Persia from the Earliest Period to the Arab

142 HISTORY OF PERSIA.
was simply a matter of course, deserving little praise
or thanks, still less reward ; the Parthian was simply to
do the bidding of Rome. Nor, indeed, had this been
all, would .
there have been much to remark about it ;
it would have been but another instance of the
weaker going to the wall. But, as all will regret,
Trajan was not content with the submission of the
young prince, but shortly afterwards put him to
death. As the whole character of Trajan is averse
to petty assassinations, it is but fair to suppose that,
in this instance, he was misled by false or doubtful
rumours, the more so as he had the courage to avow
that this deed was wholly his own, and therefore pro-
bably believed it a necessary act of justice.
The general result of the first campaign was,
that Greater and Lesser Armenia were formed into
one province, and the nations taught that Rome
was the power they had most to dread. In the
same year Mesopotamia was in like manner reduced,
while in that following (A. D. 116) the provincial
towns of Nineveh J
, Gaugamela, and Arbela,
fell into
the hands of the Romans, the whole tract between
the Zagros and the Tigris having been over- run:
other places, too, of great importance, as Hatra and
Ctesinhon, submitted, and there seemed no limit to
Roman conquest.
But the Parthian well knew his advantages; if he
could not fight in the open field, he could fall back as
1
It is supposed that the Roman colony of Nineveh was founded
by ( laudius. Coins of this place exist with the name of Niniva
Chudiopolis, under the emperors Trajan, Maximinus, Severus,
Alexander, Mamaea, and Gordianus Pius
Tacitus and Ammianus also notice it.
(Num. Chron. xix. i).