On the march the Romans had been drawn up in a hollow square formation with each cohort allotted cavalry as protection. When they met the enemy they were soon surrounded and the Parthians started shooting them with their arrows, which smashed the Roman armour and pierced lesser coverings.
On his father's orders, Publius Crassus attacked the Parthians with a detachment of 1300 cavalry (1000 of whom were the Gauls he had brought with him from Caesar), 500 archers, and eight cohorts of infantry. When the Parthians withdrew, the younger Crassus followed them for a long way, but then the detachment was surrounded and subjected to the devastating archery attacks of the Parthians. Realising there was no escape for his men, Publius Crassus and some of the other leading Romans with him committed suicide rather than fight on hopelessly. Of the forces with him, only 500 survived. The Parthians cut off Publius' head and took it back with them to taunt his father.
It was not the Parthian custom to fight at night, but at first the Romans were too demoralised to take advantage of this. They did at last set off in great disorder. A band of 300 horsemen reached the town of Carrhae, and told the Roman garrison there that there had been a battle between Crassus and the Parthians, before galloping off to Zeugma. The commander of the garrison, Coponius, marched out to meet the Roman forces and brought them back to the city.
Many of the wounded had been left behind, and there were parties of stragglers who had got separated from the main group. When the Parthians resumed their attacks at daybreak, the wounded and stragglers were killed or captured.
Surena sent a party to Carrhae to offer the Romans a truce and safe conduct out of Mesopotamia, provided Crassus and Cassius were handed over to him. Crassus and the Romans tried to escape from the city by night, but their guide betrayed them to the Parthians. Cassius distrusted the guide because of the circuitous route he was following and went back to the city, and managed to get away with 500 horsemen.
When Surena found Crassus and his men the next day, he again offered a truce, saying the king had ordered it. Surena supplied Crassus with a horse, but as Surena's men tried to make the horse go faster, a scuffle developed between the Romans, who were unwilling for Crassus to go unaccompanied, and the Parthians. Crassus was killed in the fighting. Surena ordered the rest of the Romans to surrender, and some did. Others who tried to get away by night were hunted down and killed the next day. Altogether, 20,000 Romans were killed on the campaign and 10,000 captured.
The historian Dio Cassius, writing in the late 2nd or early 3rd century AD, reports a story that after Crassus' death the Parthians poured molten gold into his mouth as punishment for his greed (Cassius Dio 40.27).
Primary Sources:
Plutarch's Life of Crassus (the Perrin translation)Plutarch paired Crassus with Nicias, and the Comparison between the two is online in the Dryden translation.
For the war against Spartacus, see also
Appian's account in his The Civil Wars.
For the campaign in Parthia , see also
Dio Cassius' History of Rome, Book 40: 12-27
Secondary Sources:
For the war against Spartacus, see Jona Lendering's two-part article, which has links to the original sources and some good illustrations, including a bust of Crassus.
The Internet Movie Database has details of the film Spartacus, while History in Film discusses the film's historical accuracy.
Parthian records of the battle of Carrhae have not survived, but Iranchamber has articles on the Parthian Army and Surena.
Note: The above is a slightly adapted version of two articles that previously appeared at: http://www.suite101.com/welcome.cfm/ancient_biographies
