Dictator

This provided us with an opportunity. M. Crassus being prostrate with grief and despair, and no longer capable of issuing orders, I took over the direction of our forces, and in silence and under cover of darkness those who could walk made a forced march to the town of Carrhae, leaving behind, amidst the most piteous cries and pleadings, some four thousand wounded who were either massacred or enslaved by the Parthians the following day.

At Carrhae our forces divided. I led five hundred men in the direction of Syria while M. Crassus took the bulk of our surviving army towards the mountains of Armenia. Intelligence reports indicate that outside the fortress of Sinnaca he was confronted by an army led by a subordinate of the Parthian king, who offered a truce. M. Crassus was compelled by his mutinous legionaries to go forward and negotiate, even though he believed it to be a trap. As he went, he turned and spoke these words: ‘I call upon all you Roman officers present to see that I am being forced to go this way. You are eyewitnesses of the shameful and violent treatment that I have received. But if you escape and get home safely, tell them all that Crassus died because he was deceived by the enemy, not because he was handed over to the Parthians by his own countrymen.’

These are his last known words. He was killed along with his legionary commanders. I am informed that afterwards his severed head was delivered personally to the king of the Parthians by Sillaces during a performance of The Bacchae and that it was used as a prop on stage. Afterwards the king caused Crassus’s mouth to be filled with molten gold, remarking: ‘Gorge yourself now with that metal for which in life you were so greedy.’

I await the Senate’s orders.

When Pompey finished reading, there was silence.

Finally Cicero said, ‘How many men have we lost, do we have any idea?’

‘I estimate thirty thousand.’

There was a groan of dismay from the assembled senators. Someone said that if that were true, then it was the worst defeat since Hannibal had wiped out the Senate’s army at Cannae, one hundred and fifty years before.

‘This document,’ said Pompey, waving Cassius’s dispatch, ‘must go no further than this room.’

Cicero said, ‘I agree. Cassius’s frankness is admirable in private, but a less alarming version must be prepared for the people, stressing the bravery of our legionaries and their commanders.’

Scipio, who was Publius’s father-in-law, said, ‘Yes, they all died heroes – that’s what we must tell everyone. That’s what I’m going to tell my daughter, certainly. The poor girl is a widow at nineteen.’

Pompey said, ‘Please give her my condolences.’

Then Hortensius spoke up. The ex-consul was in his sixties and mostly retired, but still listened to with respect. ‘What happens next? Presumably the Parthians won’t leave it at that. Knowing our weakness, they’ll invade Syria in retaliation. We can barely muster a legion in its defence and we have no governor.’

‘I would propose we make Cassius acting governor,’ said Pompey. ‘He’s a hard, unsparing man – exactly what this emergency demands. As for an army – well, he must raise and train a new one locally.’