The Battle of Carrhae, which took place in 53 B.C., one of a handful of Roman military disasters throughout Ancient Rome’s thousand-year duration, resulted in the end of the First Triumvirate, the rise of Julius Caesar and the end of the Roman Republic.

Background

In 54 B.C., Ancient Rome was still a republic, but the reins of power were largely held by three politicians, Gaius Julius Caesar, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, and Marcus Licinius Crassus. Each of these men was the leader of Roman political factions. Julius Caesar led the “violent and volatile” faction, according to Plutarch, while Pompeius led the “thoughtful and conservative” faction, and Crassus led the moderate, middle ground faction. None of the three were in any way honest or virtuous, and their political careers were marked by conspicuous self-service and using their governmental positions for the procuring of political favors and the lining of their own pockets. The alliance had existed for some seven years and was principally opposed by the famous Roman statesman Cato, who had opposed all three separately in the past. Using his political connections, Julius Caesar managed to get himself appointed proconsul (governor) of Gaul, where he made his mark in military history and pacified the region. Caesar’s military success, which resulted in widespread popularity for the proconsul, made Crassus green with envy. It didn’t help matters that Crassus was also jealous of Pompey. And the green-eyed monster was not Crassus’ only vice. He had an even bigger one in the form of greed, which as we shall see, manifested itself, in larceny.

Whatever virtues Crassus had, they were overshadowed by his avarice. A fabulously wealthy man, and the richest in Rome, Crassus had amassed a fortune worth 7,100 talents through the real estate market and the ownership of silver mines, with the slaves that went with them. Crassus had not, however, achieved such wealth by purely honest means. Indeed, his accumulation of wealth was achieved principally through unethical means. As Plutarch records, “the greatest part of this…he got out together out of fire and war, making the public calamities his greatest source of revenue.” But Crassus had amassed his possessions by more than merely taking private advantage of public distress; he had done so in a manner that was in every sense unethical. An ally of the Roman dictator Sulla, Crassus had used this connection to profit from the plunder of those that Sulla marked as enemies of the state, which people he proscribed, had killed or banished, and their property stolen.  Many of these victims were not a threat to either Rome, or to Sulla’s dictatorship, but rather they were chosen for proscription so that Sulla could plunder their property, or as favors to his adherents. Plutarch wrote of these massacres:

 

Sulla now busied himself with slaughter, and murders without number or limit filled the city. Many, too, were killed to gratify private hatreds, although they had no relations with Sulla, but he gave his consent in order to gratify his adherents…Referring to these measures in a public harangue, he said that he was proscribing as many as he could remember, and those who now escaped his memory, he would proscribe at a future time. He also proscribed anyone who harbored and saved a proscribed person, making death the punishment for such humanity, without exception of brother, son, or parents, but offering anyone who slew a proscribed person two talents as a reward for this murderous deed, even though a slave should slay his master, or a son his father. And what seemed the greatest injustice of all, he took away the civil rights from the sons and grandsons of those who had been proscribed and confiscated the property of all.  Moreover, proscriptions were made not only in Rome, but also in every city of Italy, and neither temple of God, nor hearth of hospitality, nor paternal home was free from the stain of bloodshed, but husbands were butchered in the embraces of their wedded wives, and sons in the arms of their mothers. Those who fell victims to political resentment and private hatred were as nothing compared with those who were butchered for the sake of their property, nay, even the executioners were prompted to say that his great house killed this man, his garden that man, his warm baths another.

By buying up the seized property of Sulla’s victims, or receiving it as gifts, Crassus amassed his wealth. As Plutarch wrote, “Crassus never tired of accepting or of buying it.” But Crassus did not stop here. If profiting from murder and plunder were not bad enough, Crassus also attained his wealth by taking advantage of property owners. Plutarch explains:

And besides this, when observing how natural and familiar at Rome were such fatalities as the conflagration and collapse of buildings, owing to their being too massive and close together, he proceeded to buy slaves who were architects and builders. Then, when he had over five hundred of these, he would buy houses that were afire, and houses which adjoined those that were afire, and these their owners would let go at a trifling price owing to their fear and uncertainty. In this way the largest part of Rome came into his possession.

But Crassus was not satisfied with his ill-gotten gains. Besides the wealth and the political power that he possessed, Crassus wanted military glory and the fact that Julius Caesar was achieving military renown got under his skin, made worse by the fact that Pompey, of whom he had long been jealous, also had military laurels, ones that Crassus believed were rightfully his.

Crassus’s career had been in the accumulation of wealth and in public service, if his political career can be called that, and the only military service he had seen, was in the Third Servile War, better known as the slave revolt of Spartacus, which took place from 73-71 B.C. After the several alarming defeats suffered at the hands of Spartacus, the Senate placed the task of putting down the revolt into the hands of Crassus. He was eager to bring Spartacus to battle before the arrival of reinforcements under Pompey, from Spain, and was helped by Spartacus’s own men, who wished to engage him against the wishes of Spartacus himself. In the resulting battle, Spartacus crushed the slave revolt once and for all, Pompey arriving in time only in time to mop up. Yet the credit for the victory went to Pompey. Plutarch explained:

But although Crassus had shown most excellent generalship and, and had exposed his person to danger, nevertheless, his success did not fail to enhance the reputation of Pompey. For the fugitives from the battle encountered that general and were cut to pieces, so he could write to the senate that in open battle, indeed, Crassus had conquered the slaves, but that he himself had extirpated the war.

So, the credit for the quelling of the revolt went to Pompey, who was awarded a triumph for his victories, leaving Crassus jealous and unsatisfied. And when Julius Caesar began winning victories in Britannia and in Gaul, and proving his military mettle, the envy in Crassus kindled even more. Despite his jealousy of Pompey and of Julius Caesar, Crassus knew the men needed each other to fend off their political opponent Cato and to retain and increase their own power. Plutarch records that:

When Caesar came down to the city of Juca from Gaul, many Romans came thither to meet him, and among them, Pompey and Crassus. These held private conferences with Ceasar, and the three determined to carry matters with a higher hand, and to make themselves sole masters of the state. Caesar was to retain in his command, while Pompey and Crassus were to take other possessions and armies. But the only way to secure this end was to by soliciting second consulship.

The partisans of Crassus and Pompey used violence and disorder to secure their ends and succeeded in getting the two men elected consuls. Crassus and Pompey then “had another five years added to the proconsulship of Caesar in Gaul” and cast lots between themselves to determine who would get the proconsulship of Syria and Spain, once their terms as consuls expired. As it turned out, Crassus won Syria and Pompey won Spain. Crassus was extremely happy with these results, for he saw in the governorship of Syria an opportunity to pursue his dreams of military glory and renown by conquering new dominions for Rome from her eastern neighbors. Chief among them, and first on the list, was the kingdom of Parthia, rich and powerful enough both to attract Crassus’s attention as an ideal conquest, and to command respect, if not caution, from the Roman Republic. Crassus made no secret of his wishes. Both in private and in public, to strangers and to friends, he could not conceal his exuberance, nor his grandiose visions of conquest, and to his close associates he pridefully boasted, of his plans, and intentions, with an arrogance, Plutarch wrote, that was more becoming a much more youthful man, rather than Crassus, who appeared even older than his sixty years of life. Puffed up with pride, and with an arrogant and smug belief in his own skill as a military officer, Crassus boasted that he would extend his conquests beyond Parthia, as far as Bactria and India, until Rome’s borders stretched to the “Outer Sea.”

