of about two legions, and, deeming himself too weak to meet the enemy in the open field, was content to defend the towns.  The open country was consequently overrun; and a thrill of mingled alarm and excitement passed through all the Roman provinces in Asia.  The provinces were at the time most inadequately supplied with Roman troops, through the desire of Csesar and Pompey to maintain large armies about their own persons.  The natives were for the most part disaffected and inclined to hail the Parthians as brethren and deliverers.  Excepting Deiotarus of Galatia, and Ariobarzanes of Cappadocia, Rome had, as Cicero (then proconsul of Cilicia) plaintively declared, “not a friend on the Asiatic continent.  And Cappadocia was miserably weak,” and open to attack on the side of Armenia.  Had Orodes and Artavasdes acted in concert, and had the latter, while Orodes sent his armies into Syria, poured the Armenian forces into Cappadocia and then into Cilicia (as it was expected that he would do), there would have been the greatest danger to the Roman possessions.  As it was, the excitement in Asia Minor was extreme.  Cicero marched into Cappadocia with the bulk of the Roman troops, and summoned to his aid Deiotarus with his Galatians, at the same time writing to the Roman Senate to implore reinforcements.  Cassius shut himself up in Antioch, and allowed the Parthian cavalry to pass him by, and even to proceed beyond the bounds of Syria into Cilicia.  But the Parthians seem scarcely to have understood the situation of their adversaries, or to have been aware of their own advantages.  Instead of spreading themselves wide, raising the natives, and leaving them to blockade the towns, while with their as yet unconquered squandrons they defied the enemy in the open country, we find them engaging in the siege and blockade of cities, for which they were wholly unfit, and confining themselves almost entirely to the narrow valley of the Orontes.  Under these circumstances we are not surprised to learn that Cassius, having first beat them back from Antioch, contrived to lead them into an ambush on the banks of the river, and severely handled their troops, even killing the general Osaces.  The Parthians withdrew from the neighborhood of the Syrian capital after this defeat, which must have taken place about the end of September, and soon afterwards went into winter quarters in Oyrrhestica, or the part of Syria immediately east of Amanus.  Here they remained during the winter months under Pacorus, and it was expected that the war would break out again with fresh fury in the spring; but Bibulus, the new proconsul of Syria, conscious of his military deficiencies, contrived to sow dissensions among the Parthians themselves, and to turn the thoughts of Pacorus in another direction.  He suggested to Ornodapantes, a Parthian noble, with whom he had managed to open a correspondence, that Pacorus would be a more worthy occupant of the Parthian throne than his father, and that he would consult well for his own