Battle of Carrhae

• 1. Introduction

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  The Battle of Carrhae was fought in 53 BC on open desert ground near the town of Carrhae, which is now Harran in Turkey. Seven Roman legions marched into that country under Marcus Licinius Crassus. Most of them never marched out. According to the ancient historian Plutarch, about 20,000 Romans were killed and 10,000 were taken prisoner, while the Parthian side lost very few men. Historians still count it among the most crushing defeats in Roman history.

  Why did a Roman general with a vast army choose the desert road? What could a force of horsemen do that disciplined infantry could not answer? And how did one day of fighting reach into Roman politics, and perhaps even toward the edge of China?

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• 2. Ambition and Omens

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  In March and April of 56 BC, three powerful men met at Ravenna and Luca, in Caesar's province of Cisalpine Gaul, to patch up a weakening partnership. They were Crassus, Pompeius Magnus and Julius Caesar, later called the First Triumvirate, and their alliance was four years old. They agreed to pool supporters and resources, extend Caesar's command in Gaul, and push Crassus and Pompey toward a second joint consulship.

  Pressure on the elections came in many forms, including money, patronage and friendship. It also included 1000 troopers whom Crassus's son Publius brought down from Gaul. The plan worked. The tribune Trebonius passed the Lex Trebonia, which gave both outgoing consuls five-year proconsulships to match Caesar's. Spain went to Pompey. Crassus arranged to receive Syria, with the transparent intention of making war on Parthia.

  Crassus was around 62 when he set out. Plutarch and other ancient sources blamed greed. The historian Erich S. Gruen disagrees and suggests that Crassus, already enormously rich, wanted to fill the public treasury. Many modern historians point instead to envy and rivalry. His best-known victories, over Spartacus in 71 BC and at the Battle of the Colline Gate for Sulla about a decade earlier, looked dim beside the glory Pompey and Caesar had won. Plutarch also records that Caesar wrote from Gaul to endorse the Parthian plan.

  The campaign looked easy. Roman legions had already crushed the larger armies of Pontus and Armenia, so Parthia seemed a soft target. Cicero added another motive, the ambition of Publius, a decorated officer who had served under Caesar in Gaul and who was building a political career of his own.

  Not everyone in Rome agreed. Cicero called the war nulla causa, meaning "with no justification," because Parthia had a treaty with Rome. The tribune Ateius Capito fought it hard and, as Crassus prepared to depart, performed a public ritual of execration against him. Crassus ignored the protests and the dire omens and left Rome on the 14th of November 55 BC. Publius joined him in Syria the following winter.

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• 3. A Kingdom Divided

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  In 57 BC, King Phraates III of Parthia was killed by his own sons, Orodes II and Mithridates IV. The brothers then turned on each other. Orodes won the first round and appointed Mithridates king of Media, which made him a kind of governor. A second armed clash ended that compromise, and Mithridates fled to Aulus Gabinius, the Roman proconsul of Syria.

  Gabinius saw an opportunity. He could back Mithridates as a puppet king and use him to seize control of Parthia. Then he changed course and turned to the affairs of Ptolemaic Egypt instead. Mithridates went on alone, invaded Babylonia and enjoyed some early success. He soon met the army of the Parthian commander Surena.

  By 54 BC, Crassus had succeeded Gabinius in Syria and inherited the same idea of allying with Mithridates. He invaded Osroene, a client state of Parthia, but then spent most of his time waiting for reinforcements on the left bank of the Balikh River. Meanwhile Surena besieged and defeated Mithridates at Seleucia on the Tigris and had him executed. With his brother gone, Orodes was unopposed at home and marched north against Rome's ally Armenia.

  The commander who had just finished off Mithridates was the very man Orodes would later send against Crassus.

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• 4. Roads Refused

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  Crassus arrived in Syria in late 55 BC and used his immense wealth to raise an army. Plutarch counts seven legions of heavy infantry, somewhere between 28,000 and 35,000 men, along with about 4,000 light infantry and 4,000 cavalry. Greek settlements in Syria helped him, and the Armenian king Artavasdes II contributed about 6,000 cavalry.

  Artavasdes also offered advice. He urged Crassus to invade through Armenia and so avoid the desert, and he promised a further 10,000 cavalry and 30,000 infantry if Crassus did. Crassus refused. He chose the direct route through Mesopotamia, hoping to capture the great cities of the region.

  At Ichnae he easily beat the local satrap, Silaces, who fled to warn Mithridates. Every other city fell without a fight except Zenodotium, which Crassus sacked, letting his men keep the treasure. He left 7,000 soldiers there and withdrew to Syria for the winter, to train a victorious but inexperienced army.

  Late that winter Artavasdes came back at the head of 6,000 cavalry and repeated his offer. Crassus refused again, perhaps because he distrusted a king who had been close to Pompey. Orodes, now sole ruler of Parthia, sent an emissary to talk peace. Crassus wanted victory on Rome's terms, yet he concealed nothing of his troops or preparations, and the Parthians gathered valuable intelligence.

