Chapter XV: Appendix: Roman Britain (1)

(Chapter V. Vol. I. pp. 170-194)

Mommsen’s sketch of Roman Britain has often been called deficient and inaccurate. As a general judgment, this is wholly unjust. The sketch has real and distinct merits. When first issued in 1885, it marked a great advance towards a right conception of its subject. It differed conspicuously, and all for the better, from the other sketches of Roman Britain which were then current and accepted, Hübner’s papers since collected in his _Römische Herrschaft in Westeuropa_, Wright’s _Celt, Roman, and Saxon_, Scarth’s _Roman Britain_. To-day it is perhaps the best existing account of the conquest and military administration of the province, and it contains much which no one--least of all, our English archaeologists--can afford to neglect. On the other hand, it is undeniably not one of the best sections in the volume to which it belongs, and it treats some parts of its theme, notably the civil life and civilisation, very shortly. One may be pardoned for taking the occasion of its republication in English dress, to make a few additions and corrections which may interest English readers, while they fill some gaps and take note of some recent discoveries.

The accounts of the Claudian invasion and the early years of the conquest (pp. 172-9) are, in their broad outlines, beyond reasonable doubt. But details can perhaps be added or altered. The army which started in A.D. 43 in three corps (τριχῇ νεμηθέντες, Dio, 60, 20) may well have landed in the three harbours afterwards used by the Romans in Kent, Lymne, Dover, and Richborough--the last named being the principal port for passengers to and from Britain throughout the Roman period. The difficult river crossed shortly afterwards by Plautius may be the Medway near Rochester, where in after years the Roman road from the Kentish ports to London had its bridge. The subsequent course of the invading armies is not easy to trace. But it would seem that, when they had won London and Colchester, they advanced from this base-line in three separate corps to the conquest of the South and Midlands. The left wing, the Second Legion Augusta under Vespasian, overran the south as far (probably) as South Wales and Exeter (Suet. _Vesp._ 4; Tac. _Agric._ 13; _Hist._ iii. 44; tile of Legio ii. Aug. at Seaton, _Archæological Journal_, xlix. 180). The centre, the Fourteenth and Twentieth Legions, crossed the Midlands to Wroxeter and Chester (tile of Legio xx. at Whittlebury, _Vict. Hist. of Northants_, i. 215; inscriptions at Wroxeter and Chester). The right wing, the Ninth, moved up the east side of Britain to Lincoln (tile of Legio ix. at Hilly Wood, on the road towards Lincoln, _Vict. Hist. of Northants_, i. 214; inscriptions at Lincoln). These three lines of advance led direct to the positions of the fortresses where we find the legions presently posted. They agree also with the three main groups of Roman roads which radiate from London: (1) the south-west route to Silchester, and thence by branches to Winchester, Exeter, Bath, South Wales; (2) the Midland “Watling Street,” by St. Albans to Wroxeter and Chester; (3) the eastern route to Colchester, Cambridge, and Castor near Peterborough, to Lincoln.[308]

In any case there can be little doubt that by A.D. 47 or 48--within four or five years of the first landing--the Roman troops had reached the basins of the Humber and the Severn, as Mommsen observes (p. 176). This much is plain from the fact that Ostorius, who came out in 47, had at once to deal with the Iceni of Norfolk, the Decangi of Flintshire, the Brigantes of Yorkshire, the Silures of Monmouthshire (Tac. _Ann._ xii. 31). But the difficult corruption of Tacitus (_ibid._), _cuncta castris antonam et Sabrinam fluvios cohibere parat_, is probably to be emended (with Dr. H. Bradley, _Academy_, April and May 1883) _cuncta cis Trisantonam_, _i.e._ the Roman frontier at the moment was, roughly, Severn and Trent. This is preferable both to Mommsen’s suggestion (given above, p. 176 note) and to mine (_Journ. Phil._ xvii. 268). The older and more violent remedy, _Avonam inter et Sabrinam_, though revived in the text of the second edition of Furneaux’s _Tacitus_ (1907), is pretty certainly wrong; indeed, it is not Latin.

It would seem then that, by 47 or 48, practically the whole lowlands were in the hands of the Romans. Whether Chester had already been occupied or (as seems likelier) was first garrisoned when Ostorius attacked the Decangi, must remain uncertain; it must in any case have been occupied soon (_Eph. Epigr._ vii. 903; Domaszewski, _Rhein. Mus._ xlviii. 344). Caerleon, connected by Mommsen with Tac. _Ann._ xii. 32, presents more difficulty, since it has yielded hardly any datable remains earlier than about A.D. 70-80; however, no other site can be suggested on our present evidence for the _hiberna_ of the Second Legion Augusta before 70. Wroxeter rests its claim to a fortress on two early inscriptions of Legio xiv. (_Vict. Hist. Shropshire_, i. 243, 244), and this may be adequate, though Domaszewski doubts it. The course of Watling Street seems to show that Wroxeter was occupied before the troops pushed on to Chester.

Mommsen’s account of the Boadicean revolt (pp. 179-181) is famous for his denunciation of Tacitus as “the most unmilitary of all authors.” It must be conceded that Tacitus is unmilitary--not so much because he is condensed or discontinuous or ignorant of geography (E. G. Hardy, _Journ. Phil._ xxxi. 123), as because he has a literary horror of all technical detail, and desires to give the general effect of each situation without distracting the reader by vexatious precision and difficult _minutiae_. But in this case his narrative (_Ann._ xii. 32 foll.) is better than Mommsen (or indeed Domaszewski) allows. Paullinus doubtless marched to London, as Horsley long ago observed, because it lay on the road (Watling Street) from Chester to Colchester; that he hurried on in front of his main forces is implied in the _iam_ at the beginning of c. 34.

