226
EXPEDITION AGAINST THE PARTHIANS.
time of the Goths. Numbers of Roman colonies were established
in the interior of the country, such as Colonia Ulpia in the
capital Zarmizegethusa, but especially in Transylvania and the
mountainous parts of Moldavia and Wallachia; for in the plains
no traces of the Romans are found. Roman institutions struck
such firm root there, that, after a period of about 150 years,
when the Goths invaded Dacia, the population was completely
Roman; and even to this day the Wallachians speak a language
which is only a corrupt form of the Latin, and is spoken by all
the Wallachians as far as Mount Pindus in Macedonia, and the
countries between Epirus and Greece. This phenomenon,
however, is a very puzzling one, and the Wallachians are a
mysterious race. The Dacians, under the Romans, w,ere a
prosperous and truly civilised nation, which is attested, inde-
pendently of many other things, by the numerous ruins and
inscriptions still existing in their country.
The conquest of Dacia in a.d. 106, was followed by a few
years of peace, which certainly did not make Trajan happy,
and after which he gladly seized the first opportunity for fresh
military enterprises and conquests. This was offered by Cosrhoes,
the king of the Parthians, who had deposed Exodarcs, king of
Armenia, which stood in an uncertain relation towards Rome
and Parthia, of both of which it was a dependency, and had
raised his own relative to the throne of that country. Trajan
marched into Armenia, where he received the homage of Par-
thamasiris, who had been raised to the throne by the Parthians.
With this he was satisfied, and the king, coming into Trajan’s
camp, received his kingdom as a fief (for thus it may be fitly
called) from him. The war, however, was continued, and it
is to be regretted that we have no accurate knowledge of it;
for there can be no doubt that it is rich in great events. Nature
placed immense difficulties in Trajan’s way; and this much
seems clear, that he made Armenia the basis of his operations,
and advanced towards the lower Tigris. There he took not
only Seleucia, but Ctesiphon, the capital of the king of kings,
and advanced as far as the ocean, that is, the Persian Gulf; but
here he stopped, either because he saw insurmountable diffi-
culties in the way of carrying out his favourite scheme to subdue
the whole Persian empire, or because it was with him as it
has often been with other great generals, who carried on wars
merely for the sake of conquest, and becoming tired, said to
Pxpkdttton into ARABIA AND NUBIA.
227
themselves, “We will now make a pause, and resume our plans
afterwards.” It was such a thought that saved the world under
Napoleon: he often felt sick of war, and wishing to spend a
few months in Paris, he concluded peace, in the hope of renew-
ing the war afterwards. He also took a pleasure in allowing
his enemies to recover themselves, in order to defeat them
afterwards with the greater glory. It was probably this feel-
ing that prompted Trajan to grant peace to the Parthians, after
he had raised a pretender, Parthamaspates, to the throne of
Parthia. Such a cessation from war is neither the fruit of
generosity, nor the result of a definite system. The Parthians,
as individuals, do not deserve much esteem ; for they were bar-
barians who had received their civilisation only through the
Greek towns, and destroyed what they conquered ; but afterwards,
under the Sassanidae, Persia again rose to prosperity. The Par-
thians, at that time, had viceroys in different countries,and the
king, with his court, travelled from one to the other, and was kept
and fed by them; but his real capital was Ctesiphon.
After the conclusion of the peace with the Parthians, Trajan'
could not, for some time, make up his mind what to do. He
had intended to complete the conquest of Arabia, and into that
country, he now made an incursion, concerning which we have
but scanty information; but from inscriptions and coins, as well
as from circumstances which are not previously mentioned, we
may regard it as certain, that he made Arabia Petraea, on the
eastern coast of the Red Sea, down to the Bay of Acaba, nay,
as far as Medina, a Roman province, and received the homage
of the native tribes between the Euphrates and Syria. In con-
cluding peace with the Parthians, he had obliged them to cede
to him the supremacy of Osrhoene, Mesopotamia, and Kurdis-
tan. Edessa likewise was incorporated with the empire. He
thus kept possession of a basis for future military operations,
just as Napoleon did in similar circumstances; for he no doubt
intended, if life should be spared to him, to extend the empire
as far as India, or at least to leave the conquest to his successor.
The wars in the reign of Trajan extended as far as Nubia;
that country, situated between Egypt and the Upper Cataract,
came under the dominion of Rome, and continued to be
so till the middle of the third century? It is further probable
4 See Niebuhr’s Inscriptiunes Nubiensest in hɪs Kleine hιstorische u. pħilolo∙*
gische Schriften, vol. ɪi. j>. 186, foil.
Q 2