CRASSUS. 361

violence. The position of the Romans was a very bad one from the first ; for if they kept their ranks, they were wounded, and if they tried to charge, they hurt the enemy none the more, and themselves suffered none the less. For the Parthians threw their darts as they fled, an art in which none but the Scythians excel them, and it is, indeed, a cunning practice, for while they thus fight to make their escape, they avoid the dishonor of a flight. However, the Romans had some comfort to think that when they had spent all their arrows, they would either give over or come to blows ; but when they pres- ently understood that there were numerous camels loaded with arrows, and that when the first ranks had discharged those they had, they wheeled off and took more, Cras- sus seeing no end of it, was out of all heart, and sent to his son that he should endeavor to fall in upon them be- fore he was quite surrounded ; for the enemy advanced most upon that quarter, and seemed to be trying to ride round and come upon the rear. Therefore the young man, taking with him thirteen hundred horse, one thou- sand of which he had from Cassar, five hundred archers, and eight cohorts of the full-armed soldiers that stood next him, led them up with design to charge the Parthi- ans. Whether it was that they found themselves in a piece of marshy ground, as some think, or else designing to entice young Crassus as far as they could from his father, they turned and began to fly ; whereupon he cry- ing out that they durst not stand, pursued them, and with him Censorinus and Megabacchus, both famous, the latter for his courage and prowess, the other for being of a senator's family, and an excellent oratoi*, both intimates of Crassus, and of about the same age. The horse thus pushing on, the infantry stayed little behind, being exalted with hopes and joy, for they supposed they had already conquered, and now were only pursuing ; till when they