When the real battles began he saw very clearly that the Medes, Parthians, and Armenians had lost none of their valour. He realized this cruelly at Phaaspa, where, by a totally unlooked-for turn of tactics, the enemy compelled him to alter his lines and raise the siege. More cruelly still was their prowess brought home to him during the retreat that he was forced to make at the beginning of winter, through a devastated country and under a shower of murderous arrows. These calamities could have been avoided if his eagerness to return to Cleopatra had not made him hasten operations which required the most careful preparation. He came back from his festival of love, however, provided with new troops, reënforced artillery, and fresh supplies. The campaign met with greater success this time. He vanquished the Armenians, forced King Phraates to surrender to him the standards formerly set up by the legions of Crassus, and thus was able to send the Senate a glowing account of his movements, which passed in Rome for the flaming breath of victory. While Antony in the plains of Erzerum was giving these proofs of his genius and daring, Octavius, no less determined to gain the supremacy, was seeking the means to place it within his grasp. War was not his strong point. At heart a coward, he preferred intrigue to action. He knew, however, that in Rome arms represented the standard of all grandeur, and he forced himself to consider them. Besides, circumstances left him no choice. His colleagues were at war; the one in Asia, the other in the African provinces. It rested with him to repulse the invasions of Sextus Pompey. By good luck, in spite of numerous defeats, his victory in Sicilian waters, whereby he won one hundred and sixty vessels from the pirate fleet, enabled him to announce before the Senate his delivery of the Republic from a formidable enemy, almost at the same hour that Antony sent word of his triumph in Persia. However, neither of these victories was sufficiently important to give either Triumvir definite ascendancy over the other. But, preceded by the eagles of Crassus, whose downfall had been such a bitter blow to Roman pride, with the spoils that he had captured from the enemy, and leading among his captives the King Artabazes, together with his Queen and her children, Antony arrived at Rome. Crowned with golden laurels, driving along the Via Sacra in his chariot drawn by the four white horses that had borne Cæsar, Sulla, Marius, and the Scipios, he had addressed the crowd, saying: "I am master now, who knows who will come after me?"