XXIX. Now Surena was delighted at the Romans being besieged, and at daybreak he led the Parthians against the city, who, with many insulting expressions, bade the Romans, if they wished to have a truce, deliver up to them Crassus and Cassius[83] in chains. The Romans were vexed at being deceived; and, telling Crassus to give up all hopes of aid from the Armenians as too remote and groundless, they prepared to make their escape by stealth; and none of the people of Carrhæ were to know this before the time came. But Andromachus, that most faithless wretch, heard of it from Crassus, who confided to him the secret, and also the guidance on the route. Accordingly, all was known to the Parthians; for Andromachus reported to them every particular. But as it is not the custom of the Parthians to fight in the dark, and indeed they cannot easily do it, and Crassus had left the city by night, Andromachus contrived that the Parthians should not be far behind in the pursuit, by leading the Romans first by one route and then by another, till at last he brought them out of their course into deep marshes and ground full of ditches, and thus made the march difficult and circuitous to all who followed him; for there were some who suspected that Andromachus had no honest object in turning and twisting about, and therefore did not follow. Cassius, indeed, returned to Carrhæ; and when the guides, who were Arabs, advised him to wait till the moon had passed the Scorpion, he replied, "I fear the Archer more than the Scorpion," and, saying this, he rode off to Syria, with five hundred horsemen. Others, who had faithful guides, got into a mountainous country, called Sinnaca,[84] and were in a safe position before daybreak: they were about five thousand in number, and were commanded by a brave man, Octavius. But daybreak found Crassus exposed to the treachery of Andromachus in the unfavourable ground and the marshes. Crassus had with him four cohorts of the legionary soldiers, and a very few horsemen, and five lictors, with whom he got upon the road with great difficulty just as the enemy was falling upon him; and now being about twelve stadia short of joining Octavius, he fled to another hill not so difficult for cavalry nor yet so strong, but one that lay below Sinnaca, and was connected with it by a long ridge, which stretched through the middle of the plain. His danger was apparent to Octavius, who ran before any one else with a few men, from the higher ground to aid Crassus, upon which the rest of the men, abusing themselves for cowards, rushed forward, and, falling on the enemy, and repulsing them from the hill, put Crassus in the midst of them, and threw their shields before him, proudly exclaiming that there was no Parthian missile which should strike the Imperator until all of them had fallen in defence of him.
XXX. Surena observing that the spirit of the Parthians was somewhat dulled towards the contest, and, if the night should come on and the Romans get among the mountains, they could not by any means be overtaken, employed the following stratagem against Crassus. Some of the captives were let loose, who, in the Parthian camp, had heard the barbarians saying to one another, in pursuance of a concerted plan, that the king did not wish the war with the Romans to be carried to extremities, but desired to have their friendship again, by doing them the favour of treating Crassus kindly. Accordingly the barbarians stopped fighting; and Surena, with his chief officers, riding gently up to the hill, unstrung his bow, and holding out his right hand, invited Crassus to come to terms, saying, that Crassus had put the king's courage and power to the test, though the king did not wish it, and yet the king of his own free will made the Romans an offer of mercy and friendship by being ready to make a truce with them if they would retire, and by giving them the opportunity of a safe retreat. Upon Surena saying this the Romans eagerly accepted his proposal, and were overjoyed; though Crassus, having been always over-reached by their fraud, and considering the suddenness of the change to be inexplicable, would not listen to them and hesitated. But the soldiers began to call out and urge him to accept the terms, and they fell to abusing and reproaching him, for wishing to expose them to the risk of fighting with those whom he did not venture to go to a conference with, even when they laid aside their arms. Crassus at first attempted to prevail on them by entreaty, and he said that, if they would hold out for the rest of the day, they would be able to march by night through the rough and mountain country, and he pointed out to them the route, and entreated them not to throw away their hopes when safety was so near; but, as the soldiers began to be exasperated and to clatter their arms and threaten him, he was alarmed, and advanced towards Surena, after first turning round and merely saying, "Octavius and Petronius, and you Roman officers who are here, you see that I go under compulsion, and you are witnesses that I am treated in a shameful way and am under constraint; but, if you get safe home, tell all the world, that Crassus lost his life through the treachery of the enemy, and was not surrendered by his fellow-citizens."
