[-9-] Augustus ordained that the subject territory should be managed according to the customs of the Romans, but permitted allied countries to be governed according to their own ancestral usage.  He did not think it desirable that there should be any additions to the former or that any new regions should be acquired, but deemed it best for the people to be thoroughly satisfied with what they already possessed; and he communicated this opinion to the senate.  Therefore he began no war at this time, but gave out certain sovereignties,—­to Iamblichus son of Iamblichus his ancestral dominion over the Arabians, and to Tarcondimotus son of Tarcondimotus the kingdom of Cilicia which his father held, except a few coast districts.  For these together with Lesser Armenia he granted to Archelaus, because the Median king, who had previously ruled them, was dead.  To Herod he entrusted the tetrarchy of a certain Zenodorus and to one Mithridates, though a mere lad, Commagene, since the king of it had killed his father.  And as the other Armenians had preferred charges against Artaxes and had summoned his brother Tigranes, who was in Rome, the emperor sent for Tiberius to cast the former out of his kingdom and restore the latter to it once more.  Nothing was accomplished, however, worthy of the preparations he had made, for the Armenians slew Artaxes before his arrival.  Still, Tiberius assumed a lofty bearing as if he had effected something by his own ability, and all the more when sacrifices were voted in honor of the result.  And he now began to have thoughts about obtaining the monarchy when, as he was approaching Philippi, an outcry was heard from the field of battle, as if coming from an army, and fire of its own accord shot up from the altars founded by Antony upon the ramparts.  These things contributed to the exalted feelings of Tiberius.

Augustus returned to Samos and once more passed the winter there.  As a recompense for his stay he awarded the islanders freedom, and he attended to many kinds of business.  Great numbers of embassies came to him, and the Indi, who had previously opened negotiations about friendship, now made terms, sending among other gifts tigers, which were then for the first time seen by the Romans, as also, I think, by the Greeks.  They likewise presented to him a boy without shoulders (like the statues of Hermes that we now see).  Yet this creature in spite of his anatomy made perfect use of his feet and hands:  he would stretch a bow for them, shoot missiles, and sound the trumpet,—­how, I do not know; I merely record the story.  One of the Indi, Zarmarus, whether he belonged to the class of sophists and was ambitious on this account or because he was old and was following some immemorial custom, or because he wished to make a display for Augustus and the Athenians (for it was there that he had obtained an audience), chose to die; he was therefore initiated into the service of the two goddesses,—­although it was not the proper time, it is said, for the ritual,[2]—­through the influence of Augustus, and having become an initiate he threw himself alive into the fire.