Persia from the Earliest Period to the Arab

140 HISTORY OF PERSIA.
Romans, Corbulo, the Roman general, insisted that
Tiridates should proceed to Rome and receive his
crown direct from the hands of Nero, while he detained
one of his sisters as a hostage that this act should be
fully carried into execution. We learn that after a while
Tiridates set out, accompanied by his wife and an escort
of 3000 Parthian cavalry, that passing through two-
thirds of the empire they were everywhere received as
though in a triumphal procession, and that great cities
turned out to welcome them and hung their streets with
festive garlands. After riding on horseback the whole
way, through Thrace and Illyricum, on their reaching
Rome, the whole city was illuminated on the night
before the investiture, and, on the following day, the
Armenian prince ascended the rostra, and seated
himself at the feet of the emperor. As Professor
" The circumstance of his
Rawlinson has well put it,
journey and reception involved a concession to
Rome of all that could be desired in the way of
formal or verbal acknowledgment. The substantial
advantage, however, remained with the Parthians.
The Romans, both in the East and at the capital,
were flattered by a show of submission ; but the
Orientals must have concluded that the long struggle
had terminated in an acknowledgment by Rome of
Parthia as the stronger power." The establishment
of the Parthian Tiridates as king of Armenia, secured
a considerable period of peace between Rome and
Armenia; hence there is little to record here, except
another irruption from the north by a Scythian
named Alaric in A.D. 78, which gave the opportunity
of revolt to the Hyrcanians and was thus the first