[26] The account of the matter given by Strabo, xi. 13, 4, p. 524, evidently after the description of this war compiled by Antonius’s comrade in arms Dellius, and, it may be conjectured, at his bidding (comp. ib. xi. 13, 3; Dio, xlix. 39), is a very sorry attempt to justify the beaten general. If Antonius did not take the nearest route to Ctesiphon, king Artavazdes cannot be brought in for the blame of it as a false guide; it was a military, and doubtless still more a political, miscalculation of the general in chief.
[27] The fact of the deposition and execution, and the time, are attested by Dio, xlix. 32, and Valerius Maximus, ix. 15, ext. 2; the cause or the pretext must have been connected with the Armenian war.
[28] The account of the seizure of Armenia is wanting, but the fact is clearly apparent from Tacitus, Ann. xi. 9. To this connection probably belongs what Josephus, Arch. xx. 3, 3, tells of the design of the successor of Artabanus to wage war against the Romans, from which Izates the satrap of Adiabene vainly dissuades him. Josephus names this successor, probably in error, Bardanes. The immediate successor of Artabanus III. was, according to Tacitus, Ann. xi. 8, his son of the same name, whom along with his son thereupon Gotarzes put out of the way; and this Artabanus IV. must be here meant.
[29] The statement of Petrus Patricius (fr. 3 Müll.) that king Mithradates of Iberia had planned revolt from Rome, but in order to preserve the semblance of fidelity, had sent his brother Cotys to Claudius, and then, when the latter had given information to the emperor of those intrigues, had been deposed and replaced by his brother, is not compatible with the assured fact that in Iberia, at least from the year 35 (Tacitus, Ann. vi. 32) till the year 60 (Tacitus, Ann. xiv. 26), Pharasmanes, and in the year 75 his son Mithradates (C. I. L. iii. 6052) bore rule. Beyond doubt Petrus has confused Mithradates of Iberia and the king of the Bosporus of the same name (I. 316, note 1), and here at the bottom lies the narrative, which Tacitus, Ann. xii. 18, presupposes.
[30] If the coins, which, it is true, for the most part admit of being distinguished only by resemblance of effigy, are correctly attributed, those of Gotarzes reach to Sel. 362 Daesius = A.D. 51 June, and those of Vologasus (we know none of Vonones II.) begin with Sel. 362 Gorpiaeus = A.D. 51 Sept. (Percy Gardner, Parthian Coinage, pp. 50, 51), which agrees with Tacitus, Ann. xii. 14, 44.
[31] Gorneae, called by the Armenians Garhni, as the ruins (nearly east of Erivân) are still at present named. (Kiepert.)
[32] Even after the attack Tiridates complained cur datis nuper obsidibus redintegrataque amicitia ... vetere Armeniae possessione depelleretur, and Corbulo presented to him, in case of his turning as a suppliant to the emperor, the prospect of a regnum stabile (Tacitus, Ann. xii. 37). Elsewhere too the refusal of the oath of fealty is indicated as the proper ground of war (Tacitus, Ann. xii. 34).
[33] The report in Tacitus, Ann. xiii. 34–41, embraces beyond doubt the campaigns of 58 and 59, since Tacitus under the year 59 is silent as to the Armenian campaign, while under the year 60, Ann. xiv. 23 joins on immediately to xiii. 41, and evidently describes merely a single campaign; generally, where he condenses in this way, he as a rule anticipates. That the war cannot have begun only in 59, is further confirmed by the fact that Corbulo observed the solar eclipse of 30th April 59 on Armenian soil (Plin. H. N. ii. 70, 180); had he not entered the country till 59, he could hardly have crossed the enemy’s frontier so early in the year. The narrative of Tacitus, Ann. xiii, 34–41, does not in itself show an intercalation of a year, but with his mode of narrating it admits the possibility that the first year was spent in the crossing of the Euphrates and the settling in Armenia, and so the winter mentioned in c. 35 is that of the year 58–9, especially as in view of the character of the army such a beginning to the war would be quite in place, and in view of the short Armenian summer it was militarily convenient thus to separate the marching into the country and the conduct proper of the war.
[34] From the representation of Tacitus, Ann. xv. 6, the partiality and the perplexity are clearly seen. He does not venture to express the surrender of Armenia to Tiridates, and only leaves the reader to infer it.
[35] This is said by Tacitus himself, Ann. xv. 10: nec a Corbulone properatum, quo gliscentibus periculis etiam subsidii laus augeretur, in naive unconcern at the severe censure which this praise involves. How partial is the tone of the whole account resting on Corbulo’s despatches, is shown among other things by the circumstance that Paetus is reproached in one breath with the inadequate provisioning of the camp (xv. 8) and with the surrender of it in spite of copious supplies (xv. 16), and the latter fact is inferred from this, that the retiring Romans preferred to destroy the stores which, according to the capitulation, were to be delivered to the Parthians. As the exasperation against Tiberius found its expression in the painting of Germanicus in fine colours, so did the exasperation against Nero in the picture of Corbulo.