Crassus was affected by many contending feelings at once, and he no
longer viewed anything with sober judgment. Distracted by alarm for
the whole army, and love of his son at the same time, he was urged by
one motive to go to his aid, and by the other not to go: but finally
he began to move in advance. In the mean time the enemy came up,
making themselves more formidable by their shouts and pæans, and many
of the drums again bellowed around the Romans, who were in expectation
of a second attack. The Parthians, carrying the head of Publius fixed
on a spear, rode close up to the Romans, and, displaying it
insultingly, asked who were his parents and family, for it was not
decent to suppose that so noble and brave a youth was the son of so
cowardly and mean a man as Crassus. The sight of this broke and
unstrung the spirit of the Romans more than all the rest of their
dangers; and it did not fill them with a spirit for revenge, as one
might have supposed, but with shuddering and trembling. Yet they say
that the courage of Crassus on that dreadful occasion shone forth more
brightly than ever before; for he went along the ranks, crying out,
"Mine alone, Romans, is this misfortune: but the great fortune and
glory of Rome abide in you, if your lives are saved, unbroken and
unvanquishcd: and, if you have any pity on me, who have been deprived
of the noblest of sons, show this in your fury against the enemy. Take
from them their rejoicing, avenge their cruelty: be not cast down at
what has happened, for it is the law that those who aim at great
things must also endure. Neither did Lucullus vanquish Tigranes
without loss of blood, nor Scipio Antiochus; and our ancestors of old
lost a thousand ships on the coast of Sicily, and in Italy many
Imperatores and generals, not one of whom, by being first vanquished,
prevented them from vanquishing the victors; for it is not by good
fortune that the Roman state has advanced to such a height of power,
but by the endurance and courage of those who meet danger."