vasdes the Armenian,[1] who advised Crassus to advance by way of Armenia and thus keep in the hills, where the Parthian cavalry would be least useful. His advice and support were refused, and he rode away.
Crassus crossed the Euphrates at Zeugma[2] with a force which numbered about forty-two thousand, including four thousand cavalry and a like number of light-armed men.[3] Opposed to these troops were ten thousand cavalrymen (ten dragons[4]), munitioned by a thousand camels which carried additional supplies of arrows. These forces were in command of Suren,[5] the Parthian commander in chief, assisted by the satrap Silaces; for Orodes, taking with him the bulk of the infantry, had gone to Armenia to hold in check Artavasdes the king and to await the Roman attack, which he had every reason to expect would fall in that direction. But even Orodes was unable to
- ↑ Said by Plut. Crassus 19 to have numbered thirty thousand foot and sixteen thousand mailed horse.
- ↑ On the location of this Zeugma and the earlier one to the north see F. Cumont, Études syriennes (Paris, 1917), pp. 119–42; J. Dobiáš, "Séleucie sur l'Euphrate," Syria, VI (1925), 253–68.
- ↑ Plut. Crassus 20 gives the force at seven legions with four thousand horse and as many light-armed men. Florus i. 46. 2 speaks of eleven legions; Appian Bell. civ. ii. 18 makes the total force a hundred thousand! The legions are estimated at thirty-five thousand by Rawlinson, Sixth Mon., pp. 155 f.; thirty-four thousand by Sykes, Hist. of Persia, I, 347 f.; and twenty-eight thousand by Tarn in CAH, IX, 608.
- ↑ The Parthian military unit was a "dragon," consisting of one thousand men, according to Lucian Quomodo hist. 29.
- ↑ This is a family name; see Herzfeld, "Sakastan," AMI, IV (1932), 70 ff.