But the decree which gave Crassus his authority did not bestow upon him the authority to begin a war with Parthia. Yet despite this, Crassus intentions were known, and Julius Caesar for his part, goaded Crassus on. Public opinion at Rome was not in Crassus’ favor. The prospect of launching an aggressive war against Parthia, with whom Rome traded, and with whom she was at peace, if uneasily, did not sit well with many people who considered Crassus’s war to be immoral. “A large party arose which was displeased that anyone should go out to wage war on men who had done the state no wrong, but were in treaty relations with it…” This party was led by Ateius, one of the tribunes of the city, who threatened to oppose Crassus leaving Rome. Fearful of being attacked by the mob, Crassus begged Pompey to escort him out of Rome, which Pompey did. The mob made way for the two men and did not resist them. Unable to have Crassus detained, Ateius was forced to settle for publicly cursing Crassus, at the city gate, burning incense, and calling down curses from “sundry strange and dreadful gods” down upon Crassus.

Arrival in Syria

Undaunted, Crassus set out for Brundisium, with seven legions. From here, he embarked his army aboard ship and sailed for Syria, champing at the bit to begin his campaign, and unwilling to wait for better sailing weather, for it was wintertime, and the seas were rough. In the winter storms, Crassus lost some of his ships and men, and was forced ashore prematurely. He continued his journey overland now, through Galatia, and finally arrived at Antioch, the capital of the Roman province of Syria. Crassus wasted little time in undertaking his war against Parthia, for he was interested in plunder and profit, and Roman Syria offered little in that way, for the people were wholly pacified. Parthia, on the other hand, was rumored to be exceedingly wealthy, and its conquest would not only bring Crassus the military renown he so desperately wanted, but the great wealth to be seized would make the campaign financially profitable, to himself, as well as to Rome. Accordingly, Crassus lost no time in crossing the Euphrates River, and into Mesopotamia. Never mind the fact that in invading Parthia, Crassus was undertaking an unjust, aggressive war of conquest against an empire with whom Rome was technically at peace, but to make the matter worse, he was starting a major war, for no other reason than his own personal glory and economic enrichment!

The Parthian Empire

The Parthian Empire stretched from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf, and from the Euphrates River as far east as the Arabian Sea to the south and the Amu Darya River in the north. Rich and powerful, having access to trade routes from the east, the Parthian Empire was a power in the east to rival Rome’s in the west. The Parthian Empire was a feudal type of monarchy ruled by a king and governed by satraps. Large tracts of land and estates were held by nobles whose job was to supply serfs for military service. Parthia lacked a large standing army; its military needs being met by these nobles and their followers. The Parthian Empire had been founded in 247 B.C., by Ahah Arsaces I, of the Arsacid Dynasty in Parthia, in what was then a minor province of the Seleucid Empire. But after achieving independence from the Seleucids, the Parthians had risen in their power, conquering nearby territory, and occupied Mesopotamia. Allying with Pompey the Great to finish off the Seleucids, whose territory was absorbed into the Parthian Empire, this left Rome and Parthia as the two major powers in the Near East, their borders buffered by vassal states and client kingdoms of the two empires. As the Parthians depended upon the troops raised by the nobles to fight the king’s wars, it will be seen as not surprising, therefore, that their military bore striking resemblances to the medieval armies of feudal Europe. The Parthians depended mainly upon cavalry, of which they had two types. The majority were horse archers, armed with a short, but stiff, accurate, and very powerful composite bow. Drawn of the Parthian serfs, the horse archers were both outstanding horsemen and archers, well known for their famous “Parthian shot” in which they would fire while riding away from the foe, as well as toward them. The second type, far inferior in numbers, were heavily armed and armored lancers known as cataphracts. Drawn from the nobility, these cavalrymen were heavily armored and carried a long heavy spear as their main weapon. Their horses too were clad in armor. Except for the fact that he lacked stirrups, the cataphract resembled the early medieval knight in many respects. The Parthians also used infantry, but these of inferior quality to their cavalry. Roman historian Cassius Dio describes the Parthian mode of warfare:

The Parthians make no use of a shield, but their forces consist of mounted archers and pikemen, mostly in full armor. Their infantry is small, made up of the weaker men; but even these are all archers. They practice from boyhood, and the climate and the land combine to aid both horsemanship and archery. The land,  being for the most part level, is excellent for raising horses and very suitable for riding about on horseback; at any rate, even in war they lead about whole droves of horses, so that they can use different ones at different times, can ride up suddenly from a distance and also retire to a distance speedily; and the atmosphere there, which is very dry and does not contain the least moisture, keeps their bowstrings tense, except in the dead of winter. For that reason, they make no campaigns anywhere during that season but the rest of the year, they are almost invincible in their own country and in any that has similar characteristics. Outside of this district beyond the Euphrates they have once or twice gained some success in pitched battles and in sudden incursions, but they cannot wage an offensive war with any nation continuously and without pause, both because they encounter an entirely different condition of land and sky and because they do not lay in supplies of food or pay. Such is the Parthian state.

 

 

Start of the Campaign

As the Parthian Empire did not expect a Roman invasion, there was no guard posted at the fords, and Crassus found no opposition to his invasion and proceeded to penetrate far into Mesopotamia, laying waste and ravaging the country roundabout. Near the fortress of Ichnae, Crassus ran into his first opposition, from Silaces, the satrap of the region, but his men could not withstand Crassus’ army, and the Romans easily brushed them aside and wounded Silaces in the process. The satrap at once retired to personally warn the King of Parthia, Orodes II, of the invasion. Orodes II could do nothing for the moment. Lacking a standing army, it would take time for him to muster the troops of his nobles. Naturally, he started to do this right away, but in any event, he could bring no military opposition against Crassus at the moment.

Crassus, meanwhile, proceeded to occupy the cities of Mesopotamia along the Euphrates and its tributaries. Most of these came over to him voluntarily, being largely composed of Greeks who had settled there as a result of the campaigns of Alexander the Great and who had no great love for their Parthian overlords. The city of Zenodotium, however, was the exception to this rule. Its occupants, feigning friendship, promptly butchered the one hundred men that Crassus sent into it, and in revenge, Crassus proceeded to attack the city, take it, and plunder it. To punish the city, he sold its whole population into slavery. It was a very minor triumph, but Crassus believed it to be greater than it was, because he allowed his soldiers to address him as Imperator, following the victory, an honor that far outweighed the magnitude of the victory he had just won. Plutarch wrote that by this Crassus “incurred much disgrace” and showed himself to be of a “paltry spirit and without good hope for the greater struggles that lay before him, since he was so delighted with such a trifling acquisition.” Following this, Crassus pulled back into Syria to go into winter quarters and prepare to resume the campaign in the spring. But before he retired, he furnished garrisons for the cities and fortresses he had captured during the campaign thus far, a chore which detached 7,000 infantry and a thousand cavalry from his forces.

