euphrates empties into a swamp and from there somehow joins the Tigris--then crossed the Tigris and entered Ctesiphon. Having taken possession of this town he was saluted as imperator and established his right to the title of Parthicus. Various honors were voted him by the senate, among others the privilege of celebrating as many triumphs as he might desire.
After his capture of Ctesiphon he felt a wish to sail down into the Red Sea. This is a part of the ocean and has been so named [
] from some person formerly ruler there. Mesene, the island in the Tigris of which Athambelus was king, he acquired without difficulty. [And it remained loyal to Trajan, although ordered to pay tribute.] But through a storm, and the violence of the Tigris, and the backward flow from the ocean, he fell into danger. The inhabitants of the so-called palisade of Spasinus [they were subject to the dominion of Athambelus] received him kindly.
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Thence he came to the ocean itself, and when he had learned its nature and seen a boat sailing to India, he said: "I should certainly have crossed over to the Indi, if I were still young." He gave much thought to the Indi, and was curious about their affairs. Alexander he counted a happy man and at the same time declared that he himself had advanced farther. This was the tenor of the despatch that he forwarded to the senate, although he was unable to preserve even what territory had been subdued. On its receipt he obtained among other honors the privilege of celebrating a triumph for as many nations as he pleased. For, on account of the number of those peoples regarding which communications in writing were being constantly forwarded to them, they were unable to understand them or even to name some of them correctly. So the citizens of the capital prepared a trophy-bearing arch, besides many other decorations in his own forum, and were getting themselves in readiness to meet him some distance out when he should return. But he was destined never to reach Rome again nor to accomplish anything deserving comparison with his previous exploits, and furthermore to lose even those earlier acquisitions. For, during the time that he was sailing down the ocean and returning from there again, all his conquests were thrown into tumult and revolted. And the garrisons placed among the various peoples were in some cases driven out and in others killed.
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