The conquest of Wales (p. 182) was completed, as Mommsen says, in the decade A.D. 70-80. But his statements require some re-wording. Roman remains are not “completely absent” in the interior; the continuance of native resistance to Rome is very doubtful; the existence of Celtic speech and nationality in Wales to-day is--in large part, at least--due to a Celtic revival in the late fourth or the fifth century, and to immigration of new Celtic elements at that time, and cannot therefore be cited as here. So far as present evidence goes, the district as a whole seems during the first, second, and third centuries to have closely resembled the similar mountainous districts of northern England, save only that the Welsh tribes never revolted after A.D. 80, while the Brigantes gave trouble throughout the second century. The same system of small auxiliary _castella_ was established in Wales as in northern England. These forts are at present almost wholly unexplored. But we can detect unquestionable examples at Caerhun (Canovium, _Eph._ vii. 1099) and Carnarvon, in the north; at Tommen-y-mur, Llanio-i-sa, and Caio, in the west; at Caergai (_Eph._ vii. 863), Castle Collen near Llandrindod (_ibid._ 862), Caersws in the upper valley of the Severn, and the Gaer near Brecon, in the interior; at Gelligaer (_Trans. Cardiff Nat. Soc._ xxxv. 1903), Merthyr Tydfil, Cardiff, Abergavenny, Usk, in the south, besides others not yet satisfactorily identified as military sites. Several of these have yielded remains suggestive of the first century, and indeed of the Flavian period. The only one as yet properly excavated, Gelligaer, seems to have been occupied under the Flavians, and dismantled after no very long occupation, probably early in the second century. Such dismantlement suggests that the land was then growing less unquiet. But Wales never reached any higher degree of Roman civilisation than the north of England. Towns and country houses were always rare, and its population lived mostly, it would seem, in primitive villages (_Arch. Cambrensis_, 1907). Later on, in the fourth century, Celts began to come in from Ireland, much as other barbarians entered other parts of the Empire, but their dates and numbers are very little known; see my _Romanisation of Roman Britain_, pp. 27 foll. and refs. there given.

The invasion of Caledonia (p. 183) by Agricola has been illustrated by recent discoveries. As I have pointed out elsewhere, we have traces of Agricola’s line of forts (Tac. _Agr._ 23) at Camelon (_Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scotland_, xxxv. fig. 10) and Bar Hill (G. Macdonald, _Roman Forts on the Bar Hill_, Glasgow, 1906). Farther north, near the junction of the Tay and Isla, at Inchtuthill, in the policies of Delvine, a large encampment of Roman type has yielded a few objects datable to the Agricolan age (_Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot._ xxxvi. pp. 237, 242), and may give a clue to the site of Mons Graupius. Farther south, the large fort lately excavated by Mr. James Curle, at Newstead, near Melrose (_C. I. L._ vii. 1080, 1081; _Scottish Hist. Review_, 1908), was certainly occupied in the Agricolan age. To this date, too, may perhaps be assigned the siege works round the native fortress on Birrenswark in Dumfriesshire, with their leaden sling-bullets (_Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot._ xxxiii. 198 foll.). Evidence that the Legio ii. Adiutrix was then posted at Chester, probably forming a double-legion fortress with Legio xx., was obtained in the excavations of 1890 (_Catal. of the Grosvenor Museum, Chester_ (1900), pp. 7 foll. and Nos. 23-35). An inscription from Camelon with the letters MILITES L·II·A·DIE may have been intended to refer to this legion, but is a forgery (_Class. Review_, xix. 57). No trace of Agricolan or of Flavian remains has yet been found on the line of Hadrian’s Wall, except at two points, which, strictly speaking, are near but not on the wall, Carlisle (Luguvallium), and Corbridge (Corstopitum), where the two great north roads pass on towards Caledonia. For the influence of continental frontier troubles on the British operations of Agricola see also Ritterling, _Jahreshefte des österr. arch. Instituts_, vii. 26.

The years between the recall of Agricola and the building of Hadrian’s Wall (roughly A.D. 85-120) are a historical blank. Even the position of the northern frontier during these years is unknown. The Romans seem to have soon withdrawn from the line of the Clyde and Forth (Macdonald, _Bar Hill_, pp. 14, 15). Whether they also withdrew south of Cheviot is not quite clear, in the present state of the Newstead excavations.

Hadrian’s Wall from Tyne to Solway (p. 186) has assumed a very different historical appearance since Mommsen wrote his paragraphs on it in 1885. Then, the theory of Hodgson and Bruce held the field--that the stone wall which is still visible, and the double rampart and ditch to the south of it (called by English antiquaries the “Vallum”), were both Hadrian’s work, the wall for defence against Caledonia and the “Vallum” for defence against stray foes from the south. This view was accepted by Mommsen. But later excavation and observation have shown that the “Vallum” cannot be regarded as a military work--though it is certainly Roman and connected with the wall. Excavations have also shown that the wall itself falls into two periods. At Birdoswald (Amboglanna) there was first a wall of turf (_murus caespiticius_); later, almost but not quite on the same line, came the wall of stone and the fort of Amboglanna in its present form. Similarly at Chesters (Cilurnum) two building periods are discernible; the character of the first is obscure, but the stone wall and the fort of Cilurnum belong unquestionably to the second (_Cumberland Arch. Soc._ xiv. 187, 415, xv. 180, 347, xvi. 84; _Arch. Aeliana_, xxiii. 9). As our ancient authorities persistently mention two wall-builders, Hadrian and Severus, and as the earlier wall of turf can be assigned to no one but Hadrian, it would seem that we may assume a first fortification of the Tyne and Solway line in turf about A.D. 120, and a rebuilding in stone, on almost exactly the same _tracé_, about A.D. 208 by Severus. The “Vallum” seems to have been built in relation to one or the other--more probably the earlier--of these stone walls, and may represent a civil frontier contemporaneous with it (Mommsen, _Gesammelte Schriften_, v. 461; Pelham, _Trans. Cumberland Arch. Soc._ xiv. 175). The attempt of Dr. E. Krueger (_Bonner Jahrbücher_, cx. 1-38) to show that the “Vallum” is an earlier independent work, built by Hadrian, while the turf and stone walls are post-Hadrianic, seems to me both unproven and contradicted by recent excavations.

Mommsen’s account of the Wall of Pius between Forth and Clyde and of the Roman occupation of Scotland also needs modification. Statistics of coins found in Scotland (printed in _Antonine Wall Report_, 1899, pp. 158 foll., confirmed by all later finds) show that the Romans had retired south of Cheviot by about A.D. 180, and never reoccupied the positions thus lost. The mass of inscriptions, to which Mommsen alludes, also contains nothing later than the reign of Marcus. It becomes, therefore, impossible to connect the Wall of Pius with the literary evidence relating to wall-building by Severus. That evidence must belong to the Tyne and Solway. The length which it assigns to the wall, cxxxii. miles, suits the southern line best. The numeral in any case needs emendation, but it is as easy to read lxxxii. as xxxii., and 82 Roman miles fit closer to the length of the southern line (73-1/2 English miles) than do 32 Roman miles to the 36-1/2 English miles of the northern wall. Our knowledge of the northern wall itself and of forts either north of it, like Ardoch, or south, like Lyne and Newstead, has been much widened by excavation, but the gain has been rather to the archaeologist than to the pure historian.