He could not replace the detached infantry, but he could the cavalry, for on his way to join him was his son Publius, who was a decorated veteran of the Gallic War, and fresh from that theater, leading a thousand cavalry from Gallic tribes allied to Rome. It was now that Crassus committed the first of many blunders in the campaign. It would have been well, Plutarch wrote, for him to have advanced to seize the cities of Babylonia and Seleucia, whose populations were hostile to the Parthians, rather than pulling back and giving the Parthians time to muster their forces in resistance to his resumption of the campaign in the spring. To make matters worse, the wealth obsessed Crassus was more concerned with financing the campaign than with purely military matters, for he did not number his troops, during the winter in Syria, nor did he institute athletic games for them to keep up their strength and prowess. Instead, he was too busy counting up the tribute he was receiving from the captured cities in Mesopotamia and spent many days weighing out the treasure that he plundered from the temple of Venus or Juno in Hierapolis.

King Orodes II meanwhile, spent the winter season mustering his forces for war. Most vexing to him was the thought that King Artavasdes of Armenia would reinforce Crassus’ army with his own, in order that they might wage war jointly against a mutual foe. Accordingly, Orodes II resolved invade Armenia first, and keep Artavasdes from giving any military aid to Crassus. But while dealing with Armenia with the bulk of his army, he would send a smaller force to harass and delay Crassus until he was finished dealing with the Armenians.

 

The fears of King Orodes II that King Artavasdes would intervene on behalf of the Romans were well founded, for presently, that king arrived at the Roman camp with an escort of 6,000 cavalry. Besides this, Artavasdes promised 10,000 more, and thirty-thousand-foot soldiers, to be supplied at Artavasdes expense, for a Parthian invasion. Naturally, Crassus was exceedingly pleased at these promised reinforcements, which would effectively double the size of his army. Artavasdes next offered what Crassus evidently thought was mere advice, but which Artavasdes apparently considered conditions of his support. Artavasdes urged Crassus not to march through Mesopotamia, but instead to invade Parthia by means of Armenia. Marching through that country, the logistical needs of Crassus’ army would not only be met and satisfied by Artavasdes, but the mountainous country of Armenia through which Crassus would march would render him safe from the Parthians, for their cavalry would be nullified by their inability to operate in the mountainous terrain.

Crassus, however, was too tactically inept, or simply too proud, to recognize sound tactical advice when he heard it. Again, he bumbled, inexplicably and shockingly refusing the advice, as well as the reinforcements. Rather than invading Parthia by means of Armenia, Crassus replied that he would invade through Mesopotamia. In fairness to Crassus, his decision was made on the basis of the fact that he needed to relieve the garrisons and allies he had left behind in Mesopotamia, in danger from the Parthians, but the advantages to be gained from cooperating with Artavasdes were greater than any from marching through Mesopotamia. When he saw that Crassus was stubbornly and foolishly going to have his own way, regardless of the tactical advantages Artavasdes was offering, the Armenian king rode away with his escort, and so Crassus committed his colossal second blunder of the campaign.[1]

 

When spring arrived, in 53 B.C., Crassus finally began to muster his men from their winter quarters in preparation for the renewal of the campaign. Envoys now arrived, sent from King Orodes II to Syria to meet with Crassus. The envoys informed Crassus that if he was acting officially on behalf of the Roman Republic he and his army could expect no mercy from the Parthians, but that if Crassus had invaded the kingdom on his own initiative and for his own purposes, the Parthians might be inclined to show a little mercy, considering Crassus’ advanced age, and would allow his men to return to their homes unharmed. In reply, Crassus boasted that he would inform the envoys of his answer when he had reached Seleucia. The eldest of the envoys, a man named Vagises, burst out laughing at this. “Oh, Crassus,” he said, pointing to the palm of his outstretched hand, “hair will grow there before thou shalt see Seleucia.”

The envoys returned to inform King Orodes that war was imminent and unavoidable. Accordingly, King Orodes II took the bulk of his army to deal with Armenia as planned, while he sent a detachment of 10,000 cavalry, 9,000 of whom were horse archers, and the remaining 1,000 of whom were cataphracts, to delay Crassus until King Orodes II got through punishing Armenia, and to make things unhealthy for the garrisons Crassus had left behind in Mesopotamia. This detachment was not entrusted to just anybody, but to King Orodes’ experienced general of the Parthian army, a man named Surena. Unlike Crassus, whose military exploits were limited to the suppression of a slave uprising, Surena had more impressive military experience. During the recent Parthian civil war, in which Orodes II’s brother, Mithridates III had driven Orodes from his throne, Surena had captured the city of Seleucia and helped Orodes II regain his throne. Plutarch describes Surena:

Nor was Surena an ordinary man at all, but in wealth, birth and consideration, he stood next to the king, while in valor and ability, he was the foremost Parthian of his time, besides having no equal in stature and personal beauty. He used to travel on private business with a baggage train of a thousand camels and was followed by two hundred wagons for his concubines, while a thousand mail-clad horsemen and a still greater number of light-armed cavalry served as his escort; and had altogether, as horsemen, vassals, and slaves, no fewer than ten thousand men. Moreover, he enjoyed the ancient and hereditary privilege of being the first to set the crown upon the head of the Parthian king…

The detachment of cavalry proceeded on this mission, and survivors from the fighting made their way to Crassus’ camp to warn him of the Parthian mode of warfare, of which Crassus was ignorant. Plutarch reports:

They had been eyewitnesses of the numbers of the enemy and of their mode of warfare when they attacked their cities, and, as is usual, they exaggerated all the terrors of their report. “When the men pursued,” they declared, “there was no escaping them, and when they fled, there was no escaping them, and when they fled, there was no taking them, and strange missiles are the precursors of their appearance, which pierce through every obstacle before one sees who sent them, and as for the armor of their mail-clad horsemen, some of it made to force its way through everything, and some of it to give way to nothing.”

These reports on the enemy’s method and mode of warfare came as a shock to the Romans. Crassus and his soldiers had figured that the campaign would be extremely easy, for they had believed that the Parthians would fight as the other Eastern peoples the Romans had fought, the Armenians and the Cappadocians, who had done so with lightly armed and armored troops that could not stand against the Roman legionaries, and would not even try, instead refraining from closing distance. Plutarch records that the Roman Lucullus had “robbed and plundered” the Cappadocians “till he was  weary of it,” and the Romans considered the forthcoming fighting to be in that vein, “that the most difficult part of the war would be the long journey and the pursuit of men who would not come to close quarters, but now, contrary to their hopes, they were to led to expect a struggle and great peril.” Now possessing this intelligence, some of the officers thought that Crassus should throw in the towel and call off the whole campaign. Among them was the Quaestor, Caius Cassius Longinus. Undaunted, however, by the reports, Crassus resolved to proceed with the campaign. Crassus’ army comprised seven legions, some 30,000 men, along with four thousand cavalry, 1000 of whom were the Gallic cavalry commanded by his son Publius, and four thousand light troops, which made for a total of 38,000 Romans in Crassus’ army.

