us wintered in Cappadocia;
Corbulo returned into Syria, where a demand reached him from Volagases
that he would evacuate Mesopotamia. He agreed to do so on the condition
that Armenia should be evacuated by the Parthians. To this Volagases
consented; since he had re-established Tiridates as king, and the
Armenians might be trusted, if left to themselves, to prefer Parthian to
Roman ascendancy.

There was now, again, a pause in the war for some months. The envoys
sent by Volagases after the capitulation of Paetus reached Rome at the
commencement of spring (A.D. 63), and were there at once admitted to
an audience. They proposed peace on the terms that Tiridates should be
recognized as king of Armenia, but that he should go either to Rome,
or to the head-quarters of the Roman legions in the East, in order to
receive investiture, either from the Emperor or his representative. It
was with some difficulty that Nero was brought to believe in the success
of Volagases, so entirely had he trusted the despatches of Paetus, which
represented the Romans as triumphant. When the state of affairs was
fully understood from the letters of Corbulo and the accounts given by
a Roman officer who had accompanied the Parthian envoys, there was
no doubt or hesitation as to the course which should be pursued.
The Parthian proposals must be rejected. Rome must not make peace
immediately upon a disaster, or until she had retrieved her reputation
and shown her power by again taking the offensive. Paetus was at once
recalled, and the whole direction of the war given to Corbulo, who
was intrusted with a wide-spreading and extraordinary authority. The
Parthian envoys were dismissed, but with gifts, which seemed to show
that it was not so much their proposals as the circumstances under which
they had been made that were unpalatable. Another legion was sent to
the East; and the semi-independent princes and dynasts were exhorted to
support Corbulo with zeal. That commander used his extraordinary powers
to draw together, not so much a very large force, as one that could be
thoroughly trusted; and, collecting his troops at Melitene (Malatiyeh),
made his arrangements for a fresh invasion.

Penetrating into Armenia by the road formerly followed by Lucullus,
Corbulo, with three legions, and probably the usual proportion of
allies--an army of about 80,000 men--advanced against the combined
Armenians and Parthians under Tiridates and Volagases, freely offering