ABSTRACT
Overall, the Augustan era was one of peace, stability and consolidation. Augustus wanted no further territorial expansion – and indeed none of any signicance occurred until the reign of Trajan, early in C2. Before then, Rome generally remained on peaceful terms with its eastern neighbours, though Armenia remained problematic, and the accord with Parthia intermittent. e Euphrates provided Rome with no practicable line of defence against its eastern enemies, for it was easily fordable and would have required massive military resources to defend it with a string of eective military garrisons. Instead, the Romans relied on a series of buer states to help secure its eastern frontiers, and during C1 ad, a number of the client kingdoms and semi-autonomous states in the regions between Roman and Parthian spheres of control were converted or absorbed into Roman provinces.
