Statius Priscus, who advanced without a check from the frontier to the capital, Artaxata, which he took and (as it seems) destroyed.  He then built a new city, which he strongly garrisoned with Roman troops, and sent intelligence of his successes to Rome, whither Soaemus, the expelled monarch, had betaken himself.  Soasmus was upon this replaced on the Armenian throne, the task of settling him in the government being deputed to a certain Thucydides, by whose efforts, together with those of Martius Verus, all opposition to the restored monarch was suppressed, and the entire country tranquillized.

Rome had thus in the space of two years recovered her losses, and shown Parthia that she was still well able to maintain the position in Western Asia which she had acquired by the victories of Trajan.  But such a measure of success did not content the ambitious generals into whose hands the incompetence of Verus had thrown the real direction of the war.  Military distinction at this time offered to a Roman a path to the very highest honors, each successful general becoming at once by force of his position a candidate for the Imperial dignity.  Of the various able officers employed under Verus, the most distinguished and the most ambitious was Cassius—­a chief who ultimately raised the standard of revolt against Aurelius, and lost his life in consequence.  Cassius, after he had succeeded in clearing Syria of the invaders, was made by Aurelius a sort of generalissimo; and being thus free to act as he chose, determined to carry the war into the enemy’s country, and to try if he could not rival, or outdo, the exploits of Trajan fifty years previously.  Though we have no continuous narrative of his expedition, we may trace its course with tolerable accuracy in the various fragmentary writings which bear upon the history of the time—­from Zeugma, when he crossed the Euphrates into Mesopotamia, to Nicephorium, near the junction of the Belik with the Euphrates; and thence down the course of the stream to Sura (Sippara?) and Babylon.  At Sura a battle was fought, in which the Romans were victorious; and then the final efforts were made, which covered Cassius with glory.  The great city of Seleucia, upon the Tigris, which had a population of 400,000 souls, was besieged, taken, and burnt, to punish an alleged treason of the inhabitants.  Ctesiphon, upon the opposite side of the stream, was occupied, and the summer palace of Volagases there situated was levelled with the ground.  The various temples were plundered; secret places, where it was thought treasure might be hid, were examined, and a rich booty was carried off by the invaders.  The Parthians, worsted in every encounter, ceased to resist; and all the conquests made by Trajan were recovered.  Nor was this all.  The Roman general, after conquering the Mesopotamian plain, advanced into the Zagros mountains, and occupied, at any rate, a portion of Media, thereby entitling his Imperial masters to add to the titles of “Armeniacus,” and “Parthicus,” which they had already assumed, the further and wholly novel title of “Medicus.”