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desert, who had formerly served Pompey in his campaign against Mithridates; he was named Abgaros, or Abgar,[726] and had been bribed by the King of the Parthians to betray Crassus.
Artabazus, King of Armenia, visited the proconsul at the head of 6,000 cavalry, promising him 10,000 more, and 30,000 foot, if he consented to attack the Parthians through Armenia, where the mountainous character of the country rendered their numerous and formidable cavalry useless. Crassus rejected this proposal, alleging the necessity of proceeding into Mesopotamia to the garrisons he had left there in the preceding year. These, in fact, were already blockaded by the Parthians, and soldiers who had escaped brought information of the immense preparations Orodes was making to resist him. A second time, then, he crossed the Euphrates, not far from Biradjik, the place of the passage of Alexander the Great.[727] There he had his choice of two roads to reach Seleucia: either to descend the left bank of the Euphrates to the point where it approaches the Tigris,[728] or to cross the desert. The first, proposed by Cassius, although the longest, procured him the immense advantage of having his right wing constantly supported by the Euphrates, on which boats could have carried his provisions. The second offered, it is true, a shorter passage; but in following it, the army was exposed to want of water and provisions, and to more laborious marches. The perfidious counsels of Abgar led him to prefer the latter. “There was not,” said the Arab, “a moment to lose, to prevent the Parthians from carrying away their treasures, and placing them in safety among the Hyrcanians and Scythians.” Crassus possessed some of the qualities which make a good general; he had given proofs of it in the war of the allies, as well as in that against Spartacus, but his faculties were paralysed by his covetousness. Glory ought to be the only thought of the soldier.
During this time, Orodes, King of the Parthians, had divided his forces into two armies: one, of which he took the command in person, went to ravage Armenia, in order to prevent Artabazus from joining the Romans; the other was entrusted to the vizier Surena, a man of merit, to whom Orodes owed his crown. Without undervaluing his intelligence, we are unwilling to believe, with some writers, that Surena invented new military tactics to oppose those of the Romans, and that that was the reason why, renouncing the employment of infantry, he made use only of cavalry. If he placed all his confidence in that arm, it was because the Parthians, in conformity with the nature of their country, generally fought only on horseback, and among them, as Dio Cassius says, infantry was of no value.[729] Surena’s talent consisted in the employment of the craft so familiar to the Asiatics, in order to surround Crassus with snares and traitors, and to draw him into the plains, where the advantage was all on the side of cavalry.
The army of the Parthians was thus composed solely of cavalry, some barbed with iron, as well as their horses,[730] and armed with long and heavy lances; others furnished with powerful bows and arrows, which, while they carried much farther than those of the Romans, perforated defensive armour.
After quitting the town of Carrhæ, the Roman army advanced towards the south, across the desert. The sand and heat made the march painful, while the enemy remained always invisible. At length, when they arrived on the banks, of a small river, the Balissus (Belick), which flows into the Euphrates, they perceived a few Parthian horsemen. Abgar, sent against them with a vanguard to reconnoitre, did not return. The traitor had betrayed Crassus to Surena. The proconsul, impatient and uneasy, then crosses the Balissus with his whole army, and, without allowing it to repose, pushes forward his cavalry, and obliges the infantry to follow it.