"Corbulo sent me there with an order to assemble reinforcements." "Ah, Heraklea! I knew at Heraklea a certain maiden from Colchis, for whom I would have given all the divorced women of this city, not excluding Poppaea.

But these are old stories.

Tell me now, rather, what is to be heard from the Parthian boundary.

It is true that they weary me every Vologeses of them, and Tiridates and Tigranes,--those barbarians who, as young Arulenus insists, walk on all fours at home, and pretend to be human only when in our presence.

But now people in Rome speak much of them, if only for the reason that it is dangerous to speak of aught else." "The war is going badly, and but for Corbulo might be turned to defeat." "Corbulo! by Bacchus! a real god of war, a genuine Mars, a great leader, at the same time quick-tempered, honest, and dull.