In the later history of north Britain the chief recent addition has been evidence of a serious rising about A.D. 158, which perhaps covered all the land of the Brigantes from Derbyshire to Dumfriesshire. Inscriptions found at Birrens, at Netherby between Birrens and Carlisle, at Newcastle-on-Tyne, and at Brough in north Derbyshire, mention a governor Iulius Verus as then specially active, and special reinforcements as then arriving from Germany (_Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot._ xxxviii. 454). It is natural to connect these with the words of Pausanias (cited on p. 188, note 2), and the connection had the approval of Mommsen. For the division of the province into two by Severus see Domaszewski, _Rangordnung_, p. 173. The boundary between the two provinces is unknown; perhaps a line from the Humber to the Mersey is not altogether improbable. Nor is there evidence to show how long the division lasted.

Of the civil life and Romanisation of Britain (pp. 191-4) I have written somewhat fully in a paper on _The Romanisation of Roman Britain_. Here I may indicate some points. Mommsen’s view that the cantonal system adopted in Gaul was dropped in Britain is opposed by an inscription found at Caerwent in 1903, which records the erection of a monument by the canton of the Silures after a decree of the local senate--_ex decreto ordinis respublica civitatis Silurum_ (_Athenaeum_, Sept. 26, 1903; _Archaeologia_, lix. 290); other inscriptions, if less decisive, suggest that the case of the Silures was not unique in the province. Indeed, a list of the cantonal capitals, and therefore of the cantons, seems to survive mutilated in the _Ravennas_ (ed. Parthey and Pinder, pp. 425 foll.). There we meet, besides three municipalities carefully so labelled, nine or ten towns with tribal affixes--Isca Dumnoniorum, Exeter; Venta Belgarum, Winchester; Venta Silurum, Caerwent; Corinium Dobunorum, Cirencester; Calleva Atrebatum, Silchester; Durovernum Cantiacorum, Canterbury; Viroconium Cornoviorum, Wroxeter; Ratae Coritanorum, Leicester; Venta Icenorum, Caistor-by-Norwich--and perhaps Noviomagus Regentium, Chichester. Add to these Isurium Brigantum, known otherwise by this title, and Dorchester in Dorset, and there emerges a fairly complete list of just those towns which are declared by their remains to have been the chief “country towns” of Roman Britain. The reasons why so little is heard of the cantons are, I think, plain. They were smaller, poorer, and less important than those of Gaul--as, indeed, a comparison of the town-remains shows; there was, further, no British literature to mention them; and, lastly, they quickly fell before the barbarians in the fifth century.

The town-life of Roman Britain (p. 192) was somewhat more extensive than Mommsen allows. There were four _coloniae_--Colchester or _Camulodunum_, founded about A.D. 48 (Tac. _Ann._ xii. 32); Lincoln, _Lindum_, established after the transference of the Ninth Legion to York, probably in the late first century; Gloucester or _Glevum_, founded A.D. 96-98 (_C. I. L._ vi. 3346); York or _Eburacum_, planted at an unknown date, on the opposite bank of the Ouse to the legionary fortress; and one _municipium_, Verulamium, outside St. Albans, founded before A.D. 60. There were also about a dozen “country towns,” already enumerated in the last paragraph. These were for the most part not large villages, but actual towns, furnished with temples, _fora_, houses, and street plans of Roman fashion, and inhabited, so far as our scanty evidence goes, by populations of which both upper and lower classes spoke and wrote Latin. At Bath, _Aquae Sulis_, were well-built baths, and a stately temple of the goddess of the waters. At London, _Londinium_ (later _Augusta_), was a prosperous and wealthy trading-centre. But London was the only town of real size or splendour. The rest, like the cantons mentioned above, were small and unimportant as compared with similar towns elsewhere, and though it is not strictly true that Gloucester and Verulam have produced no inscriptions (p. 193; _Eph. Epigr._ iv. p. 195), the epigraphic yield has been scanty in every town except perhaps York.

The roads of the province (p. 192) are numerous, though fewer than our English antiquaries sometimes suppose. Those in the south, as Mommsen rightly saw, radiate from London: see p. 192 above. The northern military district is traversed by three main routes. One runs up the west coast to the Solway and Carlisle. A second runs through the east of the island, from York to Corbridge and to various points on the eastern part of Hadrian’s Wall. The third, diverging from the second, crossed the Yorkshire and Westmorland hills and thus reached Carlisle. From Corbridge and Carlisle roads ran on northwards, and the eastern, if not the western, of these gave access to the Wall of Pius. The Roman roads of Wales are still imperfectly known, but there was a road from Chester to Carnarvon, another from Caerleon past Neath to Carmarthen, and a third joined the western parts of these two, while others connected the forts in the interior.

More doubt surrounds the Romanisation of the province. Vinogradoff (_Growth of the Manor_, p. 83) thinks that the Roman civilisation spread like a river with many channels which traverse a wide area, but only affect the immediate neighbourhood of their banks. I agree rather with Mommsen’s conclusion (pp. 193, 194)--though the real difference between the two writers is not so very great. The towns, both municipalities and “country towns,” seem to have been thoroughly Romanised. The numerous farms and country-houses (often styled “villas”) are also in nearly every respect Roman, and the very scanty evidence which we possess as to the language used in them favours the idea that it was Latin. Even the villages, such as Pitt-Rivers excavated (_Excavations in Cranborne Chase_, etc., 1887-98), show little survival of native culture. It is to be noted, too, that Celtic inscriptions of Roman date, such as occur occasionally in Gaul (Rhys, _Proc. British Acad._ ii. 275 foll.), are wholly wanting in Britain. Probably, therefore, Roman civilisation came to predominate throughout the lowlands, though not in its more elaborate and splendid forms. There were, however, thinly populated areas where we can trace hardly any population of any sort, Romanised or other, as, for example, the Weald of Kent and Sussex, and a large part of the Midlands (_Vict. Hist. of Warwickshire_, i. 228), while the Cornish, Welsh, and northern hills seem never to have admitted very much Romanisation outside the forts which garrisoned parts of them. The analogies of other western provinces, of Gaul (above, vol. i. p. 101) and Africa (ii. 328), suggest that Celtic speech may have lingered on in such districts for centuries, though not as an element hostile to the Roman; it is also quite probable that Celtic private law and custom survived beside the Roman (L. Mitteis, _Reichsrecht und Volksrecht_, p. 8). But we have no distinct evidence of either fact.

