sus of Syria as his province, and his first overt act of hostility
against Orodes.

It cannot be doubted that this breathing-time was well spent by the
Parthian monarch. Besides forming his general plan of campaign at his
leisure, and collecting, arming, and exercising his native forces,
he was enabled to gain over certain chiefs upon his borders, who had
hitherto held a semi-dependent position, and might have been expected
to welcome the Romans. One of these, Abgarus, prince of Osrhoene, or the
tract east of the Euphrates about the city of Edessa, had been received
into the Roman alliance by Pompey, but, with the fickleness common among
Orientals, he now readily changed sides, and undertook to play a double
part for the advantage of the Parthians. Another, Alchaudonius, an Arab
sheikh of these parts, had made his submission to Rome even earlier; but
having become convinced that Parthia was the stronger power of the two,
he also went over to Orodes. The importance of these adhesions would
depend greatly on the line of march which Crassus might determine to
follow in making his attack. Three plans were open to him. He might
either throw himself on the support of Artavasdes, the Armenian monarch,
who had recently succeeded his father Tigranes, and entering Armenia,
take the safe but circuitous route through the mountains into Adiabene,
and so by the left bank of the Tigris to Ctesiphon; or he might, like
the younger Cyrus, follow the course of the Euphrates to the latitude of
Seleucia, and then cross the narrow tract of plain which there separates
the two rivers; or, finally, he might attempt the shortest but most
dangerous line across the Belik and Khabour, and directly through the
Mesopotamian desert. If the Armenian route were preferred, neither
Abgarus nor Alchaudonius would be able to do the Parthians much service;
but if Crassus resolved on following either of the others, their
alliance could not but be most valuable.

Crassus, however, on reaching his province, seemed in in haste to make
a decision. He must have arrived in Syria tolerably early in the spring
but his operations during the first year of his proconsulship were
unimportant. He seems at once to have made up his mind to attempt
nothing more than a reconnaissance. Crossing the Euphrates at Zeugma,
the modern Bir or Bireh-jik, he proceeded to ravage the open country,
and to receive the submission of the Greek cities, which were numerous
throughout the reg