If it had been the design of the Roman government to drive out the Parthian ruler at once from Armenia, and to put in his place not indeed Rhadamistus, with whose blood-guiltiness the Romans had no occasion to stain themselves, but some other prince of their choice, the military resources of Corbulo would probably have at once sufficed, since king Vologasus, once more recalled by internal troubles, had led away his troops from Armenia. But this was not embraced in the plan of the Romans; they wished, on the contrary, rather to acquiesce in the government of Tiridates there, and only to induce and, in case of need, compel him to an acknowledgment of the Roman supremacy; only for this object were the legions, in case of extremity, to march. This in reality came very near to the cession of Armenia to the Parthians. What told in favour of this course, and what prevented it, has formerly been set forth (p. 34 f.). If Armenia were now arranged as a Parthian appanage for a second son, the recognition of the Roman suzerainty was little more than a formality, strictly taken, nothing but a screen for military and political honour. Thus the government of the earlier period of Nero, which, as is well known, was equalled by few in insight and energy, intended to get rid of Armenia in a decorous way; and that need not surprise us. In fact they were in this case pouring water into a sieve. The possession of Armenia had doubtless been asserted and brought to recognition within the land itself, as among the Parthians, through Tiberius in the year 20 B.C., then by Gaius in the year 2, by Germanicus in the year 18, and by Vitellius in the year 36. But it was just these extraordinary expeditions regularly repeated and regularly crowned with success, and yet never attaining to permanent effect, that justified the Parthians, when in the negotiations with Nero they maintained that the Roman suzerainty over Armenia was an empty name--that the land was, and could be, none other than Parthian. For the vindication of the Roman supreme authority there was always needed, if not the waging of war, at least the threat of it; and the constant irritation thereby produced made a lasting state of peace between the two neighbouring great powers impossible. The Romans had, if they were to act consistently, only the choice between either bringing Armenia and the left bank of the Euphrates in general effectively under their power by setting aside the mere mediate government, or leaving the matter to the Parthians, so far as was compatible with the supreme principle of the Roman government to acknowledge no frontier-power with equal rights. Augustus and the rulers after him had so far decidedly declined the former alternative, and they ought therefore to have taken the second course. But this too they had at least attempted to decline, and had wished to exclude the Parthian royal house from the rule over Armenia, without being able to do so. This the