In the year 54 the brave Domitius Corbulo, recalled from his German command, was deputed to maintain the majesty of the empire in the face of the Parthians, and defend Armenia from the intrigues or violence with which they continued to menace it. The forces of Rome in the East were now divided between Quadratus and Corbulo. To the proconsul of Syria were left two legions with their auxiliaries, to the new commander were assigned the other two, while the frontier tributaries were ordered to serve in either camp, as the policy of the empire should require. While such was the distribution of the troops, the territory itself was divided by the line of the Taurus; Cappadocia, together with Galatia, was entrusted to Corbulo, and constituted a separate province. Here he raised the levies he required to replace the lazy veterans who had vitiated the Syrian legions; and here, having further strengthened himself from the German camps, this stern reviver of discipline prepared his men, amidst the rocks and snows, to penetrate the fastnesses of Armenia, and dislodge the Parthians from the gorges of Ararat and Elburz. Tiridates, the Parthian pretender to the throne of Armenia, in vain opposed him with arms and treachery. The Romans advanced to the walls of Artaxata, which they stormed and burned, an exploit the glory of which was usurped by Nero himself, the senate voting supplications in his honour, and consecrating day after day to the celebration of his victory, till Cassius ventured to demand a limit to such ruinous profusion. The war however was still prolonged through a second and a third campaign: the Hyrcanians on the banks of the Caspian and Aral--so far-reaching was the machinery put in motion by Corbulo--were encouraged to divert the Parthians from assisting Tiridates; and communications were held with them by the route of the Red Sea and the deserts of Baluchistan. At last the Armenian Tigranes, long retained in custody at Rome, was placed by the proconsul on the throne of his ancestors. Some portions of his patrimony, however, were now attached to the sovereignties of Pontus and Cappadocia; a Roman force was left in garrison at Tigranocerta, to support his precarious power; and on the death of Quadratus, Corbulo, having achieved the most brilliant successes in the East of any Roman since Pompey, claimed the whole province of Syria, and the entire administration of affairs on the Parthian frontier, as his legitimate reward. [Sidenote: [60-66 A.D.]]