Persia from the Earliest Period to the Arab

l6o HISTORY OF PERSIA.
siderable light on the policy of the Roman and Persian
leaders respectively. We have already stated that
the Persians were ever anxious to secure either
the actual .possession of the adjoining province of
Armenia, or to be at least on friendly terms with it, the
Romans, on the other hand, being equally desirous of
aiding the native tribes as a set off against the constant
hostility of the Persians. Thus, during the reign of
Valerian, Armenia had been seized by the Persians,
and its monarch slain ; his youthful son, however,
Tiridates, escaped to Rome, where, acquiring many
arts he could not have learned in Armenia, he soon
showed himself worthy of his teachers. Of great
courage and personal strength, even Olympia recognized
him a victor in one of its games. But Tiridates
was more than a mere soldier ; he was grateful to those
with whom he had passed his long exile; moreover,
Licinius, the intimate friend and constant companion
of Galerius, owed his life to the personal prowess of
Tiridates : hence, when Galerius was associated in
the empire by Diocletian, the investiture of the dis-
tinguished Armenian, as the restored king of his
native land, was an act as natural as it was wise.
On his return to Armenia, Tiridates was universally
received with the greatest joy, the rule of the Persians
during the previous twenty-six years having been
marked by the tyranny the usual accompaniment of
their government. Thus, though they erected many
buildings of splendour, the money for them had
been wrung from the hard hands of the Armenian
peasantry; the religion of Zoroaster had been rigorously
enforced, and the statues of the deified kings of