o fight in
the dark, and indeed they cannot easily do it, and Crassus had left
the city by night, Andromachus contrived that the Parthians should not
be far behind in the pursuit, by leading the Romans first by one route
and then by another, till at last he brought them out of their course
into deep marshes and ground full of ditches, and thus made the march
difficult and circuitous to all who followed him; for there were some
who suspected that Andromachus had no honest object in turning and
twisting about, and therefore did not follow. Cassius, indeed,
returned to Carrhae; and when the guides, who were Arabs, advised him
to wait till the moon had passed the Scorpion, he replied, "I fear the
Archer more than the Scorpion," and, saying this, he rode off to
Syria, with five hundred horsemen. Others, who had faithful guides,
got into a mountainous country, called Sinnaca,[84] and were in a safe
position before daybreak: they were about five thousand in number, and
were commanded by a brave man, Octavius. But daybreak found Crassus
exposed to the treachery of Andromachus in the unfavourable ground and
the marshes. Crassus had with him four cohorts of the legionary
soldiers, and a very few horsemen, and five lictors, with whom he got
upon the road with great difficulty just as the enemy was falling upon
him; and now being about twelve stadia short of joining Octavius, he
fled to another hill not so difficult for cavalry nor yet so strong,
but one that lay below Sinnaca, and was connected with it by a long
ridge, which stretched through the middle of the plain. His danger was
apparent to Octavius, who ran before any one else with a few men, from
the higher ground to aid Crassus, upon which the rest of the men,
abusing themselves for cowards, rushed forward, and, falling on the
enemy, and repulsing them from the hill, put Crassus in the midst of
them, and threw their shields before him, proudly exclaiming that
there was no Parthian missile which should strike the Imperator until
all of them had fallen in defence of him.

XXX. Surena observing that the spirit of the Parthians was somewhat
dulled towards the contest, and, if the night should come on and the
Romans get among the mountains, they could not by any means be
overtaken, employed the following stratagem against Crassus. Some of
the captives were let loose, who, in the Parthian camp, had heard the
barbarians saying to one another, in pursuance of a concerted plan,
that