[46] This is proved by the detached notice from Arrian in Suidas (s. v. ἐπίκλημα): ὁ δὲ Πάκορος ὁ Παρθυαίων βασιλεὺς καὶ ἄλλα τινὰ ἐπικλήματα ἐπέφερε Τραιανῷ τῷ βασιλεῖ, and by the attention which is devoted in Pliny’s report to the emperor, written about the year 112 (ad Trai. 74), to the relations between Pacorus and the Dacian king Decebalus. The time of the reign of this Parthian king cannot be sufficiently fixed. There are no Parthian coins with the king’s name from the whole period of Trajan; the coining of silver seems to have been in abeyance during that period.
[47] That Axidares (or Exedares) was a son of Pacorus and king of Armenia before Parthomasiris, but had been deposed by Chosroes, is shown by the remnants of Dio’s account, lxviii. 17; and to this point also the two fragments of Arrian (16 Müller), the first, probably from an address of a supporter of the interests of Axidares to Trajan: Ἀξιδάρην δὲ ὅτι ἄρχειν χρὴ Ἀρμενίας, οὔ μοι δοκεῖ εἶναί σε ἀμφίλογον, whereupon doubtless the complaints brought against Parthomasiris followed; and the answer, evidently of the emperor, that it is not the business of Axidares, but his, to judge as to Parthomasiris, because he—apparently Axidares—had first broken the treaty and suffered for it. What fault the emperor imputes to Axidares is not clear; but in Dio also Chosroes says that he has not satisfied either the Romans or the Parthians.
[48] The remnants of Dio’s account in Xiphilinus and Zonaras show clearly that the Parthian expedition falls into two campaigns, the first (Dio, lvi. 17, 1, 18, 2, 23–25), which is fixed at 115 A.D. by the consulate of Pedo (the date also of Malalas, p. 275, for the earthquake of Antioch, 13 Dec. 164 of the Antiochene era = 115 A.D. agrees therewith), and the second (Dio, c. 26–32, 3), which is fixed at 116 A.D. by the conferring of the title Parthicus (c. 28, 2), took place between April and August of that year (see my notice in Droysen, Hellenismus, iii. 2, 361). That at c. 23 the titles Optimus (conferred in the course of 114 A.D.) and Parthicus are mentioned out of the order of time, is shown as well by their juxtaposition as by the later recurrence of the second honour. Of the fragments most belong to the first campaign; c. 22, 3 and probably also 22, 1, 2 to the second.—The acclamations of imperator do not stand in the way. Trajan was demonstrably in the year 113 imp. VI. (C. I. L. vi. 960); in the year 114 imp. VII. (C. I. L. ix. 1558 et al.); in the year 115 imp. IX. (C. I. L. ix. 5894 et al.), and imp. XI. (Fabretti, 398, 289 et al.); in the year 116 imp. XII. (C. I. L. viii. 621, x. 1634), and XIII. (C. I. L. iii. D. xxvii.). Dio attests an acclamation from the year 115 (lxviii. 19), and one from the year 116 (lxviii. 28); there is ample room for both, and there is no reason to refer imp. VII. precisely, as has been attempted, to the subjugation of Armenia.
[49] The pungent description of the Syrian army of Trajan in Fronto (p. 206 f. Naber) agrees almost literally with that of the army of Corbulo in Tacitus, Ann. xiii. 35. “The Roman troops generally had sadly degenerated (ad ignaviam redactus) through being long disused to military service; but the most wretched of the soldiers were the Syrian, insubordinate, refractory, unpunctual at the call to arms, not to be found at their post, drunk from midday onward; unaccustomed even to carry arms and incapable of fatigue, ridding themselves of one piece of armour after another, half naked like the light troops and the archers. Besides they were so demoralised by the defeats they had suffered that they turned their backs at the first sight of the Parthians, and the trumpets were regarded by them, as it were, as giving the signal to run away.” In the contrasting description of Trajan it is said among other things: “He did not pass through the tents without closely concerning himself as to the soldiers, but showed his contempt for the Syrian luxury, and looked closely into the rough doings of the Pannonians (sed contemnere—so we must read—Syrorum munditias, introspicere Pannoniorum inscitias); so he judged of the serviceableness (ingenium) of the man according to his bearing (cultus).” In the Oriental army of Severus also the “European” and the Syrian soldiers are distinguished (Dio, lxxv. 12).
