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POLITICAL HISTORY OF PARTHIA

fore the close of the siege. Unfortunately Antony was even less successful than his able lieutenant before the walls of Samosata, and he was at last constrained to accept three hundred talents in lieu of the original offer of a thousand.[1]

Ventidius returned to Rome. Gaius Sosius was to take charge of Syria, and Publius Canidius Crassus was expected to subdue Armenia and then proceed northward to the Caucasus. In November, 38 b.c., Ventidius celebrated his triumph in Rome.[2] Antony also was granted one, but did not live to enjoy it. Jerusalem fell in 37 b.c.; Antigonus was put to death, and Herod became king of the Jews.

The loss of his son Pacorus proved a great shock to the aged King Orodes and may have unbalanced his mind to some extent. With thirty sons to choose from, Orodes found it difficult to make up his mind. His selection of Phraates, the eldest of his eligible children,[3] was most unfortunate, as the events which followed proved.

  1. Plut. Antony 34; Josephus Ant. xiv. 439–47 and Bell. i. 321 f.; Dio Cass. xlix. 20 f. Can this be the treaty mentioned in Florus ii. 20. 1?
  2. The speech in which he proclaimed his victories was borrowed from C. Sallustius, according to Fronto Epist. ii. 1. 5 (Loeb, II, p. 137). On Ventidius see Suetonius in Gellius Noct. Att. xv. 4. On the triumph see Fasti triumphales populi Romani, ed. E. Pais (Rome, 1920), F. Tr. 715/39; CIL, I 1, p. 461, a.u.c. 716; Vell. Pat. ii. 65.
  3. Justin xliii. 4. 11–16; Dio Cass. xlix. 23.