The Roman Army crossed the Euphrates at Zuegma in the midst of a raging thunderstorm, and Cassius Dio records various occurrences that seemed bad omens to the superstitious Romans and seemed to bode ill for the upcoming campaign.

One portent had to do with the so called “eagle” of the army. It is a small shrine, and in it perches a golden eagle. It is found in all the enrolled legions, and it is never moved from the winter quarters unless the whole army takes the field; one man carries it on a long shaft, which ends in a sharp spike so that it can be set firmly in the ground. Now one of these eagles was unwilling to join him in his passage of the Euphrates at that time but stuck fast in the earth as if rooted there, until many took their places around it and pulled it out by force, so that it accompanied them quite reluctantly. But one of the large flags that resemble sails, with purple letters upon them to distinguish the army and its commander-in-chief, was overturned, and fell from the bridge into the river. This happened in the midst of a violent wind. Then Crassus had the others of equal length cut down, so they might be shorter and hence steadier to carry; but he only increased the prodigies. For at the very time of crossing the river so great a fog seemed to envelop the soldiers that they fell over one another and could see nothing of the enemy’s country until they set foot upon it, and the sacrifices, both for crossing, and for landing, proved most unfavorable. Meanwhile, a great wind burst upon them, bolts of lightning fell, and the bridge collapsed before they had all passed over. The occurrences were such that anyone, even the most indifferent and uninstructed, would interpret them to mean that would fare badly and not return; hence, there was great fear and dejection in the army.

 

The apparent bad omens continued. Lentils and salt, tokens of mourning to the Romans were served first in the rations when the army stopped to eat after the crossing. “Be of good cheer.” Crassus spoke to his men to lift their spirts, “for none of us shall come back this way.” But the words that he spoke had the opposite effect, and Cassius Dio points out that Crassus’ oratory was not enough to muster their spirits. Finally, when Crassus was making the ceremonial sacrifice of purification on behalf of the army, he dropped the viscera, but brushed it off by responding, “Such is old age, but no weapon, you may be sure, shall fall from its hands.”

Such it was, and the campaign was doomed to failure not because Crassus failed to heed the omens, but because his plans ran counter to the predestined outcome assigned to them by Almighty God, who planned to bring out his own purposes from Crassus’ expedition, and he wasn’t warning the Romans in advance with omens. All the warning the Romans needed was supplied in the fact that they were not acting in accordance with the word of God, and thus were doomed to reap the curses of disobedience to the law and wisdom contained in it. Crassus’ line of march was along the Euphrates River. His scouts reported that country bereft of the enemy, but that they had encountered the tracks of many horses which had apparently wheeled about and fled from pursuit. This information increased the arrogance and confidence of Crassus, and of his men at well, who now began to regard the Parthians, no longer with fear, but with contempt, for apparently, they would fight the Romans at close quarters, being too afraid and cowardly to do so. Cassius advised Crassus to stop in one of the garrisoned cities until more sure intelligence could be gotten of the Parthians and he strongly urged the course of action that Crassus was currently taking, that of marching along the river toward Seluecia, where he could be provisioned from the river, from whom he had a plentiful supply of fresh water, and food from transports in the river, which  could supply the camps he set up along his line of march. The river would also protect Crassus’ flank.

At this time, an Arabian sheik named Abgar II, arrived at the Roman camp. Abgar II had a pro-Roman reputation, but he was in reality acting as a Parthian double agent. Cassius Dio comments that he

… “pretended to be well disposed towards Crassus. He spent money on him unsparingly, learned all his plans and reported them to the foe, and further, if any of them advantageous for the Romans, he tried to divert him from it, but if disadvantageous, urged him forward.

By working his way into Crassus’ confidence, Abgar II tried to lure Crassus and his army away from the river and into the river and into the desert where he could be surrounded and annihilated by the Parthian cavalry in terrain conducive to cavalry operations. As stated before, Crassus’ plan of operations was to advance along the Euphrates to the cities of Seleucia and Cteisphon, the capital of the Parthian empire. Abgar protested against this course, alleging that it would take a long time, and the time to strike was now. It was imperative that Crassus pursue the Parthians who, he reported were in a state of retreat, and destroy them before the passage of time allowed the Parthians to concentrate their forces. “If you intend to fight,” he told Crassus, “You ought to hasten on before all the king’s forces are concentrated and he had regained his courage; since, for the time being Surena and Sillaces have been thrown forward to sustain your pursuit, but the king is nowhere to be seen.”

But the truth was not how Abgar had presented it to Crassus. Orodes II was not absent with the bulk of the Parthian army because he had not yet gained the necessary nerve; rather, he had sent General Surena forward to engage Crassus and delay the Romans until he had settled the Armenian threat. Surena intended to do more than simply delay the Romans; he intended to exterminate them. Crassus, thirsting for an easy victory and the laurels of military triumph, proved easy prey for Abgar’s deception, and Crassus accordingly was persuaded to turn his army and march them through the plains, away from the Euphrates and directly into the desert. This was yet another of Crassus’ great errors.

The terrain was at first pleasant, but gradually grew more arid, until the Romans found themselves in the desert, a place with no water and no trees as far as the eye could see in any direction. Abgar II now departed, on the ruse that he was going to feed false information to the Parthians, but in reality, to feed true information to them, that the Romans had fallen into Surena’s trap. It was now up to Surena to close the net. The Romans were growing more and more distraught, for the soldiers were growing thirsty and the country was increasingly arid. Everywhere the soldiers looked, they saw nothing but sand dunes, and an utter lack of plants, streams, grass, water, and hills or rising ground of any kind. The Romans began to suspect that Abgar had tricked them. At this time news came from King Artavasdes, informing them that he could give them no aid, for he was embroiled in a major war with the Parthians. He advised Crassus to march to his own aid, or if unwilling to do this, to at least, march through the mountains where the Parthian cavalry could not operate. Crassus exploded at this, declaring that he had no time at present to waste on the Armenians, but that when he was through handling the Parthians, he would make the Armenians pay for what he considered their treachery in not coming to his aid.

At length, the Roman army reached the Ballisus river, a tributary of the Euphrates, where beyond this, the Parthian army lay in wait for the Romans. Surena’s scouts were out and about ahead of his army, and the Roman scouts, even before Crassus’ army reached the stream, ran into Surena’s troops. Most of them were cut down and slain by the Parthians, but a few managed to get away, with considerable difficulty, and reported that the Parthians were nearby with a large army and possessed great confidence. All the Romans were greatly frightened at this news, no one more so than Crassus himself, for the Parthians were acting in a manner far different than what Abgar had led him to believe. That spy had led Crassus to think that the Parthians were in full retreat and wishing to oppose an open battle with the Romans; but this latest intelligence revealed the Parthian forces to be strong, belligerent, and seeking battle. Crassus “began to draw up his forces in haste and with no great consistency.” Cassius, level-headed as he was, recommended that Cassius extend his lines as far as possible along the plain, with little depth, to prevent the Parthians from flanking him. Cassius had first gone along, then changed his mind, and concentrated his men in a hollow square with twelve cohorts on each side, the horses and baggage in the center. This was yet another error on the part of Crassus, for the formation suggested by Cassius was a better one. The next error on Crassus’ part was in not remaining by the Ballisus to meet the impending Parthian attack, where the army would have access to fresh water throughout the battle. Instead, Crassus heeded the bad advice, this time of his son Publius and pushed ahead from the river to engage the Parthians. The advance was made at a “quick and sustained pace” Plutarch reported, and not “slowly, as was usual on the way to the battle.”

