This generous kindness however assuaged not the animosity
of Piso; and scarce could he brook a day's delay with Germanicus, but left
him in haste to arrive in Syria before him: nor was he sooner there, and
found himself amongst the legions, than he began to court the common men
by bounties and caresses, to assist them with his countenance and credit,
to form factions, to remove all the ancient centurions and every tribune
of remarkable discipline and severity, and, in their places, to put
dependents of his own, or men recommended only by their crimes; he
permitted sloth in the camp, licentiousness in the towns, a rambling and
disorderly soldiery, and carried the corruption so high, that in the
discourses of the herd, he was styled _Father of the Legions_. Nor did
Plancina restrain herself to a conduct seemly in her sex, but frequented
the exercises of the cavalry, and attended the decursions of the cohorts;
everywhere inveighing against Agrippina, everywhere against Germanicus;
and some even of the most deserving soldiers became prompt to base
obedience, from a rumour whispered abroad, "that all this was not
unacceptable to Tiberius,"
These doings were all known to Germanicus; but his more instant care was
to visit Armenia, an inconstant and restless nation this from the
beginning; inconstant from the genius of the people, as well as from the
situation of their country, which bordering with a large frontier on our
provinces, and stretching thence quite to Media, is enclosed between the
two great Empires, and often at variance with them; with the Romans
through antipathy and hatred, with the Parthians through competition and
envy.
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