We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
additum et praesidium mille legionarii, tres sociorum chohortes duaeque equitum alae, et quo facilius novum regnum tueretur, pars Armeniae, ut cuique finitima, Pharasmani Polemonique et Aristobulo atque Antiocho parere iussae sunt. Corbulo in Syriam abscessit, morte Ummidii legati vacuam ac sibi permissam.
1 Josephus, Ant. 18. 139–40.
2 Tacitus, Ann. 14.2, calls Tigranes ‘regis Archelai nepos’, where nepos should strictly speaking be pronepos.
3 It should be noted that pars Armeniae ut is an emendation (universally accepted), made by F. Puteolanus in 1475, of the Medicean’s pars Armenia eunt.
4 (Berlin, 19198) v. 387.
5 (Cambridge, 1934) x. 765
4 (Princeton, 1950), p. 557.
7 ‘Monnaies Hellénistiques’, Rev. Num. 11 (1969), 46.Google Scholar
8 Because of this, Halm, C., P. Corn. Taciti Libri Qui Supersunt (Leipzig, 1850)Google Scholar, ad loc, felt the need of a further emendation of pars Armeniae to paries Armeniae. He seems to have been followed only by Madvig, J., Adversaria Critica (Copenhagen, 1873;Google Scholar reprinted Hildesheim, 1967) ii. 553.
9 The Annals of Tacitus (Oxford, 1896 2) i. 54.Google Scholar
10 The allusion is to Polemo I, grandfather of Polemo II, king of Pontus in A. D. 60, but the palaeographic significance remains the same.
11 Ann. 2.42.
12 Dio 60.8: 
13 Josephus, BJ 2.500; 3.68. In A. D. 72/3 Antiochus was suspected of plotting with the king of Parthia against Rome (Josephus, , BJ 7. 219–43Google Scholar). He was deposed from his throne but lived as an honourable exile in Rome.
14 Josephus, , Ant. 20. 158–9;Google Scholar Tacitus, Ann. 13.7.
15 Josephus, BJ 7.226, says that Paetus was aided by a 
16 Ann. 11.8.
17 Dessau, ILS3 8795, which is dated to A. D. 75, speaks of Pharasmanes' son, Mithridates, as ruler of Iberia.
18 For Agrippa II's domain see Josephus, , Ant. 20.138, 158–59;Google Scholar By 2.247,252.
19 Ann. 13.7. That the Sohaemus of Emesa and the Sohaemus of Sophene are almost certainly one and the same person, is argued by Barrett, A. A., ‘Sohaemus, King of Emesa and Sophene’, AJP 98 (1977), 153–9.Google Scholar
20 Cornelius Tacitus, Annates (Heidelberg, 1968), Band iv.Google Scholar
21 Madvig (see n. 8) suggests a compromise emendation, Pharasmanique.
22 The most natural way to understand the passage is to assume that the subject of tueretur it Ann. 14.26 is praesidium. This emphasizes the notion that the neighbouring kings were to be used in a military, rather than a sovereign role.
23 Pliny, , N. H. 6.9.27,Google Scholar informs us that Armenia was divided into 120 ‘districts’: ‘dividitur, quod certum est, in praefecturas quas strategias vocant… barbaris nominibus CXX’.
24 Since the position of Tigranes in Armenia was very weak it might have been sound strategy for the Romans to have assumed authority in Armenia in the event of a revolt that grew out of Tigranes' control. In that case all four kings could have played a role. But Tacitus clearly speaks not of some sort of contingency plan for the general supervision of Armenia, but of the excercise of actual authority (‘parere iussae sunt’), which authority, as has been shown, must have been limited to the immediate border area.
25 In the subsequent campaigns, Corbulo stationed Legio III in Sophene, as we know from an almost identical pair of inscriptions, CIL 6741 (= ILS 3 232) and CIL 6742, found at Chaput (or Hisn Ziâd). The site has been identified with the fortress of Ziata mentioned by Ammianus 19.6.1.
