Rome, possessing daughters with whom the emperor might
wed as suitably as the Parthian kings did with the females of their own
royal house. It was not fit that either family should sully its blood by
mixture with the other."

There is some doubt whether Caracallus construed this response as an
absolute refusal, and thereupon undertook his expedition, or whether he
regarded it as inviting further negotiation, and sent a second embassy,
whose arguments and persuasions induced Artabanus to consent to the
proposed alliance. The contemporary historian, Dio, states positively
that Artabanus refused to give his daughter to the Roman monarch, and
that Caracallus undertook his expedition to avenge this insult; but
Herodian, another contemporary, declares exactly the reverse. According
to him, the Roman Emperor, on receiving the reply of Artabanus, sent a
new embassy to urge his suit, and to protest with oaths that he was
in earnest and had the most friendly intentions. Artabanus upon this
yielded, addressed Caracallus as his son-in-law, and invited him to come
and fetch home his bride. Herodian describes with much minuteness,
and with a good deal of picturesque effect, the stately march of the
Imperial prince through the Parthian territory, the magnificent welcome
which he received, and the peaceful meeting of the two kings in the
plain before Ctesiphon, which was suddenly interrupted by the meditated
treason of the crafty Roman. Taken at disadvantage, the Parthian
monarch with difficulty escaped, while his soldiers and other subjects,
incapable of making any resistance, were slaughtered like sheep by their
assailants, who then plundered and ravaged the Parthian territory at
their will, and returned laden with spoil into Mesopotamia. In general,
Dio is a more trustworthy authority than Herodian, and most moderns have
therefore preferred his version of the story. But it may be questioned
whether in this particular case the truth has not been best preserved
by the historian on whom under ordinary circumstances we place less
dependence. If so disgraceful an outrage as that described by Herodian
was, indeed, committed by the head of the Roman State on a foreign
potentate, Dio, as a great State official, would naturally be anxious
to gloss it over. There are, moreover, internal difficulties in his
narrative; and on more than one point of importance he contradicts not
only Herodian, but also Spartianus. It is therefore not improbable t