By this means the two kingdoms were united, and formed an excellent barrier against the eastern barbarians. But this new creation was not destined to last. Lesser Armenia and Cappadocia were merged into the province of Cappadocia as early as the reign of Tiberius, after Archelaus had died at Rome of fear at the charges brought against him in the senate by the emperor, whose displeasure he had incurred, and the hieratic principality of Comana was added to the same province. Under the rule of Rome the ancient cities rose to great wealth and magnificence, especially Nicomedia in Bithynia and Cæsarea in Cappadocia. Dioscurias and the myth-haunted region about the Phasis became the centre of a far-reaching commercial activity, the market of the world. There Roman merchants bought wool and furs from northern lands, and precious stones, seric (silken) garments, and luxuries from the far East. Augustus and his successors endeavoured in like manner to unite the disjointed provinces of southern Asia Minor and to range them under the Roman provincial system. The confederacy of Lycia maintained its existence and liberty for some decades longer as a “ruin of antique times,” and Antony and Octavian exerted themselves to the best of their ability to stanch the wounds which Brutus had inflicted. But the confederacy, its prosperity shattered and its bonds loosened by internal discords, was so far past recovery that its conversion into a Roman province in the reign of Claudius seemed a boon. The province of Cilicia was augmented by the addition of Pisidia and the island of Cyprus. A Roman garrison was set to guard the “Cilician Gates” leading to Syria, and Augustus committed to some native dependent princes the work of conquering the robber tribes which dwelt in savage freedom in the mountains and gorges of the Taurus and Amanus. These were not incorporated into the actual dominions of Rome till the reign of Vespasian.