[50] This is shown by the mala proelia in the passage of Fronto quoted, and by Dio’s statement, lxviii. 19, that Trajan took Samosata without a struggle; thus the 16th legion stationed there had lost it.
[51] It may be that at the same time Armenia also revolted. But when Gutschmid (quoted by Dierauer in Büdinger’s Untersuchungen, i. 179), makes Meherdotes and Sanatrukios, whom Malalas adduces as kings of Persia in the Trajanic war, into kings of Armenia again in revolt, this result is attained by a series of daring conjectures, which shift the names of persons and peoples as much as they transform the causal nexus of events. There are certainly found in the confused coil of legends of Malalas some historical facts, e.g. the installation of Parthamaspates (who is here son of king Chosroes of Armenia) as king of Parthia by Trajan; and so, too, the dates of Trajan’s departure from Rome in October (114), of his landing in Seleucia in December, and of his entrance into Antioch on the 7th Jan. (115) may be correct. But, as this report stands, the historian can only decline to accept it; he cannot rectify it.
[52] Fronto, Princ. hist. p. 209 Naber: cum praesens Traianus Euphratis et Tigridis portoria equorum et camelorum trib[utaque ordinaret, Ma]cer (?) caesus est. This applies to the moment when Babylonia and Mesopotamia revolted, while Trajan was tarrying at the mouth of the Tigris.
[53] Nearly with equal warrant, Julian (Caes. p. 328) makes the emperor say that he had not taken up arms against the Parthians before they had violated right, and Dio (lxviii. 17) reproaches him with having waged the war from ambition.
[54] Hadrian cannot possibly have released Armenia from the position of a Roman dependency. The notice of his biographer, c. 21: Armeniis regem habere permisit, cum sub Traiano legatum habuissent points rather to the contrary, and we find at the end of Hadrian’s reign a contingent of Armenians in the army of the governor of Cappadocia (Arrian, c. Alan. 29). Pius did not merely induce the Parthians by his representations to desist from the intended invasion of Armenia (vita, 9), but also in fact invested them with Armenia (coins from the years 140–144, Eckhel, vii. p. 15). The fact also that Iberia certainly stood in the relation of dependence under Pius, because otherwise the Parthians could not have brought complaints as to its king in Rome (Dio, lxix. 15), presupposes a like dependent relation for Armenia. The names of the Armenian kings of this period are not known. If the proximae gentes, with the rule of which Hadrian compensated the Parthian prince nominated as Parthian king by Trajan (vita, c. 5), were in fact Armenians, which is not improbable, there lies in it a confirmation as well of the lasting dependence of Armenia on Rome as of the continuous rule of the Arsacids there. Even the Ἀυρήλιος Πάκορος βασιλεὺς μεγάλης Ἀρμενίας, who erected a monument in Rome to his brother Aurelius Merithates who died there (C. I. Gr. 6559), belongs from his name to the house of the Arsacids. But he was hardly the king of Armenia installed by Vologasus IV. and deposed by the Romans (p. 74); if the latter had come to Rome as a captive, we should know it, and even he would hardly have been allowed to call himself king of Great Armenia in a Roman inscription.
[55] As vassals holding from Trajan or Hadrian, Arrian (Peripl. c. 15) adduces the Heniochi and Machelones (comp. Dio, lxviii. 18; lxxi. 14); the Lazi (comp. Suidas, s. v. Δομετιανός), over whom also Pius put a king (vita, 9); the Apsilae; the Abasgi; the Sanigae, these all within the imperial frontier reaching as far as Dioscurias = Sebastopolis; beyond it, in the region of the Bosporan vassal-state, the Zichi or Zinchi (ib. c. 27).