The Roman Empire, B.C.29-A.D.476
by Henry Stuart Jones (9781458998958)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ROME AND PARTHIA 21 divorce Agrippa from his niece and give him in marriage to his daughter. Yet, although he ignored human feeling when dynastic alliances were in question, he would perhaps have deferred the step but for the fact that when he left Rome for the East in B.C. 22 serious tumults arose in the city. The restoration of senatorial government seemed almost a reality. For the first time Augustus was not among the consuls, and the censorship had been restored after many years. This provoked a counter- movement amongst the populace, who besieged the Senate-house and demanded the dictatorship for Augustus. He was forced to return, and quieted the mob by assuming the cura annonae, or administration of the corn supply of Rome. Agrippa was recalled and married to Julia, and Augustus set out to deal with the Eastern question. Negotiations were already on foot which promised a settlement of the affair of honour between Rome and Parthia. The Parthian king, Prahates, demanded the surrender of his rival, Tiridates, who had taken refuge with Augustus and held Prahates' infant son as a hostage. Augustus stipulated for the restoration of the Roman standards and captives in return for the child, and in B.C. 20 the transaction was completed. The court poets celebrated the bargain as a conspicuous triumph, and the Prima Porta statue of Augustus (Plate, p. 23) displays the delivery of the standards amid the chasings of its corslet. In the government of the East Rome had made large use of the system of vassal-kingdoms, and Antony, reigning in Egypt as consort of Cleopatra, had dreamt of an Eastern Empire which he should rule as " King of kings." Augustus, as he recalls in the record of his acts, recovered the East from its potentates. Yet the system seemed to him worth preserving...

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