The spellings Ordovici (p. 182 and map) and Cartimandus (pp. 182, 183) are Mommsen’s own choice.

_Moderne Namen in_ rückliegender Schrift

Mommsen Röm. Gesch. V. X.

H.K. 1884.]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The conception that the Roman and the Parthian empires were two great states standing side by side, and indeed the only ones in existence, dominated the whole Roman East, particularly the frontier-provinces. It meets us palpably in the Apocalypse of John, in which there is a juxtaposition as well of the rider on the white horse with the bow and of the rider on the red horse with the sword (vi. 2, 3) as of the Megistanes and the Chiliarchs (vi. 15, comp. xviii. 23, xix. 18). The closing catastrophe, too, is conceived as a subduing of the Romans by the Parthians bringing back the emperor Nero (ix. 14, xvi. 12) and Armageddon, whatever may be meant by it, as the rendezvous of the Orientals for the collective attack on the West. Certainly the author, writing in the Roman empire, hints these far from patriotic hopes more than he expresses them.

[2] This holds true even in some measure for the chronology. The official historiography of the Sassanids reduces the space between the last Darius and the first Sassanid from 558 to 266 years (Nöldeke, _Tabari_, p. 1).

[3] The viceroys of Persis are called in their title constantly “Zag Alohin” (at least the Aramaean signs correspond to these words, which were presumably in pronunciation expressed in the Persian way), son of God (Mordtmann, _Zeitschrift für Numismatik_, iv. 155 f.), and to this corresponds the title θεοπάτωρ on the Greek coins of the great-kings. The designation “God” is also found, as with the Seleucids and the Sassanids.--Why a double diadem is attributed to the Arsacids (Herodian, vi. 2, 1) is not cleared up.

[4] Τῶν Παρθυαίων συνέδριόν φησιν (Ποσειδώνιος) εἶναι, says Strabo, xi. 9, 3, p. 515, διττόν, τὸ μὲν συγγενῶν, τὸ δὲ σοφῶν καὶ μάγων, ἐξ ὧν ἀμφοῖν τοὺς βασιλεῖς καθίστασθαι (καθίστησιν in MSS.); Justinus, xvii. 3, 1, _Mithridates rex Parthorum ... propter crudelitatem a senatu Parthico regno pellitur_.

[5] In Egypt, whose court ceremonial, as doubtless that of all the states of the Diadochi, is based on that ordained by Alexander, and in so far upon that of the Persian empire, the like title seems to have been conferred also personally (Franz, _C. I. Gr._ iii. 270). That the same occurred with the Arsacids, is possible. Among the Greek-speaking subjects of the Arsacid state the appellation μεγιστᾶνες seems in the original stricter use to denote the members of the seven houses; it is worthy of notice that _megistanes_ and _satrapae_ are associated (Seneca, _Ep._ 21; Josephus, _Arch._ xi. 3, 2; xx. 2, 3). The circumstance that in court mourning the Persian king does not invite the _megistanes_ to table (Suetonius, _Gai._ 5) suggests the conjecture that they had the privilege of taking meals with him. The title τῶν πρώτων φίλων is also found among the Arsacids just as at the Egyptian and Pontic courts (_Bull. de corr. Hell._ vii. p. 349).

[6] A royal cup-bearer, who is at the same time general, is mentioned in Josephus, _Arch._ xiv. 13, 7 = _Bell. Jud._ i. 13, 1. Similar court offices are of frequent occurrence in the states of the Diadochi.

[7] Tacitus, _Ann._ xv. 2, 31. If, according to the preface of Agathangelos (p. 109, Langlois), at the time of the Arsacids the oldest and ablest prince bore rule over the country, and the three standing next to him were kings of the Armenians, of the Indians, and of the Massagetae, there is here perhaps at bottom the same arrangement. That the Partho-Indian empire, if it was combined with the main land, was likewise regarded as an appanage for the second son, is very probable.

[8] These are doubtless meant by Justinus (xli. 2, 2), _proximus maiestati regum praepositorum ordo est; ex hoc duces in bello, ex hoc in pace rectores habent_. The native name is preserved by the gloss in Hesychius, βίσταξ ὁ βασιλεὺς παρὰ Πέρσαις. If in Ammianus, xxiii. 6, 14, the presidents of the Persian _regiones_ are called _vitaxae_ (read _vistaxae_), _id est magistri equitum et reges et satrapae_, he has awkwardly referred what is Persian to all Inner Asia (comp. _Hermes_, xvi. 613); we may add that the designation “leaders of horsemen” for these viceroys may relate to the fact that they, like the Roman governors, united in themselves the highest civil and the supreme military power, and the army of the Parthians consisted preponderantly of cavalry.

[9] This we learn from the title σατράπης τῶν σατραπῶν, attributed to one Gotarzes in the inscription of Kermanschahân in Kurdistan (_C. I. Gr._ 4674). It cannot be assigned to the Arsacid king of the same name as such; but perhaps there may be designated by it, as Olshausen (_Monatsbericht der Berliner Akademie_, 1878, p. 179) conjectures, that position which belonged to him after his renouncing of the great-kingdom (Tacitus, _Ann._ xi. 9).

[10] Still later a troop of horse in the Parthian army is called that “of the free:” Josephus, _Arch._ xiv. 13, 5 = _Bell. Jud._ i. 13, 3.

[11] The oldest known coin with Pahlavi writing was struck in Claudius’s time under Vologasus I.; it is bilingual, and gives to the king in Greek his full title, but only the name Arsaces, in Iranian merely the native individual name shortened (_Vol._).

[12] Usually this is restricted to the large silver money, and the small silver and most of the copper are regarded as of royal coinage. But by this view a singular secondary part in coinage is assigned to the great-king. More correctly perhaps the former coinage is conceived of as predominantly destined for dealings abroad, the latter as predominantly for internal intercourse; the diversities subsisting between the two kinds are also explained in this way.

