Roman Losses during the Revolt

On the Parthian War

To the Emperor Antoninus.

. . . . The God who begat the great Roman race has no compunction in suffering us to faint at times and be defeated and wounded. Or would Father Mars hesitate to say of our soldiers the words?—

These words were uttered by Telamon to his sons once in the Trojan war. But Mars has spoken of the Romans in the same strain many a time and in many a war: in the Gaulish war at Allia, in the Samnite at Caudium, in the Punic at Cannae, in the Spanish at Numantia, in the Jugurthine at Cirta, in the Parthian at Carrhae. But always and everywhere he turned our sorrows into successes and our terrors into triumphs.

But not to hark back too far into ancient times, I will take instances from your own family. Was not a consular taken prisoner in Dacia under the leadership and auspices of your great-grandfather Trajan? Was not a consular likewise slain by the Parthians in Mesopotamia? Again under the rule of your grandfather Hadrian what a number of soldiers were killed by the Jews, what a number by the Britons! Even in the principate of your Father, who was the most fortunate of princes . . . . . . . . Should we not think the son of a Marsian father degenerate, if he were afraid of vipers, lizards, and water-snakes? . . . . are kept a few days in swaddling bands, the others pass their whole lives in rags.