their several nations: here were posted the battalions of the legions, their eagles glittering, their ensigns displayed, with the images of their gods, and forming a kind of temple. A tribunal placed in the centre supported a chair of state, on which the statue of Nero rested. Tiridates approached, and having immolated the victims in due form, he lifted the diadem from his head and laid it at the foot of the statue. Every heart throbbed with intense emotion."
Tiridates seems to have been more struck by the manners of the Romans than by their military array. Perhaps to a monarch accustomed to see myriads of horsemen in their bright chain-mail, the compact camp and the scanty cavalry of his opponents might appear comparatively poor and mean. We are told that—
"To the splendour of renown—for he was held in high esteem by the easterns—Corbulo added the graces of courtesy and the pleasures of the banquet: during which the king, as often as he observed any usage which was new to him, was frequent in his inquiries what it might mean—as that a centurion advertised the general when the watch was first set, and the company at the banquet broke up at the sound of a trumpet. Why was the fuel on the augural altar kindled by a torch? All which, Corbulo explaining in a strain of exaggeration, inspired Tiridates with admiration of the ancient institutions of the Romans."
Occasionally Tacitus indulges in what we may fairly term a romantic story. Rhadamistus, an Iberian prince, had usurped the Armenian throne, but was expelled from it by the Tiridates just mentioned, and compelled to fly for his life. "He escaped with his wife, and both owed their lives to the speed of their