XXXI. Yet Octavius and those about him did not stay behind, but descended the hill with Crassus. However, Crassus made the lictors who were following him turn back. The first who met them, on the part of the barbarians, were two Greeks of half-breed, who, leaping down from their horses, made their obeisance to Crassus, and, addressing him in the Greek language, urged him to send forward some persons, who, as they said, would see that Surena himself and those about him were advancing without armour and without their weapons. Crassus replied, that if he had the least concern about his life, he should not have put himself into their hands; however, he sent two Roscii, brothers, to inquire upon what terms they should meet, and how many of them. Surena immediately seized and detained the two brothers, and he himself advanced on horseback with the chief officers, and said, "What is this? the Roman Imperator on foot while we are riding!" and he ordered them to bring a horse to Crassus. Crassus observed that neither himself nor Surena was acting wrong in coming to the conference according to the fashion of their respective countries; on which Surena said that from that moment there was a truce and peace between king Hyrodes and the Romans; but that it was requisite to advance to the river,[85] and there have the agreement put in writing; "for you Romans," he said, "have not a very good memory about contracts;" and he held out his right hand to Crassus. When Crassus was going to send for a horse, Surena said there was no occasion; "for the king gives you this." At the same time a horse with golden bits stood close by Crassus, and the grooms raised him up and mounted him, and then followed, quickening the horse's pace with blows. Octavius first laid hold of the bridle of the horse, and, after him, Petronius, one of the tribunes, and then the rest got round the horse of Crassus, endeavouring to stop it, and dragging away those who pressed close upon Crassus on each side. This led to a struggle and tumult, and finally to blows; Octavius drew his sword and killed the groom of one of the barbarians, and another struck Octavius from behind and killed him. Petronius had no weapon, and, being struck on the breastplate, he leapt down from the horse unwounded; and a Parthian, named Pomaxathres, killed Crassus.[86] Some say that it was not Pomaxathres, but another, who killed Crassus, and that Pomaxathres cut off the head and right hand when Crassus was lying on the ground. But these are rather matters of conjecture than of certain knowledge; for of those who were present some fell there fighting about Crassus, and the rest immediately fled back to the hill. Upon this the Parthians came and said, that Crassus had been punished as he deserved, but Surena invited the rest to come down and fear nothing: whereupon, some of the Romans came down and surrendered, and the rest dispersed themselves under cover of night, of whom a very few escaped; the rest the Arabs hunted out, and put to death when they caught them. It is said that twenty thousand perished in all, and ten thousand were taken alive.
XXXII. Surena sent the head[87] and hand of Crassus to Hyrodes in Armenia; and, causing a report to be carried by messengers to Seleukeia that he was bringing Crassus alive, he got ready a kind of ridiculous procession which, in mockery, he called a triumph. One of the Roman prisoners who bore the greatest resemblance to Crassus, Caius Paccianus, putting on a barbarian female dress, and being instructed to answer as Crassus and Imperator to those who addressed him, was conducted, seated on a horse, and in front of him trumpeters, and some lictors rode upon camels; and there were purses[88] suspended from the fasces, and, by the side of the axes, heads of Romans newly cut off. Behind these followed courtesans of Seleukeia, singing girls, who chanted many obscene and ridiculous things about the effeminacy and cowardice of Crassus. All this was public. But Surena assembling the Senate of Seleukeia,[89] laid before them certain licentious books of the Milesiaca of Aristeides,[90] and, in this matter, at least, there was no invention on his part; for they were found among the baggage of Rustius,[91] and they gave Surena the opportunity of greatly insulting and ridiculing the Romans, because they could not, even when going to war, abstain from such things and such books. To the Senate of Seleukeia, however, Æsopus[92] appeared to be a wise man, when they saw Surena with the wallet of Milesian obscenities in front of him, and dragging behind him a Parthian Sybaris in so many waggons full of concubines, in a manner forming a counterpart to those vipers and skytalæ[93] so much talked of, by presenting the visible and the front parts formidable and terrific, with spears, and bows, and horses, but in the rear of the phalanx, terminating in harlots, and rattling cymbals, and lute-playing, and nocturnal revels with women. Rustius, indeed, merits blame, but the Parthians were shameless in finding fault with the Milesian stories; for many of the kings who have reigned over them, as Arsakidæ, have been the sons of Milesian and Ionian concubines.
XXXIII. While this was going on, Hyrodes happened to have been reconciled to Artavasdes the Armenian, and had agreed to receive the sister of Artavasdes as wife to his son Pacorus: and there were banquets and drinking-parties between them, and representations of many Greek plays; for Hyrodes was not a stranger either to the Greek language or the literature of the Greeks: and Artavasdes used to write tragedies, and speeches, and histories, some of which are preserved. When the head of Crassus was brought to the door, the tables were taken away, and a tragedy actor Jason,[94] by name, a native of Tralles, chanted that part of the Bacchæ[95] of Euripides which relates to Agave. While he was receiving applause. Sillakes, standing by the door of the apartment, and making a reverence, threw the head of Crassus before the company. The Parthians clapped their hands with shouts of joy and the attendants, at the command of the king, seated Sillakes, while Jason handed over to one of the members of the chorus the dress of Pentheus, and, laying hold of the head of Crassus, and, putting on the air of a bacchant, he sung these verses with great enthusiasm:—
We bring from a mountain
A young one new killed to the house,
A fortunate prey.
This delighted all the company; and, while the following verses were being chanted, which are a dialogue with the chorus,
A. Who killed him?
B. Mine is the honour,
Pomaxathres, springing up (for he happened to be at the banquet), laid hold of the head, as if it was more appropriate for him to say this than for Jason. The king was pleased, and made Pomaxathres a present, according to the fashion of the country, and he gave Jason a talent. In such a farce[96] as this, it is said, that the expedition of Crassus terminated just like a tragedy. However, just punishment overtook Hyrodes for his cruelty, and Surena for his treachery. Not long after, Hyrodes put Surena to death, being jealous of his reputation. Hyrodes also lost his son Pacorus,[97] who was defeated by the Romans in a battle; and having fallen into an illness which turned out to be dropsy, his son, Phraates,[98] who had a design on his life, gave him aconite.[99] But the poison only operated on the disease, which was thrown off together with it, and Hyrodes thereby relieved; whereupon Phraates took the shortest course and strangled his father.