[13] The first ruler that bears it is Phraapates about 188 B.C. (Percy Gardner, _Parthian Coinage_, p. 27).

[14] Thus there stands on the coins of Gotarzes (under Claudius) Γωτέρζης βασιλεὺς βασιλέων ὑὸς κεκαλουμένος Ἀρταβάνου. On the later ones the Greek legend is often quite unintelligible.

[15] While the kingdom of Darius, according to his inscriptions, includes in it the Gādara (the Gandhâra of the Indians, Γανδαρῖτις of the Greeks on the Cabul river) and the Hîdu (the dwellers by the Indus), the former are in one of the inscriptions of Asoka adduced among his subjects, and a copy of his great edict has been found in Kapurdi Giri, or rather in Shahbaz Garhi (Yusufzai-district), nearly 27 miles north-west of the point where the Cabul river falls into the Indus at Attock. The seat of the government of these north-west provinces of Asoka’s kingdom was (according to the inscription _C. I. Indicar._ i. p. 91) Takkhasilâ, Τάξιλα of the Greeks, some 40 miles E.S.E. of Attock, the seat of government for the south-western provinces was Ujjênî (Ὀζήνη). The eastern part of the Cabul valley thus belonged at any rate to Asoka’s empire. It is not quite impossible that the Khyber pass formed the boundary; but probably the whole Cabul valley belonged to India, and the boundary to the south of Cabul was formed by the sharp line of the Suleiman range, and farther to the south-west by the Bolan pass. Of the later Indo-Scythian king Huvishka (Ooerke of the coins), who seems to have resided on the Yamunâ in Mathurâ, an inscription has been found at Wardak not far northward from Cabul (according to information from Oldenberg).

[16] The Egyptian merchant named in note 3 makes mention, c. 47, of “the warlike people of the Bactrians, who have their own king.” At that time, therefore, Bactria was separated from the Indus-empire that was under Parthian princes. Strabo, too (xi. 11, 1, p. 516) treats the Bactro-Indian empire as belonging to the past.

[17] Probably he is the Kaspar--in older tradition Gathaspar--who appears among the holy three kings from the East (Gutschmid, _Rhein. Mus._ xix. 162).

[18] The most definite testimony to the Parthian rule in these regions is found in the description of the coasts of the Red Sea drawn up by an Egyptian merchant under Vespasian, c. 38: “Behind the mouth of the Indus in the interior lies the capital of Scythia Minnagara; but this is ruled by the Parthians, who constantly chase away one another” (ὑπὸ Πάρθων συνεχῶς ἀλλήλους ἐνδιωκόντων). The same is repeated in a somewhat confused way, c. 41; it might here appear as if Minnagara lay in India itself above Barygaza, and Ptolemy has already been led astray by this; but certainly the writer, who speaks as to the interior only from hearsay, has only wished to say that a large town Minnagara lay inland not far from Barygaza, and much cotton was brought thence to Barygaza. The numerous traces also of Alexander, which occur according to the same authority in Minnagara, can be found only on the Indus, not in Gujerat. The position of Minnagara on the lower Indus not far from Hyderabad, and the existence of a Parthian rule there under Vespasian, appear hereby assured.--With this we may be allowed to combine the coins of king Gondopharus or Hyndopherres, who in a very old Christian legend is converted to Christianity by St. Thomas, the apostle of the Parthians and Indians, and in fact appears to belong to the first period of the Roman empire (Sallet, _Num. Zeitschr._ vi. 355; Gutschmid, _Rhein. Mus._ xix. 162); of his brother’s son Abdagases (Sallet, _ib._ p. 365), who may be identical with the Parthian prince of this name in Tacitus, _Ann._ vi. 36, at any rate bears a Parthian name; and lastly of king Sanabarus, who must have reigned shortly after Hyndopherres, perhaps was his successor. Here belongs also a number of other coins marked with Parthian names, Arsaces, Pacorus, Vonones. This coinage attaches itself decidedly to that of the Arsacids (Sallet, _ib._ p. 277); the silver pieces of Gondopharus and of Sanabarus--of the others the coins are almost solely copper--correspond exactly to the Arsacid drachmae. To all appearance these belong to the Parthian princes of Minnagara; the appearance here of Indian legend alongside of the Greek, as of Pahlavi writing among the late Arsacids, suits this view. These, however, are not coins of satraps, but, as the Egyptian indicates, of great-kings rivalling those of Ctesiphon; Hyndopherres names himself in very corrupt Greek βασιλεὺς βασιλέων μέγας ἀυτόκρατωρ, and in good Indian “Maharajah Rajadi Rajah.” If, as is not improbable, under the Mambaros or Akabaros, whom the Periplus, c. 41, 52, designates as ruler of the coast of Barygaza, there lurks the Sanabarus of the coins, the latter belongs to the time of Nero or Vespasian, and ruled not merely at the mouths of the Indus, but also over Gujerat. Moreover, if an inscription found not far from Peshawur is rightly referred to king Gondopharus, his rule must have extended up thither, probably as far as Cabul.--The fact that Corbulo in the year 60 sent the embassy of the Hyrcanians who had revolted from the Parthians--in order that they might not be intercepted by the latter--to the coast of the Red Sea, whence they might reach their home without setting foot on Parthian territory (Tacitus, _Ann._ xv. 25), tells in favour of the view that the Indus valley at that time was not subject to the ruler of Ctesiphon.

[19] That the great kingdom of the Arsacids of Minnagara did not subsist much beyond the time of Nero, is probable from the coins. It is questionable what rulers followed them. The Bactro-Indian rulers of Greek names belong predominantly, perhaps all of them, to the pre-Augustan epoch; and various indigenous names, _e.g._ Maues and Azes, fall in point of language and writing (_e.g._ the form of the ω Ω) before this time. On the other hand the coins of the kings Kozulokadphises and Oemokadphises, and those of the Sacian kings, Kanerku and his successors, while all are clearly characterised as belonging to one coinage by the gold stater of the weight of the Roman aureus, which does not previously occur in the Indian coinage, are to all appearance later than Gondopharus and Sanabarus. They show how the state of the Indus valley assumed a national Indian type in ever increasing measure in contrast to the Hellenes as well as to the Iranians. The reign of these Kadphises will thus fall between the Indo-Parthian rulers and the dynasty of the Sacae, which latter begins with A.D. 78 (Oldenberg, in Sallet’s _Zeitschr. für Num._ viii. 292). Coins of these Sacian kings, found in the treasure of Peshawur, name in a remarkable way Greek gods in a mutilated form, Ηρακιλο, Σαραπο, alongside of the national Βουδο. The latest of their coins show the influence of the oldest Sassanid coinage, and might belong to the second half of the third century (Sallet, _Zeitschr. für Num._ vi. 224).

