Tiridates I of Armenia

Mm-hmm.

Volo Jesus, back in the Nero days, declared his brother Tiridates the king of Armenia.

Oh, right.

And Nero had set up a guy called Tigranes as the ruler there.

A rebellion had started in Egypt and Avidius Cassius was dispatched from Syria to deal with it while in Armenia Sohaemus had been deposed.

Publius Martius Verus the governor of Cappadocia was sent to reinstall him as the pro-Roman ruler and Tiridates, thought to be the cause of the trouble in Armenia, was exiled to Britain.

Marcus had intended to return to Rome in 173 AD but the war continued against the Quadi and other smaller tribes mainly in a series of smaller skirmishes.

The previous treaty with the Quadi had been made with their pro-Roman ruler who was expelled in favor of Ariogaesus who was hostile to the Romans.

Marcus refused to recognize him, refusing to renew the defunct treaty and placed a bounty on him, dead or alive.

However, like Tiridates, following his capture Ariogaesus was exiled to Alexandria.

The war progressed, now against the Sarmatian Jazyges.

When they attempted to sue for peace in 174 AD Marcus refused, however little more is known of this part of the campaign.

Still, Tiberius did not relinquish his purpose.

He chose Tiridates, of the same stock as Artabanus, to be his rival, and the Iberian Mithridates to be the instrument of recovering Armenia, having reconciled him to his brother Pharasmanes, who held the throne of that country.

He then entrusted the whole of his eastern policy to Lucius Vitellius.

The man, I am aware, had a bad name at Rome, and many a foul story was told of him.

With these attendants he hastened his flight into the remote country on the borders of Scythia, in the hope of aid as he was connected by marriage alliances with the Hyrcanians and Carmanians.

Meantime the Parthians, he thought, indulgent as they are to an absent prince, though restless under his presence, might turn to a better mind.

Vitellius, as soon as Artabanus had fled and his people were inclined to have a new king, urged Tiridates to seize the advantage thus offered, and then led the main strength of the legions and the allies to the banks of the Euphrates.

While they were sacrificing, the one after Roman custom offering a swine, a ram, and a bull, the other a horse, which he had duly prepared as a propitiation to the river god, they were informed by the neighbouring inhabitants that the Euphrates, without any violent rains, was of itself rising to an immense height, and that the white foam was curling into circles like a diadem, an omen of a prosperous passage.

He quickly crossed Mount Taurus, and had restored order to a great extent more by moderation than by force, when he was ordered to return to Syria, that nothing might arise to provoke a war with Parthia.

For Vologeses, thinking that an opportunity presented itself of invading Armenia, which, though the possession of his ancestors, was now, through a monstrous crime, held by a foreign prince, raised an army and prepared to establish Tiridates on the throne, so that not a member of his house might be without kingly power.

On the advance of the Parthians, the Iberians dispersed without a battle, and the Armenian cities, Artaxata and Tigranocerta, submitted to the yoke.

Then a frightful winter, or deficient supplies, with pestilence arising from both causes, forced Vologeses to abandon his present plans.

Then in headlong flight he hurried to Iberia, his ancestral kingdom.

Zenobia, meanwhile, this was her name, as she yet breathed and showed signs of life on the calm water at the river's edge, was perceived by some shepherds, who, inferring from her noble appearance that she was no base-born woman, bound up her wound and applied to it their rustic remedies.

As soon as they knew her name and her adventure, they conveyed her to the city of Artaxata, whence she was conducted at the public charge to Tiridates, who received her kindly and treated her as a royal person.

In the consulship of Faustus Sulla and Salvius Otto, Furius Scribonianus was banished on the ground that he was consulting the astrologers about the emperor's death.