s' rods having purses suspended to them, and the axes in their
midst being crowned with the bleeding heads of Romans. In the rear
followed a train of Seloucian music-girls, who sang songs derisive of
the effeminacy and cowardice of the proconsul. After this pretended
parade of his prisoner through the streets of the town, Surenas called
a meeting of the Seleucian senate, and indignantly denounced to them the
indecency of the literature which he had found in the Roman tents.
The charge, it is said, was true; but the Seleucians were not greatly
impressed by the moral lesson read to them, when they remarked the train
of concubines that had accompanied Surenas himself in the field, and
thought of the loose crowd of dancers, singers, and prostitutes, that
was commonly to be seen in the rear of a Parthian army.

The political consequences of the great triumph which the Parthians had
achieved were less than might have been anticipated. Mesopotamia was,
of course, recovered to its extremest limit, the Euphrates; Armenia
was lost to the Roman alliance, and thrown for the time into complete
dependence upon Parthia. The whole East was, to some extent, excited;
and the Jews, always impatient of a foreign yoke, and recently aggrieved
by the unprovoked spoliation of their Temple by Crassus, flew to arms.
But no general movement of the Oriental races took place. It might have
been expected that the Syrians, Phoenicians, Cilicians, Oappadocians,
Phrygians, and other Asiatic peoples whose proclivities were altogether
Oriental, would have seized the opportunity of rising against their
Western lords and driving the Romans back upon Europe. It might have
been thought that Parthia at least would have assumed the offensive in
force, and have made a determined effort to rid herself of neighbors who
had proved so troublesome. But though the conjuncture of circumstances
was most favorable, the man was wanting. Had Mithridates or Tigranes
been living, or had Surenas been king of Parthia, instead of a mere
general, advantage would probably have been taken of the occasion,
and Rome might have suffered seriously. But Orodes seems to have been
neither ambitious as a prince nor skilful as a commander; he lacked
at any rate the keen and all-embracing glance which could sweep
the political horizon and, comprehending the exact character of the
situation, see at the same time how to make the most of it. He allowed
the opportunity to slip by without puttin