[20] The Indo-Greek and the Indo-Parthian rulers, just as the Kadphises, make use on their coins to a large extent of the indigenous Indian language and writing alongside of the Greek: the Sacian kings on the other hand never used the Indian language and Indian alphabet, but employ exclusively the Greek letters, and the non-Greek legends of their coins are beyond doubt Scythian. Thus on Kanerku’s gold pieces there sometimes stands βασιλεὺς βασιλέων Κανήρκου, sometimes ραο νανοραο κανηρκι κορανο, where the first two words must be a Scythian form of the Indian Rajâdi Rajah, and the two following contain the personal and the family name (Gushana) of the king (Oldenberg, _l. c._ p. 294). Thus these Sacae were foreign rulers in India in another sense than the Bactrian Hellenes and the Parthians. Yet the inscriptions set up under them in India are not Scythian but Indian.

[21] Arrian, who, as governor of Cappadocia, had himself wielded command over the Armenians (_contra Al._ 29), always in the _Tactica_ names the Armenians and Parthians together (4, 3, 44, 1, as respects the heavy cavalry, the mailed κοντοφόροι and the light cavalry, the ἀκροβολισταί or ἱπποτοξόται; 34, 7 as respects the wide hose); and, where he speaks of Hadrian’s introduction of barbaric cavalry into the Roman army, he traces the mounted archers back to the model of “the Parthians or Armenians” (44, 1).

[22] Caesar’s illegitimate son Πτολεμαῖος ὁ καὶ Καῖσαρ θεὸς φιλοπάτωρ φιλομήτωρ, as his royal designation runs (_C. I. Gr. 4717_), entered on the joint rule of Egypt in the Egyptian year 29 Aug. 711/2, as the era shows (Wescher, _Bullet. dell’ Inst._ 1866, p. 199; Krall, _Wiener Studien_, v. 313). As he came in place of Ptolemaeus the younger, the husband and brother of his mother, the setting aside of the latter by Cleopatra, of which the particulars are not known, must have taken place just then, and have furnished the occasion to proclaim him as king of Egypt. Dio also, xlvii. 31, places his nomination in the summer of 712 {42 B.C.} before the battle of Philippi. It was thus not the work of Antonius, but sanctioned by the two rulers in concert at a time when it could not but be their object to meet the wishes of the queen of Egypt, who certainly had from the outset ranged herself on their side.

[23] This is what Augustus means when he says that he had brought again to the empire the provinces of the East in great part distributed among kings (_Mon. Ancyr._ 5, 41: _provincias omnis, quae trans Hadrianum mare vergunt ad orientem, Cyrenasque, iam ex parte magna regibus eas possidentibus ... reciperavi_).

[24] The decorum, which was as characteristic of Augustus as its opposite was of his colleague, did not fail him here. Not merely in the case of Caesarion was the paternity, which the dictator himself had virtually acknowledged, afterwards officially denied; the children also of Antonius by Cleopatra, where indeed nothing was to be denied, were regarded doubtless as members of the imperial house, but were never formally acknowledged as children of Antonius. On the contrary the son of the daughter of Antonius by Cleopatra, the subsequent king of Mauretania Ptolemaeus, is called in the Athenian inscription, _C. I. A._ iii. 555, grandson of Ptolemaeus; for Πτολεμαίου ἔκγονος cannot well in this connection be taken otherwise. This maternal grandfather was invented in Rome, that they might be able officially to conceal the real one. Any one who prefers--as O. Hirschfeld proposes--to take ἔκγονος as great-grandson, and to refer it to the maternal great-grandfather, comes to the same result; for then the grandfather is passed over, because the mother was in the legal sense fatherless.--Whether the fiction, which is in my view more probable, went so far as to indicate a definite Ptolemaeus, possibly to prolong the life of the last Lagid who died in 712 {42 B.C.}, or whether they were content with inventing a father without entering into particulars, cannot be decided. But the fiction was adhered to in this respect, that the son of Antonius’s daughter obtained the name of the fictitious grandfather. The circumstance that in this case preference was given to the descent from the Lagids over that from Massinissa may probably have been occasioned more by regard to the imperial house, which treated the illegitimate child as belonging to it, than by the Hellenic inclination of the father.

[25] It is in itself credible that Antonius concealed the impending invasion from Phraates as long as possible, and therefore, when sending back Monaeses, declared himself ready to conclude peace on the basis of the restitution of the lost standards (Plutarch, 37; Dio, xlix. 24; Florus, ii. 20 [iv. 10]). But he knew presumably that this offer would not be accepted, and in no case can he have been in earnest with those proposals; beyond doubt he wished for the war and the overthrow of Phraates.

[26] The account of the matter given by Strabo, xi. 13, 4, p. 524, evidently after the description of this war compiled by Antonius’s comrade in arms Dellius, and, it may be conjectured, at his bidding (comp. _ib._ xi. 13, 3; Dio, xlix. 39), is a very sorry attempt to justify the beaten general. If Antonius did not take the nearest route to Ctesiphon, king Artavazdes cannot be brought in for the blame of it as a false guide; it was a military, and doubtless still more a political, miscalculation of the general in chief.

[27] The fact of the deposition and execution, and the time, are attested by Dio, xlix. 32, and Valerius Maximus, ix. 15, ext. 2; the cause or the pretext must have been connected with the Armenian war.

[28] The account of the seizure of Armenia is wanting, but the fact is clearly apparent from Tacitus, _Ann._ xi. 9. To this connection probably belongs what Josephus, _Arch._ xx. 3, 3, tells of the design of the successor of Artabanus to wage war against the Romans, from which Izates the satrap of Adiabene vainly dissuades him. Josephus names this successor, probably in error, Bardanes. The immediate successor of Artabanus III. was, according to Tacitus, _Ann._ xi. 8, his son of the same name, whom along with his son thereupon Gotarzes put out of the way; and this Artabanus IV. must be here meant.

