Note 26 — Chapter IX · THE EUPHRATES FRONTIER AND THE PARTHIANS.

The account of the matter given by Strabo, xi. 13, 4, p. 524, evidently after the description of this war compiled by Antonius’s comrade in arms Dellius, and, it may be conjectured, at his bidding (comp. ib. xi. 13, 3; Dio, xlix. 39), is a very sorry attempt to justify the beaten general. If Antonius did not take the nearest route to Ctesiphon, king Artavazdes cannot be brought in for the blame of it as a false guide; it was a military, and doubtless still more a political, miscalculation of the general in chief.