Osprey - Campaign 382 - Carrhae 53 BC.pdf

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CONTENTS
ORIGINS OF THE CAMPAIGN
OPPOSING COMMANDERS
Marcus Licinius Crassus ▪ Surena
OPPOSING FORCES
Crassus’ army ▪ Surena’s army
THE BACKGROUND TO WAR
Departing Rome ▪ The setting
THE BATTLE OF CARRHAE
Into Parthia ▪ The day of battle ▪ The Roman retreat ▪ The death of Crassus
ANALYSIS
Bad press ▪ For the record ▪ Out of one’s element
AFTERMATH
Cicero in Cilicia ▪ Bloodshed at home ▪ Roman renegade ▪ Marcus
Antonius’ adventure ▪ Tales from China ▪ Augustus the avenger
ABBREVIATIONS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Roman Empire,
c.
53
BC
ORIGINS OF THE CAMPAIGN
With Rome rapidly descending into social turmoil and political anarchy,
Marcus Licinius Crassus, when he was approaching his sixties and his
hearing was impaired (Cic.
Tusc.
5.40 §116), seized his chance for the full
glory of a military triumph he craved. This was a matchless honour denied
him two decades before following his suppression of the formidable slave
army led by the equally formidable Spartacus (Third Servile War, 73–71
BC
):
its absence had continued to annoy the old man. Crassus had begun his
second consulship (55
BC
) with the express aim of going to war with Parthia,
an ‘ally and friend of the Roman people’,
socius et amicus Romani populi.
This was a very vague title it seems, but official relations between Rome and
Parthia started with a treaty of Roman
amicitia
in 96
BC
(according to the best
of our evidence.
The treaty arose against the backdrop of Rome’s current troubles with
those eastern expansionists Mithradates VI Eupator of Pontus (r. 120–63
BC
)
and his ally Tigranes II of Armenia (r. 95–55
BC
). As was probably bandied
about in the the Roman Senate at the time, ‘amicus
meus, inimicus inimici
mei’
(‘my friend, the enemy of my enemy’). Furthermore, during the Third
Mithradatic War (73–63
BC
, the last and longest of the three Mithradatic
wars), Phraates III Theos of Parthia (r. 69–57
BC
) had allied himself with
Rome against Tigranes in return for a promise of certain territories controlled
by the Armenian king.
Limestone bas-relief (Lyon, Musée gallo-romain de Fourvière) from Saint-Rémy-de-Provence,
ancient Glanum, depicting eight Roman legionaries (a
contubernium?)
in formation. To Rome,
Parthia was always a special problem, at times quiescent, at times a threat, at times a
challenge, but Roman armies never really learnt how to cope successfully with desert
conditions, where the legions lacked the essential speed and mobility. (Rama/Wikimedia
Commons/CC-BY-SA-2.0)
Originally the two consuls had been military commanders and generally
absent from Rome. As a result of the Sullan reforms (81–80
BC
), however, by
Crassus’ day it had become normal for the consuls to remain in the
metropolis for their year of office (except in emergency), departing at the end

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