us Campania. But our knowledge of the geographical character
of the region through which the march lay makes it impossible for us to
accept this account as true. The country between the Euphrates and the
Belik, as already observed, is one of alternate hill and plain, neither
destitute of trees nor ill-provided with water. The march through it
could have presented no great difficulties. All that Abgarus could do to
serve the Parthian cause was, first, to induce Crassus to trust himself
to the open country, without clinging either to a river or to the
mountains, and, secondly, to bring him, after a hasty march, and in the
full heat of the day, into the presence of the enemy. Both these things
he contrived to effect, and Surenas was, no doubt, so far beholden to
him. But the notion that he enticed the Roman army into a trackless
desert, and gave it over, when it was perishing through weariness,
hunger, and thirst, into the hands of its enraged enemy, is in
contradiction with the topographical facts, and is not even maintained
consistently by the classical writers.

It was probably on the third or fourth day after he had quitted the
Euphrates that Crassus found himself approaching his enemy. After a
hasty and hot march he had approached the banks of the Belik, when his
scouts brought him word that they had fallen in with the Parthian army,
which was advancing in force and seemingly full of confidence. Abgarus
had recently quitted him on the plea of doing him some undefined
service, but really to range himself on the side of his real friends,
the Parthians. His officers now advised Crassus to encamp upon the
river, and defer an engagement till the morrow; but he had no fears; his
son, Publius, who had lately joined him with a body of Gallic horse sent
by Julius Caesar, was anxious for the fray; and accordingly the Roman
commander gave the order to his troops to take some refreshment as they
stood, and then to push forward rapidly. Surenas, on his side, had taken
up a position on wooded and hilly ground, which concealed his numbers,
and had even, we are told, made his troops cover their arms with cloths
and skins, that the glitter might not betray them. But, as the Romans
drew near, all concealment was cast aside; the signal for battle was
given; the clang of the kettledrums arose on every side; the squadrons
came forward in their brilliant array; and it seemed at first as if the
heavy cavalry was about to charge the Roman hos