Augustus neither struck nor protected; certainly not because he deceived himself as to the state of the case, but because it was his nature to execute tardily and feebly what he perceived to be necessary, and to let considerations of internal policy exercise a more than due influence on the relations abroad. The inadequacy of the protection of the frontier by the client states of Asia Minor he well perceived; and in connection therewith, already in the year 729 {25 B.C.}, after the death of king Amyntas who ruled all the interior of Asia Minor, he gave to him no successor, but placed the land under an imperial legate. Presumably the neighbouring more important client-states, and particularly Cappadocia, were intended to be in like manner converted after the decease of the holders for the time into imperial governorships. This was a step in advance, in so far as thereby the militia of these countries was incorporated with the imperial army and placed under Roman officers; these troops could not exercise a serious pressure on the insecure border-lands or even on the neighbouring great-state, although they now counted among those of the empire. But all these considerations were outweighed by regard to the reduction of the numbers of the standing army and of the expenditure for the military system to the lowest possible measure. Equally insufficient, in presence of the relations of the moment, were the measures adopted by Augustus on his return home from Alexandria. He gave to the dispossessed king of the Medes the rule of the Lesser Armenia, and to the Parthian pretender Tiridates an asylum in Syria, in order through the former to keep in check the king Artaxes who persevered in open hostility against Rome, by the latter to press upon king Phraates. The negotiations instituted with the latter regarding the restitution of the Parthian trophies of victory were prolonged without result, although Phraates in the year 731 {23 B.C.} had promised their return in order to obtain the release of a son who had accidentally fallen into the power of the Romans. [Sidenote: Augustus in Syria.]