So in A.D. 49, Meherdates, a Parthian prince in exile at Rome, being invited by the Parthians to expel the tyrannical Godarz, proceeded from Nineveh to Arbela to meet the usurper, encouraged by the allegiance of Izates, king of Adiabene. He met Godarz near Arbela, and after a long battle, decided chiefly by the desertion of Izates and other fickle friends, he was defeated. Thirteen years later, A.D. 62, Tigran V., a king of Armenia appointed by the Emperor Nero, attracted by the richness of Adiabene, and by the absence of the Parthian king Vologases I., attempted its invasion. He harassed the unfortunate people so much, that they sent to Vologases complaining, and threatening to earn peace for themselves by giving allegiance to Rome. The Parthian king responded promptly enough, declared war upon Armenia and the Romans, and appointed Manubaz, king of Adiabene, to command of an army, which expelled Tigran and invaded his country. From this time Adiabene became a bone of contention till the Persians rose up, and smote Parthian and Roman alike, to found once more an Aryan empire. In A.D. 115 the Emperor Trajan occupied the province, which resisted bravely; but his successor Hadrian, unable to hold it, relinquished it two years later. Severus, one of the greatest of the later Romans, fired by ambition and a desire to chastise the Adiabenians, who had given him great trouble by helping other states to resist him, invaded the country, but Vologases, in A.D. 196, expelled him. Severus, however, made a final attempt a year or two later, and this time added Adiabene to the Roman Empire, establishing his right to the title Adiabenisus, which he had prematurely assumed in A.D. 193. Arbela under the Roman rule suffered a scandalous and sacrilegious outrage by one Caracullus, who, returning from an expedition against Babylon in A.D. 216, broke into and violated the Parthian royal burying-place, dragged out the bodies, and cast them away. It had but ten years longer to exist under the foreign tyrant, for Artaxerxes (Ardashir) the Persian, of the new Sasanian dynasty, conquered it, and expelled both Roman and Parthian from that and many other lands. Under the favourable rule of this enlightened and civilised monarchy the Christians made great progress, obtaining protection and encouragement from the Persian Zoroastrian monarchs, and Adiabene was in A.D. 500 the see of a Chaldean bishopric, including Mosul and Arbela, where the shrine of Ishtar, after having exacted worship for a couple of thousand years, fell into a speedy disrepute. [Sidenote: ARBELA]