Persia from the Earliest Period to the Arab

134 HISTORY OF PERSIA.
the age of less than thirty years, had been entrusted
by the Parthian king with his best troops.
The Parthian, like the Persian cavalry, was of two
classes, one, a body lightly armed with only a bow of
great strength, and a quiver of arrows; the other, a
body of heavy cavalry, with horses, like their riders,
clad in armour, and carrying a long and heavy
spear, more powerful and weightier than even the
pilum of the Romans. The armament of Surena was
almost wholly cavalry, but probably of both classes ;
lie had besides, an invaluable aid in a traitor named
Abgarus, who, himself commanding a body of light
horse in the service of Crassus, revealed to his countrymen
the Roman plans, as fast as they were formed.
At length the two armies met, and the Romans had
their first experience of the special tactics of their new
enemies, who, completely enveloping
them with their
cavalry, plied them with a ceaseless discharge of
arrows. In vain they attempted to advance : as they
rushed forward, the Parthians fell back just as suited
best their mode of fighting, destroying utterly by a
stratagem, some 6000 Gaulish troops under the son of
Crassus. On the next day but one, the remnant of
the Roman army capitulated, on the death of their
general, Crassus, in a chance melde, occasioned by an
attempt on the part of the Parthians, to capture him
during a conference with Surena.
" Of the entire
army," says Professor Rawlinson, " which had crossed
the Euphrates, consisting of about 40,000 men, not
more than a fourth returned. One half of the whole
number perished."
It is said, that the news and the bloody head of