Trajan Rejects Parthamasiris and Annexes Armenia

Trajan, warrior-emperor and builder of the Dacian conquest, turned east late in his reign. At Elegeia, where mountains squeeze roads into narrow passes, Parthamasiris—an Arsacid installed in Armenia—approached expecting Roman investiture as Tiridates had received under Nero. Trajan refused the script [9].

“He would surrender Armenia to no one; for it belonged to the Romans and was to have a Roman governor,” Cassius Dio writes. The words slammed shut a half-century of delicate balance. Purple cloaks and bronze armor gleamed as legions marched to make the policy real, banners stirring in the thin mountain air [9].

From Elegeia, Roman columns moved to secure the whole kingdom. Garrisons followed roads to Artaxata and along the Arsanias. Trajan planned not to manage a lever but to remove it, pinning Armenia into the imperial board with governors and fortresses.

The decision pointed Rome toward Mesopotamia. Antioch buzzed with preparations; bridges over the Euphrates at Samosata and Zeugma bore the weight of supply. To challenge Parthia’s heartlands, Trajan would have to cross the deserts Augustus had declined to rule [9][20].