Crassus

But Crassus came to Brundisium.[*](54 B.C.) And though the sea was still rough with wintry storms, he would not wait, but put out, and so lost a great number of his vessels. With what was left of his forces, however, he hurried on by land through Galatia. And finding that King Deiotarus, who was now a very old man, was founding a new city, he rallied him, saying: O King, you are beginning to build at the twelfth hour.

The Galatian laughed and said: But you yourself, Imperator, as I see, are not marching very early in the day against the Parthians. Now Crassus was sixty years old and over, and looked older than his years. On his arrival, things went at first as he had hoped, for he easily bridged the Euphrates and led his army across in safety, and took possession of many cities in Mesopotamia which came over to him of their own accord.

But at one of them, of which Apollonius was tyrant, a hundred of his soldiers were slain,[*](Cf. Dio Cassius, xl. 13. ) whereupon he led up his forces against it, mastered it, plundered its property, and sold its inhabitants into slavery. The city was called Zenodotia by the Greeks. For its capture he allowed his soldiers to salute him as Imperator, thereby incurring much disgrace and showing himself of a paltry spirit and without good hope for the greater struggles that lay before him, since he was so delighted with a trifling acquisition.

After furnishing the cities which had come over to his side with garrisons, which amounted in all to seven thousand men-at-arms and a thousand horsemen, he himself withdrew to take up winter quarters in Syria, and to await there his son, who was coming from Caesar in Gaul, decorated with the insignia of his deeds of valour, and leading a thousand picked horsemen. This was thought to be the first blunder which Crassus committed,—after the expedition itself, which was the greatest of all his blunders,—because, when he should have advanced and come into touch with Babylon and Seleucia, cities always hostile to the Parthians, he gave his enemies time for preparation.

Then, again, fault was found with him because his sojourn in Syria was devoted to mercenary rather than military purposes. For he made no estimate of the number of his troops, and instituted no athletic contests for them, but reckoned up the revenues of cities, and spent many days weighing exactly the treasures of the goddess in Hierapolis, and prescribed quotas of soldiers for districts and dynasts to furnish, only to remit the prescription when money was offered him, thereby losing their respect and winning their contempt.

And the first warning sign came to him from this very goddess, whom some call Venus, others Juno, while others still regard her as the natural cause which supplies from moisture the beginnings and seeds of everything, and points out to mankind the source of all blessings. For as they were leaving her temple, first the youthful Crassus stumbled and fell at the gate, and then his father fell over him.