The Parthian army now came into sight, and the Romans were at first relieved to see that the Parthian army did not look numerous. Surena’s army was only a fourth the size of Crassus’ and to present the illusion of still more numerical inferiority, Surena hid the main body of his army behind his advance guard, and their drummers began beating out their battle call, which had a disconcerting psychological effect upon the Romans, putting them in “consternation at this din.” Surena now gave the signal, and the Parthians threw off the robes by which they had previously covered their armor, which now glittered brightly in the sunlight. To look fearsome, the Parthians bunched their long hair over their foreheads, in contrast to Surena who wore his parted, and his face painted. Surena himself was the “tallest and fairest of them all” according to Plutarch, whose “effeminate beauty did not well correspond to his reputation for valor.”

The Battle

The Parthians made the first offensive move of the battle, and the cataphracts swept forward to charge down with their lances upon the Roman formation. The heavy cavalry swept down upon the Romans but drew rein when they saw the depth of the formation and the firm Roman composure and discipline of the men. Instead, they feigned breaking ranks and dispersal, while surrounding Crassus’ square on all sides.

Crassus now ordered his lightly armed troops to advance, which they did. They did not get far, however, before they encountered a storm of Parthian arrows, and they fled back into the safety of the square, and the Romans now began to manifest the beginning signs of disorder and fright, as they saw the first examples of the “velocity and force” of the Parthian arrows, “which fractured armor, and tore their way through every covering alike, whether hard or soft.” The Parthians now stood off from one another and began to fire their arrows from all sides at the Romans. The Parthian bows were large, curved and powerful, and though their accuracy wasn’t too great, the horse archers didn’t need much of it, because they could hardly miss the large and closely packed Roman formation anyhow. The Romans now found themselves caught between a rock and a hard place, for if they retained their formation, they suffered many casualties, but if they advanced upon the horse archers, they would simply retire from before them, shooting back arrows as they retired, as they put into practice the famous Parthian shot. Despite the poor tactical situation in which the Romans found themselves, they did not despair, for they knew that the Parthians could not keep this up forever; eventually they would run out of arrows, and then the tactical advantage would swing back to the Romans, as the Parthians would be forced into close combat, or would retire. However, as time went on, neither of these eventualities occurred, and the Romans were disheartened to see the Parthians resupplying their arrows from camel trains brought up for the purpose. The Parthians travelled very lightly, but they did possess rudimentary logistics, and basic though it was, it was enough for the job at hand, which was making human pin cushions out of the Romans. Crassus’ heart sank as he saw this, and he sent messengers to Publius, ordering his cavalry to forge ahead and bring the enemy to close combat, lest the Romans be slowly but surely slaughtered by the Parthian arrow storm.

Publius wasted no time in doing so. He gathered thirteen hundred cavalrymen, a thousand of which were the Gallic cavalry he had led from Gaul, five hundred archers, and eight cohorts of infantry and led them in a charge upon the enemy. But the Parthians, which had been in the process of enveloping his command, retired from before him, and Publius, excitedly thinking that victory was in his grasp, and that the charge of the Roman horse, had shattered the Parthian horse, pursued them. Unfortunately, for Publius it was a Parthian ruse.  This was discovered only after the cavalry and infantry had plunged ahead a far distance after the enemy, their steps quickened by their joy at the success they were apparently having, and full of zeal to shed Parthian blood upon Roman steel. The Romans halted in the belief that the Parthians would now come to combat at close quarters, but it was at this point that the Romans discovered the ruse. The fleeing Parthians were suddenly reinforced, and the cataphracts blocked their path, and while the horse archers rode rings around the formation, tearing up the ground and raising great clouds of dust, which blinded the Romans, while shooting clouds of arrows into their ranks. Plutarch reports:

…the Romans…being crowded into a narrow compass and falling upon one another, were shot, and died no easy nor even speedy death. For, in the agonies of convulsive pain, and writhing about the arrows, they would break them off in their wounds, and then in trying to pull out by force the barbed heads which had pierced their veins and sinews, they tore and disfigured themselves the more. Thus, many died, and the survivors were incapacitated for fighting. And when Publius urged them to charge the enemy’s mail-clad horsemen, they showed him that their hands were riveted to their shields and their feet nailed through and through to the ground, so that they were helpless either for fight or for self-defense.

 

Publius, by cheering on his cavalry, at length got them to charge the Parthian cataphracts and bring on the close quarters combat that he hoped would tip the balance of the battle in the Romans’ favor. But even in the close quarters combat, the Parthians still retained the tactical advantage, for the Roman spears were small and feeble, while the cataphracts possessed long and heavy lances. The Roman spears proved ineffective against Parthian armor and breastplates, while the Parthian lances worked great destruction upon the lightly equipped and unarmored bodies of the Gauls, the bulk of whom comprised Publius’ force. But the battle hardened Gauls had the tactical sense to improvise on the spot and inflict the only Roman success of the whole battle. Grasping the long lances of the Parthians, the Gauls would yank them off their horse, despite the considerable difficulty in doing this due to the weight of their armor. On the ground, and unhorsed, the cataphracts were rendered vulnerable in their heavy armor, to the weapons of the still mounted Gauls. Another improvised tactic that the Gauls would use was to dismount, and rush under the mounts of the cataphracts, stabbing their horses in the unprotected belly, and bringing down both horse and rider. This tactic was an exceedingly dangerous one to the assailant, and more often than not, brought death to the Gaul by crushing him beneath the mortally wounded steed, but it was an effective tactic, borne of desperation.

But the Gauls could not retain the upper hand over their opponents in this way indefinitely, and the effects of heat and thirst, to which they were unused, the climate of Gaul being very different from the Mesopotamian desert, soon began to tell on them. Many of their horses too, had been skewered by Parthian lances. The Gauls were thus forced to fall back upon the infantry, and Publius’ whole force was forced to make a stand upon a sandy hillock nearby, which they thought would bring them the advantage of height. Unfortunately, for Publius and his men, height did not bring them the advantage that they thought it would. Plutarch explained:

For on level ground, the front ranks do, to some extent, afford relief to those who are behind them. But here, where the inequality of the ground raised one man above another, and lifted every man who was behind another into greater prominence, there was no such thing as escape, but they were all alike hit with arrows, bewailing their inglorious and ineffective death.

Publius was among them, struck by an arrow through the hand. Two Greeks who lived at nearby Carrhae, a city which had gone over to the Romans, urged Publius to try to escape to that city, but Publius refused, saying that no death, no matter how terrifying, could induce him to abandon his suffering men, and ordered them to save their own lives if they could, but as for him, he would stay with his men. Finding the situation utterly hopeless, Publius resolved to commit suicide. Unable to do the deed himself because of his wound, Publius ordered his shield-bearer to run him through the side with his sword, and the shield-bearer complied. The survivors of Publius’ force fought on doggedly, but at length they were whittled down, and the Parthians mounted the hill and used their lances to skewer the remainder, until only five hundred remained. These the Parthians took prisoner, being impressed by their bravery, and for this, sparing them from summary execution. As for Publius’ corpse, the Parthians cut off his head, and mounted it upon a spear. Then with Publius’ detachment having been dealt with, Surena turned his attention back to Crassus’ main body.