[29] The statement of Petrus Patricius (_fr._ 3 Müll.) that king Mithradates of Iberia had planned revolt from Rome, but in order to preserve the semblance of fidelity, had sent his brother Cotys to Claudius, and then, when the latter had given information to the emperor of those intrigues, had been deposed and replaced by his brother, is not compatible with the assured fact that in Iberia, at least from the year 35 (Tacitus, _Ann._ vi. 32) till the year 60 (Tacitus, _Ann._ xiv. 26), Pharasmanes, and in the year 75 his son Mithradates (_C. I. L._ iii. 6052) bore rule. Beyond doubt Petrus has confused Mithradates of Iberia and the king of the Bosporus of the same name (I. 316, note 1), and here at the bottom lies the narrative, which Tacitus, _Ann._ xii. 18, presupposes.

[30] If the coins, which, it is true, for the most part admit of being distinguished only by resemblance of effigy, are correctly attributed, those of Gotarzes reach to Sel. 362 Daesius = A.D. 51 June, and those of Vologasus (we know none of Vonones II.) begin with Sel. 362 Gorpiaeus = A.D. 51 Sept. (Percy Gardner, _Parthian Coinage_, pp. 50, 51), which agrees with Tacitus, _Ann._ xii. 14, 44.

[31] Gorneae, called by the Armenians _Garhni_, as the ruins (nearly east of Erivân) are still at present named. (Kiepert.)

[32] Even after the attack Tiridates complained _cur datis nuper obsidibus redintegrataque amicitia ... vetere Armeniae possessione depelleretur_, and Corbulo presented to him, in case of his turning as a suppliant to the emperor, the prospect of a _regnum stabile_ (Tacitus, _Ann._ xii. 37). Elsewhere too the refusal of the oath of fealty is indicated as the proper ground of war (Tacitus, _Ann._ xii. 34).

[33] The report in Tacitus, _Ann._ xiii. 34-41, embraces beyond doubt the campaigns of 58 and 59, since Tacitus under the year 59 is silent as to the Armenian campaign, while under the year 60, _Ann._ xiv. 23 joins on immediately to xiii. 41, and evidently describes merely a single campaign; generally, where he condenses in this way, he as a rule anticipates. That the war cannot have begun only in 59, is further confirmed by the fact that Corbulo observed the solar eclipse of 30th April 59 on Armenian soil (Plin. _H. N._ ii. 70, 180); had he not entered the country till 59, he could hardly have crossed the enemy’s frontier so early in the year. The narrative of Tacitus, _Ann._ xiii, 34-41, does not in itself show an intercalation of a year, but with his mode of narrating it admits the possibility that the first year was spent in the crossing of the Euphrates and the settling in Armenia, and so the winter mentioned in _c._ 35 is that of the year 58-9, especially as in view of the character of the army such a beginning to the war would be quite in place, and in view of the short Armenian summer it was militarily convenient thus to separate the marching into the country and the conduct proper of the war.

[34] From the representation of Tacitus, _Ann._ xv. 6, the partiality and the perplexity are clearly seen. He does not venture to express the surrender of Armenia to Tiridates, and only leaves the reader to infer it.

[35] This is said by Tacitus himself, _Ann._ xv. 10: _nec a Corbulone properatum, quo gliscentibus periculis etiam subsidii laus augeretur_, in naive unconcern at the severe censure which this praise involves. How partial is the tone of the whole account resting on Corbulo’s despatches, is shown among other things by the circumstance that Paetus is reproached in one breath with the inadequate provisioning of the camp (xv. 8) and with the surrender of it in spite of copious supplies (xv. 16), and the latter fact is inferred from this, that the retiring Romans preferred to destroy the stores which, according to the capitulation, were to be delivered to the Parthians. As the exasperation against Tiberius found its expression in the painting of Germanicus in fine colours, so did the exasperation against Nero in the picture of Corbulo.

[36] The statement of Corbulo that Paetus bound himself on oath in presence of his soldiers and of the Parthian deputies to send no troops to Armenia till the arrival of Nero’s answer, is declared by Tacitus, _Ann._ xv. 16, unworthy of credit; it is in keeping with the state of the case, and nothing was done to the contrary.

[37] As, according to Tacitus, _Ann._ xv. 25 (comp. Dio, lxii. 22), Nero dismissed graciously the envoys of Vologasus, and allowed them to see the possibility of an understanding if Tiridates appeared in person, Corbulo may in this case have acted according to his instructions; but this was rather perhaps one of the turns added in the interest of Corbulo. That these events were brought under discussion in the trial to which he was subjected some years after, is probable from the statement that one of the officers of the Armenian campaign became his accuser. The identity of the cohort-prefect, Arrius Varus, in Tacitus, _Ann._ xiii. 9, and of the primipilus, _Hist._ iii. 6, has been without reason disputed; comp. on _C. I. L._ v. 867.

[38] In Ziata (Charput) there have been found two inscriptions of a fort, which one of the legions led by Corbulo over the Euphrates, the 3d Gallica, constructed there by Corbulo’s orders in the year 64 (_Eph. epigr._ v. p. 25).

[39] Nero intended _inter reliqua bella_, an Ethiopian one (Plin. vi. 29, comp. 184). To this the sending of troops to Alexandria (Tacitus, _Hist._ i. 31, 70) had reference.

[40] As the aim of the expedition both Tacitus, _Hist._ i. 6, and Suetonius, _Ner._ 19, indicate the Caspian gates, _i.e._ the pass of the Caucasus between Tiflis and Vladi-Kavkas at Darial, which, according to the legend, Alexander closed with iron gates (Plin. _H. N._ vi. 11, 30; Josephus, _Bell. Jud._ vii. 7, 4; Procopius, _Pers._ i. 10). Both from this locality and from the whole scheme of the expedition it cannot possibly have been directed against the Albani on the western shore of the Caspian Sea; here, as well as at another passage (_Ann._ ii. 68, _ad Armenios, inde Albanos Heniochosque_), only the Alani can be meant, who in Josephus, _l. c._ and elsewhere appear just at this spot and are frequently confounded with the Caucasian Albani. No doubt the account of Josephus is also confused. If here the Albani, with consent of the king of the Hyrcanians, invade Media and then Armenia through the Caspian gates, the writer has been thinking of the other Caspian gate eastward from Rhagae; but this must be his mistake, since the latter pass, situated in the heart of the Parthian kingdom, cannot possibly have been the aim of the Neronian expedition, and the Alani had their seats not on the eastern shore of the Caspian but to the north of the Caucasus. On account of this expedition the best of the Roman legions, the 14th, was recalled from Britain, although it went only as far as Pannonia (Tacitus, _Hist._ ii. 11, comp. 27, 66), and a new legion, the 1st Italic, was formed by Nero (Suetonius, _Ner._ 19). One sees from this what was the scale on which the project was conceived.

