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They had been anticipated by Gaius Norbanus and Decidius Saxa, who had crossed over into Ionium before Staius reached there, had occupied the whole country as far as Pangaeum, and had encamped near Philippi. This city is located close beside Mount Pangaeum and close beside Symbolon. The former was near the sea, across from Thasos, while the latter has been built within the mountains on the plain.
When the two great powers, Rome and Parthia, first came into collision when the first blow struck by the latter, the destruction of the army of Crassus, was followed up by the advance of their clouds of horse into Syria, Palestine, and Asia Minor when Apamsea, Antioch, and Jerusalem fell into their hands, when Decidius Saxa was defeated and slain, Cilicia, Pamphylia, Caria, Lydia, and Ionia occupied it seemed as if Rome had found, not so much an equal as a superior; it looked as if the power heretofore predominant would be compelled to contract her frontier, and as if Parthia would advance hers to the Egean or the Mediterranean.
And how can I pass over Saxa Decidius, a fellow imported from the most distant nations, in order that we might see that man tribune of the people whom we had never beheld as a citizen? There is also one of the Sasernae; but all of them have such a resemblance to one another, that I may make a mistake as to their first names.
After a preliminary trial of strength in the years B.C. 522 and 51, Pacorus, the son of Orodes, in B.C. 40, crossed the Euphrates in force, defeated the Romans under Decidius Saxa, and carried fire and sword over the whole of the Syrian presidency. Having taken Apamea and Antioch, he marched into Phoenicia, ravaged the open country, and compelled all the towns, except Tyre, to surrender.
Lucius Decidius Saxa was detached with a small party to explore the nature of the country. Each returned with the same account to his camp, that there was a level road for the next five miles, that there then succeeded a rough and mountainous country. Whichever should first obtain possession of the defiles would have no trouble in preventing the other's progress.
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