In the meantime, things had improved a little at the square of Crassus’ main body. Not only had he received the news that Publius had routed the enemy and was in pursuit of them, but the Parthians had no longer been pressing him as hotly, for most of them had streamed away to destroy Publius’ detachment. Crassus thus recovered some of his courage and drew his troops together on sloping ground, in the belief that Publius would soon return with his cavalry from the pursuit. However, it was not long before news reached Crassus that Publius had not everything his own way. Messengers had been sent out by the son to his father carrying messages of the disaster occurring to his sortie force. However, of the two he sent, the first was caught by the Parthians and slain, while the second succeeded in reaching Crassus’ main body only with considerable difficulty. Publius’ message was an urgent one, informing Crassus that unless he received aid from the main body, and that quickly, his whole detachment would be lost. Torn between love for his son and fear for the safety of the army, which would be best served by remaining where it was, it seemed, Crassus vacillated. Finally, he decided to go to his son’s aid, and at length, moved his forces forward.

At this point, however, the Parthians finished with Publius and turned their attention to his father. The Parthians rode up and began to surround his main body once more, as their drums beat their battle cry, and the Romans began to prepare for a second engagement after the brief lull. To the great horror of Crassus, he and the other Romans were treated to the terrible sight of Publius’ head mounted on the head of a Parthian lance. The Parthians had every intention of rubbing it in, too. Trying their hand at psychological warfare, the Parthians rode up close to the square and displayed the head for all the Romans to see. Mockingly, they demanded the identity of his parentage and family, for surely, they said, such a noble and brave soldier could not be the offspring of such a cowardly and base man as Crassus. The psychological warfare of the Parthians had its effect, “more than all the rest of the terrible experiences,” Plutarch reported, for the Romans spirits were “shattered and unstrung,” he said, and rather than instilling in them a fierce desire for revenge, the expected emotion, the Romans trembled and shuddered in despondency and fright.

Given the circumstances, surprisingly, it was Crassus who rose to the occasion and tried to rally the flagging spirits of his command. Up and down the ranks, he went, showing “more brilliant qualities in that awful hour than ever before,” in Plutarch’s words, and using his oratory for a use other than political:

“Mine O Romans, is this sorrow, and mine alone; but the great fortune and glory of Rome abide unbroken and unconquered in you who are alive and safe. And now if you have any pity for me, thus bereft of the noblest of sons, show it by your wrath against the enemy. Rob them of their joy; avenge their cruelty; be not cast down a what had happened, for it must needs be that those who aim at great deeds should also suffer greatly. It was not without bloody losses Lucullus overthrew Tigranes, of Scipio Antiochus; and our fathers of old lost a thousand ships of Sicily, and in Italy many imperators and generals, not one of whom, by his defeat, prevented them from afterwards mastering his conquerors. For it was not by good fortune merely that the Roman state reached its present plentitude of power, but by the patient endurance and valor of those who faced dangers in its behalf.”

But Crassus oratorical abilities were not working on his soldiers. When he bid them to raise a battle cry, all he could get from was a feeble, weak and uneven sound, while those of the Parthians was clear and bold. Crassus now realized just how despondent were his soldiers. It was in this state that the Parthians now opened their attack.

The horse archers once more rode about the Roman ranks, discharging their arrows into their ranks, with terrible effect, while kicking up terrific dust clouds that inhibited Roman visibility and spread confusion. It was a repetition of the results that had transpired at Crassus main body before the detachment of Publius’ cavalry. Crassus no longer had cavalry to detach, and the cataphracts freed from that worry, advanced closer to the main body, hemming in the Romans, whose closely packed formation provided excellent targets for the Parthian horse archers. Against such a formation, they could hardly miss. Roman after Roman was hit, no armor or covering proving impervious to the deadly Parthian arrow. Cassius Dio describes the situation:

The missiles falling thick upon them from all sides at once struck down many by a mortal blow, rendered many useless for battle, and caused distress to all. They flew into their eyes and pierced their hands and all the other parts of their body and, penetrating their armor, deprived them of their protection and compelled them to expose themselves to each new missile. Thus, while a man was guarding against arrows or pulling out one that had struck fast, he received more wounds, one after another. Consequently, it was impracticable for them to move, and impracticable for them to remain at rest. Neither course afforded them safety, but each was fraught with destruction, the one because it was out of their power, and the other because they were then more easily wounded.

The Romans were caught between a tactical rock and a hard place. Their standard defense against arrow fire of this kind was to form the testudo formation.[2] But while this formation protected them from arrows, it did not protect them from the cataphracts. No sooner would they form into the testudo formation than the cataphracts would assail them, and with deadly results, for the heavy Parthian lance was powerful and heavy enough to pierce the Roman shield, and had enough force behind the thrust of heavy armor plated user and his armor plated steed that it would frequently pierce two men at once at one thrust, shield besides.  But if they loosened their formation to better deal with the charges of the cataphracts, they would be assailed once again with that devastating arrow fire. The Romans were truly caught between a rock and hard place. No matter which tactical formation they adopted, they were at the mercy of the Parthians, who would simply utilize whichever tactical approach the Roman formation was vulnerable to based on what their formation was at the moment. Cassius Dio explains the Roman predicament:

For if they decided to lock shields for the purpose of avoiding the arrows by the closeness of their array, the pikemen were upon them with a rush, striking down some, and at least scattering the others; and if they extended their ranks to avoid this, they would be struck with the arrows. Hereupon many died from fright at the very charge of the pikemen, and many perished hemmed in by the horsemen. Others were knocked over by the pikes or carried off transfixed.

Rather than face a slow death from the arrow fire, some Romans boldly sortied out to rush desperately upon their foes. “These did little damage,” Plutarch reported, “but met with a speedy death from great and fatal wounds, since the spear which the Parthians thrust into the horses was heavy with steel, and often had impetus enough to pierce through two men at once.” The battle had begun at noon and lasted all afternoon. The heat and thirst began to take its toll on the Romans, and the number of casualties rose. Assailed from all sides by the Parthian horsemen, joined now by the tribesmen of the treacherous Abgar II, the Romans were hemmed in to a smaller and smaller area. Turning about to face the onrushing cataphracts, and their Arab allies, the Romans frequently tripped over their own wounded, which littered the ground at their feet, and sometimes inadvertently stabbed each other with their swords.

The day’s fighting finally drew to a close as darkness fell. Some of the Parthian lances had been bent and others broken in the fighting, and the bowstrings of the horse archers had in some cases snapped, under constant use. Swords too were blunted, and most of all, the Parthians were growing tired of the slaughter. The Parthians now withdrew and bivouacked nearby, their morale high. They did not bivouac too closely to the Romans, however, lest the Romans sortie during the night and attack their camp, as Parthian camps were not protected with entrenchments, as were Roman ones. In such a night engagement, their cavalry and archery would be at a disadvantage.

