eral," he said, "come forward with an
equal number of attendants, and confer with me in the open space between
the armies on terms of peace." The aged proconsul was disinclined to
trust these overtures; but his men clamored and threatened, upon which
he yielded, and went down into the plain, accompanied by Octavius and
a few others. Here he was received with apparent honor, and terms were
arranged; but Surenas required that they should at once be reduced to
writing, "since," he said, with pointed allusion to the bad faith of
Pompey, "you Romans are not very apt to remember your engagements." A
movement being requisite for the drawing up of the formal instruments,
Crassus and his officers were induced to mount upon horses furnished by
the Parthians, who had no sooner seated the proconsul on his steed,
than he proceeded to hurry him forward, with the evident intention of
carrying him off to their camp. The Roman officers took the alarm and
resisted. Octavius snatched a sword from a Parthian and killed one of
the grooms who was hurrying Crassus away. A blow from behind stretched
him on the ground lifeless. A general melee followed, and in the
confusion Crassus was killed, whether by one of his own side and with
his own consent, or by the hand of a Parthian is uncertain. The
army, learning the fate of their general, with but few exceptions,
surrendered. Such as sought to escape under cover of the approaching
night were hunted down by the Bedouins who served under the Parthian
standard, and killed almost to a man. Of the entire army which had
crossed the Euphrates, consisting of above 40,000 men, not more than one
fourth returned. One half of the whole number perished. Nearly 10,000
prisoners were settled by the victors in the fertile oasis of Margiana,
near the northern frontier of the empire, where they intermarried with
native wives, and became submissive Parthian subjects.

Such was the result of this great expedition, the first attempt of the
grasping and ambitious Romans, not so much to conquer Parthia, as to
strike terror into the heart of her people, and to degrade them to
the condition of obsequious dependants on the will and pleasure of the
"world's lords." The expedition failed so utterly, not from any want
of bravery on the part of the soldiers employed in it, nor from any
absolute superiority of the Parthian over the Roman tactics, but partly
from the incompetence of the commander, partly from the inexperience of