Note 40 — Chapter IX · THE EUPHRATES FRONTIER AND THE PARTHIANS. (continued 2)

As the aim of the expedition both Tacitus, Hist. i. 6, and Suetonius, Ner. 19, indicate the Caspian gates, i.e. the pass of the Caucasus between Tiflis and Vladi-Kavkas at Darial, which, according to the legend, Alexander closed with iron gates (Plin. H. N. vi. 11, 30; Josephus, Bell. Jud. vii. 7, 4; Procopius, Pers. i. 10). Both from this locality and from the whole scheme of the expedition it cannot possibly have been directed against the Albani on the western shore of the Caspian Sea; here, as well as at another passage (Ann. ii. 68, ad Armenios, inde Albanos Heniochosque), only the Alani can be meant, who in Josephus, l.c. and elsewhere appear just at this spot and are frequently confounded with the Caucasian Albani. No doubt the account of Josephus is also confused. If here the Albani, with consent of the king of the Hyrcanians, invade Media and then Armenia through the Caspian gates, the writer has been thinking of the other Caspian gate eastward from Rhagae; but this must be his mistake, since the latter pass, situated in the heart of the Parthian kingdom, cannot possibly have been the aim of the Neronian expedition, and the Alani had their seats not on the eastern shore of the Caspian but to the north of the Caucasus. On account of this expedition the best of the Roman legions, the 14th, was recalled from Britain, although it went only as far as Pannonia (Tacitus, Hist. ii. 11, comp. 27, 66), and a new legion, the 1st Italic, was formed by Nero (Suetonius, Ner. 19). One sees from this what was the scale on which the project was conceived.