  In the spring of 53 BC, Crassus marched on the Parthian heartland. Orodes split his forces. He took most of the soldiers, mainly foot archers with a few cavalry, to punish the Armenians himself. The rest, an all-cavalry force, went to Surena with orders to scout and harass the Romans. Orodes did not expect such a heavily outnumbered force to defeat Crassus. He only wanted to slow him down.

  Plutarch describes Surena's command as "a thousand mail-clad horsemen and a still greater number of light-armed cavalry." With slaves and vassals, the expedition numbered ten thousand, and a baggage train of one thousand camels followed.

  A guide named Ariamnes, an Osroene chieftain who had helped Pompey in the east, now took charge of Crassus's route. Crassus trusted him. In fact Ariamnes was in Parthian pay. He urged an immediate attack and falsely claimed that the Parthians were weak and disorganised. Plutarch says he led the army into the most desolate part of the desert, far from water.

  The military historian Gregory Hospodor of the US Army War College doubts that picture. He found that Crassus followed a well-traveled caravan route past several towns on the Balikh River, where spring runoff provided plenty of water. Another message arrived from Artavasdes, who begged for help because the main Parthian army was in Armenia. Crassus ignored it. His scouts kept reporting that Surena seemed to be avoiding battle, which fed his hope of a quick victory.

  On the morning of the 9th of June, the date Ovid gives for the battle, the reconnaissance screen found the scouts dead and a large body of cavalry approaching.

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• 5. Drums and Arrows

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  Cassius, one of Crassus's senior officers, advised the traditional Roman layout, with infantry in the centre and cavalry on the wings. Crassus agreed at first and then changed his mind. He formed a hollow square with twelve cohorts on each side. That protected him from being outflanked, but it cost the army its mobility.

  The Romans advanced to a stream. Crassus's generals advised making camp and attacking the next morning so the men could rest. Publius was eager to fight and persuaded his father to confront the Parthians at once.

  The Parthians worked hard to frighten their enemy. They beat a great many hollow drums, and the cacophony unsettled the Roman troops. Surena then had his cataphracts, the heavily armoured cavalry, cover their armour with cloths and advance. Within sight of the Romans, they dropped the cloths together and revealed gleaming metal.

  Surena had planned to shatter the Roman lines with a cataphract charge. He judged that this would not yet be enough, so he sent his horse archers to ring the square, staying beyond the range of the Roman javelins called pila. Crassus sent skirmishers to drive them off. The arrows forced the skirmishers back, and the archers turned on the legionaries.

  The legionaries had large shields, called scuta, and good armour, but neither covered the whole body. Some historians describe arrows pinning shields to arms and nailing feet to the ground. Plutarch wrote that the arrows went through every kind of cover, hard and soft alike. Other historians say that most wounds were nonfatal hits to exposed limbs.

  Again and again the Romans lunged forward to force close combat. Each time the horse archers withdrew safely, firing as they went. The legionaries locked their shields into the testudo, a nearly impenetrable front against missiles, but it crippled their ability to fight hand to hand. The cataphracts charged the weakened line repeatedly, causing panic and heavy losses. When the Romans loosened their ranks to meet the charges, the cataphracts pulled back and the archers resumed shooting at exposed men.

  Crassus hoped his men could endure until the Parthians ran out of arrows. Then he saw that thousands of camels were carrying fresh supplies to the archers. He sent Publius with 1,300 Gallic cavalry, 500 archers and eight cohorts of legionaries to drive the archers away. The horse archers pretended to flee and drew Publius's force far from the main army, taking heavy fire all the way. Once the force was isolated, the cataphracts hit it head-on while the archers cut off any retreat.

  The Gauls fought bravely, but their weapons and armour were no match. They withdrew to a hill, where Publius and his officers threw themselves on their swords. Only 500 of the Gauls were taken alive.

  Crassus did not know his son's fate, yet he sensed the danger and ordered a general advance. He was met by the sight of Publius's head on a spear. The archers closed around the Roman infantry and shot from every side, while the cataphracts charged in waves. Fighting did not stop until nightfall.

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• 6. Truce and Gold

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  By dark, Crassus had learned of his son's death and felt defeat closing in, and he became nearly catatonic. He ordered a ragged, disorganised retreat to the town of Carrhae. Behind him lay 4,000 wounded men, and the Parthians killed them the next morning. Four cohorts lost their way in the night and were surrounded on a hill. Only 20 Romans survived.

  The following day Surena sent word that he was ready to negotiate. His offer was a truce that would let the Romans go home safely to Syria, in exchange for all Roman territory east of the Euphrates. Sources differ on whether he sent an emissary to the Romans on the hills or came himself to ask for a conference.

  Crassus did not want to attend. His own soldiers threatened mutiny unless he did. At the meeting, a Parthian seized Crassus's reins, and fighting broke out. Crassus and his generals were killed. His death also ended the First Triumvirate.

  Stories of what followed are vivid and uncertain. The Parthians allegedly poured molten gold down Crassus's throat, a mocking gesture aimed at his notorious greed. Plutarch reports that the severed head was used as a prop in a performance of Euripides' Bacchae at a banquet before the Parthian king. The Romans who tried to flee were mostly captured or killed.

