Accordingly, the young man taking thirteen hundred horsemen,--a
thousand of whom he had brought from Cæsar,--and five hundred
archers, and eight cohorts of the legionary soldiers, who were nearest
to him, wheeled about to attack the Parthians. But the Parthians, who
were manœuvring about Crassus, either because they fell in with some
marshes,[76] as some say, or because it was their design to attack
Crassus when they had drawn him as far as they could from his father,
turned round and fled. On this Crassus, calling out that the Parthians
did not stand their ground, advanced with Censorinus and
Megabacchus,[77] of whom Megabacchus was distinguished for courage and
strength, and Censorinus[78] was a senator and a powerful speaker,
both of them companions of Crassus, and about the same age. The
cavalry pursued the enemy, nor did the infantry allow themselves to be
left behind, being full of alacrity and hope of victory; for they
thought that they were victorious and in pursuit: but they had not
gone far before they perceived the stratagem; for the Parthians, who
were supposed to be flying, began to face about, and others, in
greater numbers, joined them. Upon this the Romans halted, thinking
that the enemy would come to close quarters with them, as they were
only few in number. But the Parthians placing their mailed horsemen in
the front, to oppose the Romans, rode about them with the rest of the
cavalry dispersed, and, by trampling the ground, they raised from the
bottom heaps of sand, which threw up such an immense cloud of dust
that the Romans could neither see clearly nor speak; and, being driven
into a narrow compass, and falling one on another, they were wounded
and died no easy nor yet a speedy death, for tortured with violent
convulsions and pain, and writhing with the arrows in them, they
broke them in the wounds, and, by trying to pull out by force the
barbed points, which had pierced through their veins and nerves, they
increased the evil by breaking the arrows, and thus injured