The next day would see the extermination of the Romans, the Parthians were confident, if they did not consent to be made prisoners and marched to the Parthian city of Arsaces as prisoners. These terms were made clear to the Romans: Crassus would be given one night to mourn his son; after this, he would go to Arsaces with the Parthians. And he was given no choice in the matter. He could go of his own will, or he could be carried there, but either way he was going. The Parthians made no attempts to capture any unsuspecting Romans in the darkness, for Roman discipline was too good, and the legionaries remained at their posts, retained their weapons, and the Parthians could see that they still had some fight left in them.

Flight to Carrhae

It was a very distressing night for the Romans. They were too despondent to care for the wounded and dying, or even to bury their dead, but rather each man was too busy indulging in self-pity, “lamenting his own fate,” as Plutarch put it. Escape seemed impossible, and the wounded were a problem. They would impede the retreat if they were to be carried, but if they were left to the mercies of the Parthians, it was sure that their cries would alert the Parthians to the fact that the Romans were slipping out of their trap. The soldiers blamed Crassus for the predicament. But they were given no opportunity to see him, either to revile him, or to look to him for a solution to the predicament, because the man had suffered a complete nervous breakdown, and spent the night lying on the ground by himself. Trying unsuccessfully to rouse him and get him to take command of the situation, it devolved upon Cassius and Octavius the legate to do it for him. Calling together the centurions and captains, they deliberated upon the matter, and decided to retreat to Carrhae.

The retreat would be made without trumpet call, to avoid alerting the Parthians, and the wounded would be left behind, to the tender mercies of the Parthians. Unfortunately, for the Romans, disorder now filled the camp. Perceiving that they were being abandoned, the wounded groaned and shouted, and when the Roman advance finally began, disorder and panic gripped the soldiers, sure that the Parthians had discerned their intentions and were even then coming against them. Some of the walking wounded also tried to join the flight, and the retreat was delayed, except for three hundred horsemen who reached Carrhae about midnight. They informed Coponius, the commander of the Roman garrison there, of the battle that had transpired between the Parthians and Romans. Coponius at once set out with his garrison to relieve Crassus and encountering the main body in the darkness making its way toward the city, his command escorted Crassus and his troops within its walls.

Surena found out about the Roman retreat but knowing the disadvantages of night combat for his cavalry, he declined to do anything about it until morning. Many of the wounded remained on the field, being unable to walk, and lacking vehicles or guides, as the drivers and guides had fled with the vehicles, having to be left to the tender mercies of the Parthians. That that could walk made their escape, but many perished, either expiring from their wounds, for which they were unable to obtain proper care, or as their strength gave out.

When the sun rose the next day, the Parthians set out to complete the destruction of the Roman army. They found the Roman camp deserted, save for 4,000 wounded, whom they promptly slaughtered. They also found many Roman soldiers wondering about the plain seeking Carrhae, who had gotten somehow detached from the main body in the darkness and captured them. They also encountered four cohorts under the command of Vargonteius, a legate, which had also gotten separated from the main body in the darkness and had lost their way. Surrounded on a hill, they were gradually cut to pieces by the Parthians. Boldly, the twenty survivors prepared to cut their way through the enemy with drawn swords, and their bravery so impressed the Parthians that they allowed them to retire to Carrhae with their lives.

Surena had no received false intelligence that Crassus and other men of high rank in the Roman army had made their escape from Carrhae and that a “mixed rabble” to use Plutarch’s phrase was left in Carrhae. Surena was unwilling to put complete confidence in this report, however, and in order to ascertain the truth, so that he could lay siege to Carrhae or leave the city alone and hunt down Crassus, he sent one of his attendants to the city walls, who could speak in the Roman tongue. The attendant called out for Crassus or Cassius, announcing that Surena wished to have a conference with them. This message was given to Crassus, who agreed to this. A little while afterwards, two Arabs arrived before the wall, and announced that Surena was proposing a truce, offering Crassus’ army safe conduct if they would enter into a treaty with Orodes II and leave Mesopotamia. Cassius agreed to this and asked that time and place be decided for the meeting. The Arabs assured them that would be done and then rode away.

Surena was delighted at the fact that the Romans were holed up in Carrhae where he could get at them. He led the Parthian army against the city, and insultingly demanded that the Romans deliver Crassus and Cassius to them in chains as a prerequisite to any treaty-making. The Romans realized that the proposal of a truce had been merely a ruse and urged Crassus to abandon his fanciful hopes of aid from Armenia. Crassus didn’t go that far, but he had no intentions of undergoing a Parthian siege of the city and resolved to flee from the city. Because fleeing by daylight was impossible, Crassus planned to make his escape by night and under the nose of the Parthians. The mass flight was planned for a moonless night, and to ensure secrecy the army was not to be informed beforehand. But Crassus’ precautions were all for naught, because he seemed to have a knack for putting his trust in Parthian double agents, and he communicated his plan to one, by the name of Andromachus, who was entrusted to be the fugitives guide. It was a classic case of the fox guarding the henhouse. Crassus might just as well as asked Surena himself to guide the fugitives out of Carrhae.

That general made no intent to interfere with the Roman flight that moonless night when it was undertaken, because it was the Parthian custom, for reasons already given, not to fight at night. In any case, he didn’t have to; he could rest secure knowing that Andromachus was keeping the Romans unhealthy for him. This the guide did to the best of his ability. Andromachus led the Romans out into unfamiliar ground, first by one route, and then by another, to enable them to not make good time, so that by morning Surena’s cavalry could upon them. Finally, he led them over marshy ground and ground full of ditches, which made it difficult for the Romans, since they had to watch their step and risked drowning in the marshes, or breaking their necks in the ditches, neither of which they could see very easily in the moonless night. Some of the Romans were not so gullible as Crassus. The constant changes of route by Andromachus led some of them to smell a rat, and Cassius was one of them. His Arab guides urged him to return to Carrhae, but Cassius was too afraid of Parthians to do this. Instead, with five hundred horsemen, he rode off to Syria. Octavious, and 5,000 of the Romans, relying on trustworthy guides, reached the hill country of Sinnaca, where they were relatively safe from the Parthian cavalry.

Death of Crassus

Daylight found Crassus, with four cohorts of infantry, a few horsemen, and five lictors struggling in the difficult ground and the marshes. The rising of the sun enabled Crassus to finally gain the road, and he at only rendezvous with Octavious’ contingent, when Crassus’ party was beset by the Parthian cavalry. They at once scrambled up a hill, not so impregnable to the Parthians as the one on which Octavious and his men had taken position. It was, however, connected to that by a hill which ran through the midst of the plain. Octavious and his men ran to the aid of their commander, drove back the Parthians, and surrounded Crassus. They, Plutarch wrote, “covered him with their shields, boldly declaring that no Parthian missile should smite their imperator until they had all died fighting in his defense.” Surena now realized that the Romans had reached the foothills, and once in the hills, it would be impossible to capture them, because it was inaccessible to his cavalry. Therefore, he decided that the time had come to reach into his bag of tricks and try another ruse. Pulling back his cavalry, he released some of his Roman captives, whom he had caused to overhear his men speaking to each other that King Orodes II did not want the war, and desired to regain the Roman friendship by treating Crassus and his men kindly. Of course, Surena wanted the prisoners to overhear this, and report these lies back to Crassus. The prisoners did so, and when Surena himself approached the Romans, bow unstrung, he held out his hand, and personally invited Crassus to a peace conference, with the words, “I have put your valor and power to the test against the wishes of the king, who now of his own accord shows you the mildness and friendliness of his feelings by offering to make a truce with you if you will withdraw, and by affording you the means of safety.”

