When Paetus arrived, the two legions assigned to him by Corbulo were encamped on this side of the Euphrates in Cappadocia; Armenia was evacuated, and had to be reconquered. Paetus set at once to work, crossed the Euphrates at Melitene (Malatia), advanced into Armenia, and reduced the nearest strongholds on the border. The advanced season of the year, however, compelled him soon to suspend operations and to abandon for this year the intended reoccupation of Tigranocerta; nevertheless, in order to resume his march at once next spring, he, after Corbulo’s example, took up his winter-quarters in the enemy’s country at Rhandeia, on a tributary of the Euphrates, the Arsanias, not far from the modern Charput, while the baggage and the women and children had quarters not far from it in the strong fortress of Arsamosata. But he had underrated the difficulty of the undertaking. One, and that the best of his legions, the Moesian, was still on the march, and spent the winter on this side of the Euphrates in the territory of Pontus; the two others were not those whom Corbulo had taught to fight and conquer, but the former Syrian legions of Quadratus, not having their full complement, and hardly capable of use without thorough reorganisation. He had withal to confront not, like Corbulo, the Armenians alone, but the main body of the Parthians; Vologasus had, when the war became in earnest, led the flower of his troops from Mesopotamia to Armenia, and judiciously availed himself of the strategical advantage that he commanded the inner and shorter lines. Corbulo might, especially as he had bridged over the Euphrates and constructed _têtes de pont_ on the other bank, have at least hampered, or at any rate requited this marching off by a seasonable incursion into Mesopotamia; but he did not stir from his positions and he left it to Paetus to defend himself, as best he could, against the whole force of his foes. The latter was neither himself military nor ready to accept and follow military advice, not even a man of resolute character; arrogant and boastful in onset, despairing and pusillanimous in presence of misfortune. [Sidenote: Capitulation of Rhandeia.]