the only man capable of retrieving the disaster. Corbulo penetrated into the heart of Armenia by the road which Lucullus had formerly opened; but the enemy declined to encounter him. Even on the spot of his ally’s recent triumphs, Tiridates bowed to the demands of the proconsul, and consented to lay his diadem at the feet of the emperor’s image, and go to Rome to receive it back from his hand. The claims of the puppet Tigranes were eventually set aside, and while Tiridates did homage for his kingdom to Nero, he was suffered to place himself really under the protection of Vologeses. THE ROMAN PROVINCE OF BRITAIN [Sidenote: [61 A.D.]] The limits of the Roman occupation at the close of the reign of Claudius were much unsettled. The southern part of the island from the Stour to the Exe and Severn formed a compact and organised province, from which only the realm of Cogidubnus, retaining still the character of a dependent sovereignty, is to be subtracted. Beyond the Stour, again, the territory of the Iceni constituted another extraneous dependency. The government of the province was administered from Camulodunum, as its capital; and the whole country was overawed by the martial attitude of the Conquering Colony there established. Already, perhaps, the city of Londinium, though distinguished by no such honourable title, excelled it as a place of commercial resort. The broad estuary of the Thames, confronting the waters of the Scheldt and Maas, was favourably placed for the exchange of British against Gaulish and German products; and the hill on which the city stood, facing the southern sun and well adapted for defence, is placed precisely at the spot where first the river can be crossed conveniently. Swept east and west by the tidal stream, and traversed north and south by the continuous British roads, Londinium supplied the whole island with the luxuries of another zone, just as Massilia had supplied Gaul. Hither led the ways which penetrated Britain from the ports in the Channel, from Lymne, Richborough, and Dover. From hence they diverged again to Camulodunum northeast, and to Verulamium northwest, at the intersection of the chief national lines of communication.