[41] In what connection he refused to Vespasian the title of emperor (Dio, lxvi. 11) is not clear; possibly immediately after his insurrection, before he had perceived that the Flavians were the stronger. His intercession for the princes of Commagene (Josephus, _Bell. Jud._ vii. 7, 3) was attended by success, and so was purely personal, by no means a protest against the conversion of the kingdom into a province.

[42] The four Syrian legions were the 3d _Gallica_, the 6th _ferrata_ (both hitherto in Syria), the 4th _Scythica_ (hitherto in Moesia, but having already taken part in the Parthian as in the Jewish war), and the 16th _Flavia_ (new). The one legion of Palestine was the 10th _fretensis_ (hitherto in Syria). The two of Cappadocia were the 12th _fulminata_ (hitherto in Syria, moved by Titus to Melitene, Josephus, _Bell. Jud._ vii. 1, 3), and the 15th _Apollinaris_ (hitherto in Pannonia, but having taken part, like the 4th _Scythica_, in the Parthian as in the Jewish war). The garrisons were thus changed as little as possible, only two of the legions already called earlier to Syria received fixed stations there, and one newly instituted was moved thither.--After the Jewish war under Hadrian the 6th _ferrata_ was despatched from Syria to Palestine.

[43] At this time (comp. _C. I. L._ v. 6988), probably falls also the Cappadocian governorship of C. Rutilius Gallicus, of which it is said (Statius, i. 4, 78): _hunc ... timuit ... Armenia et patiens Latii iam pontis Araxes_, with reference presumably to a bridge-structure executed by this Roman garrison. That Gallicus served under Corbulo, is from the silence of Tacitus not probable.

[44] That war threatened to break out under Vespasian in the year 75 on the Euphrates, while M. Ulpius Trajanus, the father of the emperor, was governor of Syria, is stated by Pliny in his panegyric on the son, c. 14, probably with strong exaggeration; the cause is unknown.

[45] There are coins dated, and provided with the individual names of the kings, of (V)ologasus from the years 389 and 390 = 77-78; of Pacorus from the years 389-394 = 77-82 (and again 404-407 = 92-95); of Artabanus from the year 392 = 80-1. The corresponding historical dates are lost, with the exception of the notice connecting Titus and Artabanus in Zonaras, xi. 18 (comp. Suetonius, _Ner._ 57; Tacitus, _Hist._ i. 2), but the coins point to an epoch of rapid changes on the throne, and, apparently, of simultaneous coinage by rival pretenders.

[46] This is proved by the detached notice from Arrian in Suidas (_s. v._ ἐπίκλημα): ὁ δὲ Πάκορος ὁ Παρθυαίων βασιλεὺς καὶ ἄλλα τινὰ ἐπικλήματα ἐπέφερε Τραιανῷ τῷ βασιλεῖ, and by the attention which is devoted in Pliny’s report to the emperor, written about the year 112 (_ad Trai._ 74), to the relations between Pacorus and the Dacian king Decebalus. The time of the reign of this Parthian king cannot be sufficiently fixed. There are no Parthian coins with the king’s name from the whole period of Trajan; the coining of silver seems to have been in abeyance during that period.

[47] That Axidares (or Exedares) was a son of Pacorus and king of Armenia before Parthomasiris, but had been deposed by Chosroes, is shown by the remnants of Dio’s account, lxviii. 17; and to this point also the two fragments of Arrian (16 Müller), the first, probably from an address of a supporter of the interests of Axidares to Trajan: Ἀξιδάρην δὲ ὅτι ἄρχειν χρὴ Ἀρμενίας, οὔ μοι δοκεῖ εἶναί σε ἀμφίλογον, whereupon doubtless the complaints brought against Parthomasiris followed; and the answer, evidently of the emperor, that it is not the business of Axidares, but his, to judge as to Parthomasiris, because he--apparently Axidares--had first broken the treaty and suffered for it. What fault the emperor imputes to Axidares is not clear; but in Dio also Chosroes says that he has not satisfied either the Romans or the Parthians.

[48] The remnants of Dio’s account in Xiphilinus and Zonaras show clearly that the Parthian expedition falls into two campaigns, the first (Dio, lvi. 17, 1, 18, 2, 23-25), which is fixed at A.D. 115 by the consulate of Pedo (the date also of Malalas, p. 275, for the earthquake of Antioch, 13 Dec. 164 of the Antiochene era = A.D. 115 agrees therewith), and the second (Dio, c. 26-32, 3), which is fixed at A.D. 116 by the conferring of the title _Parthicus_ (c. 28, 2), took place between April and August of that year (see my notice in Droysen, _Hellenismus_, iii. 2, 361). That at c. 23 the titles _Optimus_ (conferred in the course of A.D. 114) and _Parthicus_ are mentioned out of the order of time, is shown as well by their juxtaposition as by the later recurrence of the second honour. Of the fragments most belong to the first campaign; c. 22, 3 and probably also 22, 1, 2 to the second.--The acclamations of _imperator_ do not stand in the way. Trajan was demonstrably in the year 113 imp. VI. (_C. I. L._ vi. 960); in the year 114 imp. VII. (_C. I. L._ ix. 1558 _et al._); in the year 115 imp. IX. (_C. I. L._ ix. 5894 _et al._), and imp. XI. (Fabretti, 398, 289 _et al._); in the year 116 imp. XII. (_C. I. L._ viii. 621, x. 1634), and XIII. (_C. I. L._ iii. D. xxvii.). Dio attests an acclamation from the year 115 (lxviii. 19), and one from the year 116 (lxviii. 28); there is ample room for both, and there is no reason to refer imp. VII. precisely, as has been attempted, to the subjugation of Armenia.