The relieved Romans swallowed the Parthian assurances hook, line and sinker, but Crassus was himself wary, because it had finally dawned on him that he had been deceived by the treachery of his guides and was hesitant to put his trust in the Parthians. This newfound Parthian desire for friendship seemed out of character with them, and what behavior they had demonstrated throughout the campaign. Crassus did not accept Surena’s offer but resolved to think about it. But his soldiers were running out of patience. They urged Crassus to accept the offer, and when he hesitated, they took to verbally abusing him, stating that it was unfair of him to ask them to fight men he was not willing to confer with, even when they were unarmed. Crassus tried to argue with them, pointing out that if they could hold out the rest of that day, they could reach the mountains where they could be safe, and he pointed out the road leading up into them. But the soldiers were unconvinced and clashed their arms together threateningly. Crassus finally relented, but with the greatest reluctance.

The plan was to meet in the open space between the two armies with an equal number of men from both sides. Crassus and a small party of Romans therefore made their way down the hill onto the open plain and first encountered two Greeks in Parthian service who dismounted their horses, bowed, and addressing Crassus in Greek, urged him to test Surena’s words by sending a party forward to ascertain whether Surena was really coming to the conference unarmed. Crassus replied that if he had any worries, he would not have consented to come into their hands. Nevertheless, he did send two men forward to inquire about details for the planned peace conference. Surena promptly detained them both, while he and his officers advanced to Crassus and his party. “What?” The Parthians exclaimed, seeing the Romans afoot. “What is this? The Roman imperator on foot, while we are mounted?” Surena at once ordered a horse brought to Crassus, who protested that neither side was at fault because each was following the custom of his country in this meeting. Surena answered that from this moment forward, Rome and Parthia were at peace, but that it was necessary for Crassus to go the river Euphrates and there put the agreement in writing. “You Romans, “he pointed out, “are not very mindful of agreements.”

Crassus proposed to send for a horse, but Surena offered him one of his own instead, saying that it was offered by King Orodes II. Without waiting for Crassus to mount, two of Surena’s men bodily lifted Crassus into the saddle and slapped the horse to send it on its way. This alarmed the Romans in Crassus’ party, fearing he was being abducted, and Octavious seized the bridle to prevent this, while the other Romans tried to push away the Parthians surrounding the horse. A scuffle broke out, and then blows were exchanged. Octavious drew his sword and cut down one of the Parthians, but another cut him down from behind. Crassus, however, was unhorsed, and while on the ground, was killed by a Parthian named Promaxathes, though there is some doubt concerning the precise identity of Crassus’ slayer. The Parthians then poured molten gold down the Crassus’ throat to symbolize his greed that had caused him to invade Parthia, then cut off his head and right hand, which they took back to King Orodes II.

Surena now informed the remaining Romans that Crassus had met his just desserts, but that the rest of the Romans had nothing to fear from him. Some of them came down and delivered themselves up to the Parthian general, but the majority did not trust him. They waited until nightfall and scattered in the night. Of these a few made their escape but were hunted down and killed by the Parthians’ Arabian allies, according to Plutarch, although Cassius Dio insists that it was the other way around. And so, the campaign ended, with Roman losses at 20,000 killed, and 10,000 wounded.

Aftermath

If it can be said that Surena gave Rome a very serious wound, it can likewise be said that he was not content until he had rubbed salt in it. Surena sent Crassus’ head and hand to Orodes II in Armenia but sent word to Seleucia that he was bringing Crassus back alive. Plutarch writes:

Surena now led his army back to Seleucia, in a victory procession, that he called a triumph to mock the Roman practice. The Roman soldier who most resembled Crassus was forced to lead the procession, dressed in a woman’s robe and answering to the name of Crassus and the title of Imperator, while behind followed Parthian soldiers with decapitated Roman heads mounted on the heads of their spears, and prostitutes of the city singing songs about the effeminacy and cowardice of Crassus. Meanwhile, Orodes II finally made peace with King Artavasdes, a treaty which they made ironclad by marriage between their families. While they were celebrating this new agreement, Sillaces the satrap arrived and tossed the head of Crassus into the center of the celebrators, who received the grisly head with cheers and clapping.

The great victory at Carrhae, in which a Roman army was bested by a Parthian one a quarter of its size, established Parthia as a power to be reckoned with in the east. There would be further fighting between the two powers, but Parthia would hold her own throughout these wars, against the great and mighty Roman Empire. The victory further increased Surena’s renown, but King Orodes II grew jealous of his successful commander, and feared that he could be a contender for the throne. Therefore, he had Surena strangled.

In Rome, the effects of the battle were far more profound. The death of Crassus, in God’s providence, led to the downfall of the First Triumvirate, and to the civil war between Pompey and Julius Caesar, which Caesar won to establish himself as Rome’s first emperor and bring an end to the Roman Republic, establish the Roman empire. Such were the effects of the battle of Carrhae, in which the hand of God worked to prevent Roman dominance of Mesopotamia and bring to ruin the dreams of power and plunder of Marcus Crassus, whose fate stands testament to the truth of God’s word that “…they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.” (1 Timothy 6:9) and “Let not thine heart envy sinners but be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long.” (Proverbs 23:17). Crassus failed to fear the Lord but feared the greed and jealousy in his own heart, not to mention violating other biblical principles related to his undertaking, which ended in ruin for him, and those that followed him (Psalm 92:7; 28:5). His personally fatal campaign ended ultimately in the destruction of the liberties of the Roman people and the consolidation of power in the hands of Caesars. May we heed the lessons of the Battle of Carrhae in the 21rst Century.

Endnotes

 

[1] Crassus failed to heed the Scripture that spoke to the very issue at hand: “…and with good advice, make war.” (Proverbs 20:18b), and “For by wise counsel, thou shalt make war…” (Proverbs 24:6) Crassus failed to heed the good counsel pertaining to military affairs given to him, and would reap the fruits therefore, of disobedience to the teachings of Scripture in this regard.

[2] Cassius Dio describes this formation: “This testudo and the way in which it is formed are as follows. The Baggage animals, the light-armed troops, and the cavalry are placed in the center of the army. The heavy-armed troops who use the oblong, curved, cylindrical shields are drawn up around the outside, making a rectangular figure, and, facing outward and holding their arms at the ready, they enclose the rest. The others who have flat shields, form a compact body in the center and raise their shields over the heads of all the others so that nothing but shields can be seen in every part of the phalanx alike and all the men by the density of the formation are under shelter from missiles. Indeed, it is so marvelously strong that men can walk upon it and whenever they come to a narrow ravine, even horses and vehicles can be driven over it.”