Paetus, ignorant of the impending danger, was keeping the 5th legion at a distance in Pontus; the rest he had weakened by indiscriminate furloughs, till it was heard that Vologeses was approaching with a powerful force bent on war.He summoned the 12th legion, and then was discovered the numerical feebleness of the source from which he had hoped for the repute of an augmented army.Yet even thus the camp might have been held, and the Parthian foe baffled, by protracting the war, had Paetus stood firm either by his own counsels or by those of others.But though military men had put him on his guard against imminent disasters, still, not wishing to seem to need the advice of others, he would fall back on some quite different and inferior plan.So now, leaving his winter quarters, and exclaiming that not the fosse or the rampart, but the men's bodies and weapons were given him for facing the foe, he led out his legions, as if he meant to fight a battle.Then, after losing a centurion and a few soldiers whom he had sent on in advance to reconnoitre the enemy's forces, he returned in alarm.And, as Vologeses had not pressed his advantage with much vigour, Paetus once again, with vain confidence, posted 3000 chosen infantry on the adjacent ridge of the taurus, in order to bar the king's passage.He also stationed some Pannonian troopers, the flower of his cavalry, in a part of the plain.His wife and son he removed to a fortress named Arsamosata, with a cohort for their defence, thus dispersing the troops which, if kept together, could easily have checked the desultory skirmishing of the enemy.He could, it is said, scarcely be driven to confess to Corbulo how the enemy was pressing him.Corbulo made no haste, that, when the dangers thickened, the glory of the rescue might be enhanced.
Yet he ordered 1000 men from each of his three legions with 800cavalry, and an equal number of infantry to be in instant readiness.
Vologeses meanwhile, though he had heard that the roads were blocked by Paetus, here with infantry, there with cavalry, did not alter his plan, but drove off the latter by the menace of an attack, and crushed the legionaires, only one centurion of whom, Tarquitius Crescens, dared to defend a tower in which he was keeping guard.He had often sallied out, and cut to pieces such of the barbarians as came close up to the walls, till he was overwhelmed with volleys of firebrands.
Every foot soldier still unwounded fled to remote wilds, and those who were disabled, returned to the camp, exaggerating in their terror the king's valour, and the warlike strength of his tribes, everything in short, to the simple credulity of those who trembled with like fear.Even the general did not struggle against his reverses.He had indeed wholly abandoned all the duties of a soldier, and had again sent an entreaty to Corbulo, that he would come with speed to save the standards and eagles, and the name yet left to the unfortunate army; they meantime, he said, would hold to their fidelity while life lasted.
Corbulo, perfectly fearless, left half his army in Syria to retain the forts built on the Euphrates, and taking the nearest route, which also was not deficient in supplies, marched through the country of Commagene, then through Cappadocia, and thence into Armenia.Beside the other usual accompaniments of war, his army was followed by a great number of camels laden with corn, to keep off famine as well as the enemy.The first he met of the defeated army was Paccius, a first-rank centurion, then many of the soldiers, whom, when they pleaded various excuses for flight, he advised to return to their standards and throw themselves on the mercy of Paetus."For himself," he said, "he had no forgiveness but for the victorious."As he spoke, he went up to his legions, cheering them and reminding them of their past career, and pointing the way to new glory."It was not to villages or towns of Armenia, but to a Roman camp with two legions, a worthy recompense for their efforts, that they were bound.If each common soldier were to have bestowed on him by the emperor's hand the special honour of a crown for a rescued citizen, how wonderfully great the glory, when the numbers would be equal of those who had brought and of those had received deliverance."Roused by these and like words into a common enthusiasm, and some too were filled with an ardour peculiarly their own by the perils of brothers and kinsfolk, they hurried on by day and night their uninterrupted march.
All the more vigorously did Vologeses press the besieged, now attacking the legions' entrenchments, and now again the fortress, which guarded those whose years unfitted them for war.He advanced closer than is the Parthian practice, seeking to lure the enemy to an engagement by such rashness.They, however, could hardly be dragged out of their tents, and would merely defend their lives, some held back by the general's order, others by their own cowardice; they seemed to be awaiting Corbulo, and should they be overpowered by force, they had before them the examples of Candium and Numantia.
"Neither the Samnites, Italian people as they were, nor the Carthaginians, the rivals of the Roman empire, were, it seemed, equally formidable, and even the men of old, with all their strength and glory, whenever fortune was adverse, had taken thought for safety."The general, although he was overcome by the despair of his army, first wrote a letter to Vologeses, not a suppliant petition, but in a tone of remonstrance against the doing of hostile acts on behalf of the Armenians, who always had been under Roman dominion, or subject to a king chosen by the emperor.Peace, he reminded him, was equally for the interest of both, and it would be well for him not to look only at the present.He indeed had advanced with the whole strength of his kingdom against two legions, while the Romans had all the rest of the world with which to sustain the war.