  One officer did lead survivors out. Gaius Cassius Longinus, a quaestor under Crassus, brought roughly 10,000 soldiers from the battlefield back to Syria.

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• 7. Trophies and Exiles

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  Surena's triumph cost him his life. King Orodes II, jealous of his general's victory, ordered him executed. Orodes and the rest of the Parthian army had by then defeated the Armenians and captured their country. Orodes sent his son Pacorus on a campaign into Roman Syria, and it failed.

  It failed because of Cassius. He governed Syria as a proquaestor for two more years and defended the province against Pacorus. He resisted a Parthian siege of his capital Antioch. When Pacorus's army turned for home, Cassius ambushed it at Antigonea, and the Parthian second-in-command Osaces died there. Cicero praised him for the victory.

  Rome's humiliation was deepened by the loss of several Legionary Eagles to the Parthians. Plutarch adds a darker detail. The Parthians chose the Roman prisoner who looked most like Crassus, dressed him as a woman and paraded him through Parthia. Other prisoners were ordered to hail him as Imperator, a deliberate parody of a Roman triumph and a direct attack on Roman military culture.

  The 10,000 prisoners themselves seem to have been sent to Alexandria Margiana, near the modern city of Merv, close to the Parthian Empire's northeastern border, in 53 BC. They reportedly married local people.

  In the 1940s, the American professor Homer H. Dubs, who taught Chinese history at the University of Oxford, proposed a startling sequel. He argued that the people of Liqian in China descended from these captives. In his view the Parthians resettled the prisoners on their eastern frontier, and they may have fought as mercenaries at the Battle of Zhizhi between the Chinese and the Xiongnu in 36 BC. Chinese chroniclers mention a "fish-scale formation" and a double wooden palisade, which Dubs read as the testudo and a distinctly Roman defensive trick.

  The evidence has not held up. No coins, weapons or other artefacts confirming a Roman presence have turned up in Zhelaizhai, and the vast majority of historians reject the theory. Rob Gifford called it one of many "rural myths." Even so, the novelist Alfred Duggan used the prisoners' possible fate as the seed of Winter Quarters, which imagines them serving as frontier guards on the Parthian Empire's eastern border.

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• 8. Blame and Consequence

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  In 44 BC Julius Caesar was assassinated, and Cassius played a key role in the plot. Caesar had been planning a retaliatory war against Parthia. It was said that revenge would have been harsh, with a surviving member of the Crassus family among the Roman forces.

  The Republic's collapse had begun earlier, with Sulla's first march on Rome in 88 BC. Even so, the loss of Crassus and his legions reshaped the balance of power. An old theory holds that his death, together with the death in 54 BC of Julia, who was Pompey's wife and Caesar's daughter, broke the bond between Caesar and Pompey. Caesar's civil war followed, and he won, and the Republic did not return.

  Several historians point out the gap in time between Crassus's death and the outbreak of civil war. Gaius Stern argues that his death nearly severed the Triumvirate's links with the aristocracy and left the state vulnerable to friction that later became war. One immediate effect may have been the loss of private checks and balances, such as Crassus's relationship with Metellus Pius Scipio, which had held political tensions in check.

  In regional terms the defeat did Rome little lasting harm. Publius Ventidius Bassus stopped and repulsed the Parthian invasion of 40 BC. Mark Antony's own invasion of Parthia in 36 BC, the Atropatene campaign, still went ahead, although it ended in failure too. For Parthia, Carrhae encouraged repeated invasions of Syria and Armenia with varying success. For Rome, it taught that legionaries could not fight Parthian cavalry alone on open ground.

  Plutarch blamed Crassus for every aspect of the disaster, especially his tactics. Hospodor, writing in The Worst Military Leaders in History, gives him a narrower share. He holds Crassus tactically responsible mainly for the disorganised retreat, which made it impossible to regroup. Blaming Crassus alone, he writes, "oversimplifies the reason for the result at Carrhae."

  Hospodor sees a system under strain. Rome's tactics, shaped by early wars on the Italian peninsula, worked best against opponents who fought in similar ways. Hannibal and Vercingetorix had troubled the legions by being unorthodox, and so did Surena. Hospodor writes that what was needed was "agile leadership, capable of adapting to meet the challenge." Roman culture pushed against that. Wealthy and prominent generals were expected to be aggressive, and Crassus badly wanted a fresh, massive triumph. His faith in heavy infantry may have convinced him that it would outweigh Parthian cavalry even on ground that favoured the horsemen. At the council of war by the stream, nobody appears to have suggested seeking terrain less favourable to cavalry.

  Hospodor does agree with Plutarch on one earlier choice, the decision to winter in Syria. The Parthians were surprised and divided. Pressing on might have won Crassus an ally among the warring brothers, or a peace on Roman terms. By the time he marched, that chance had passed. Hospodor also questions Plutarch's story of the second meeting with Artavasdes, in which the weaker king dictates terms and the powerful Crassus fails to bargain. If Crassus feared the king's reliability, he could simply have demanded some of the cavalry Artavasdes had brought. That leaves one explanation for his refusal, which is that he was sure Roman troops and tactics would win outright.

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