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192
POLITICAL HISTORY OF PARTHIA

withdraw from Armenia, a condition to which they agreed.

The ambassadors sent by Vologases arrived in Rome in the spring of 63. They proposed that Tiridates should receive the crown of Armenia at Roman headquarters, explaining that only his duties as a Magus prevented him from coming to Rome for the investiture. Though the request was denied, the ambassadors were sent back with presents—an action from which they might infer that if Tiridates appeared in person at Rome the appeal would be granted.

Preparations were then made to continue the war. The administration of Syria was given to C. Cestius Gallus, and the military forces, augmented by the XV Apollinaris from Pannonia under Marius Celsus, were intrusted to Corbulo. Paetus having returned to Rome, the authority of Corbulo was now increased until it was such that Tacitus compared it with that of Pompey under the Manilian Law.[1] The IV Scythica and the XII Fulminata, which had lost the best of their men and were low in morale, were sent to Syria. Picked troops were then gathered at Melitene, ready to cross the Euphrates. They consisted of the III Gallica and the VI Ferrata[2] from Syria, the V Macedonica, which had remained in Pontus, and the recently arrived XV Apollinaris. Crack units

  1. Tac. Ann. xv. 25; CIL III, Nos. 6741–42a = Dessau 232; J. G. C. Anderson in Class. Rev., XLV (1931), 190.
  2. An inscription from Bithynia honors Sulpicius Scaptia Asper of the VI Ferrata and refers to the legion's wintering in Cappadocia; see F. W.