hed alike for his high birth and his great riches, and
a eunuch named Abdus, who held a position about the court, and was
otherwise a personage of importance. It would have been easy to seize
these two men, and execute them; but Artabanus was uncertain how far
the conspiracy extended, and thought it most prudent to defer bringing
matters to a crisis. He therefore dissembled, and was content to cause
a delay, first by administering to Abdus a slow poison, and then by
engaging Sinnaces so constantly in affairs of state that he had little
or no time to devote to plotting. Successful thus far by his own cunning
and dexterity, he was further helped by a stroke of good fortune, on
which he could not have calculated. Phraates, who thought that after
forty years of residence in Rome it was necessary to fit himself for
the position of Parthian king by resuming the long-disused habits of his
nation, was carried off, after a short residence in Syria, by a disease
which he was supposed to have contracted through the change in his mode
of life. His death must for the time have paralyzed the conspirators,
and have greatly relieved Artabanus. It was perhaps now, under the
stimulus of a sudden change from feelings of extreme alarm to fancied
security, that he wrote the famous letter to Tiberius, in which he
reproached him for his cruelty, cowardice, and luxuriousness of living,
and recommended him to satisfy the just desires of the subjects who
hated him by an immediate suicide.

This letter, if genuine, must be pronounced under any circumstances
a folly; and if really sent at this time, it may have had tragical
consequences. It is remarkable that Tiberius, on learning the death of
Phraates, instead of relaxing, intensified his efforts. Not only did he
at once send out to Syria another pretender, Tiridates, a nephew of the
deceased prince, in order to replace him, but he made endeavors, such as
we do not hear of before, to engage other nations in the struggle; and
further, he enlarged the commission of Vitellius, giving him a general
superintendence over the affairs of the East. Thus Artabanus found
himself in greater peril than ever, and if he had really indulged in the
silly effusion ascribed to him was rightly punished. Pharasmanes, king
of Iberia, a portion of the modern Georgia, incited by Tiberius,
took the field (A.D. 35), and proclaimed his intention of placing his
brother, Mithridates, on the Armenian throne. Having by corrupti