Crassus and Carrhae |
SOMETIMES in order to look forward we must first look back, and so we will cast our gaze back over 2,000 years to the last days of the Roman Republic as it struggled under the weight of the First Triumvirate. This informal political alliance, which comprised of Julius Caesar, Pompey ‘the Great’ and Marcus Licinius Crassus, was formed so that these worthies could combine their influence and collectively overcome opposition to their proposals and agendas in the Roman Senate. Caesar and Pompey require no further introduction beyond their august names but perhaps you haven’t heard of Crassus?
He was the richest man in Rome at the time, and his fortune, like most great fortunes, wasn’t exactly obtained by honest means. He started out by cheaply buying property confiscated by the Roman state from so-called traitors and dissidents (really, anyone on the wrong side of the powers that be) and went so far as to include the names of those whose wealth he coveted in the list of traitors who were to be proscribed and reduced to penury. An entrepreneur, he also set up Rome’s first fire brigade, albeit with a twist: Crassus’s fire brigade — 500 men strong — would rush to the site of one of the near-daily fires that plagued Rome and then do absolutely nothing until the owner of the burning house agreed to sell his property to Crassus for asses on the sestertii (pennies on the pound for the less Romanophile among you). If he refused, Crassus would simply watch the building burn and then buy the now empty lot along with the adjacent building. By means of this technique he ended up owning “the largest part of Rome” and as Plutarch wrote, he increased his fortunes “by fire and war, making the public calamities his greatest source of revenue”.
It wasn’t enough for Crassus; nothing is ever enough for the Crassuses of the world. In a bid to increase his political power as much as he had increased his wealth, Crassus joined Caesar and Pompey. But he did, no doubt, feel overshadowed by his partners in power: Pompey was a celebrated and accomplished general and Caesar was, well, Caesar. While Crassus also had some military achievements under his belt, he wasn’t in their league.
Nothing is ever enough for the Crassuses of the world.
And so, he decided to invade Rome’s greatest rival, the Parthian Empire, which then ranged roughly from what is now the Makran coastal mountain range to the Euphrates and parts of modern Turkiye. Wealthy and at the crossroads of lucrative trade routes, Parthia was the ultimate prize. Defeating the Parthians, Crassus thought, would (literally) win him the laurels he felt he deserved.
“But the Parthians are deadly archers!” warned his generals. “Nonsense,” replied Crassus, “Roman arms and armour are more than a match for barbarian arrows, and besides, my intelligence reports indicate that the Parthians have a limited supply of arrows and will soon run out. We will make Parthia Rome again!” At this point, it should be clear that this is a fictionalised conversation, but it’s also pretty much how this went down. He ignored his allies who urged him to send a larger force and use a mountainous route less vulnerable to Parthian attacks and so, with his generals cowed or convinced and his allies snubbed, Crassus marched off into Parthia at the head of seven whole legions which would have comprised probably at least 40 per cent of Rome’s total fighting force and advanced all the way to the arid plains of Carrhae. Here, as predicted, the Parthians began raining arrows down on the Roman legions who responded by adopting their customary testudo formation, linking their square shields and forming what had hitherto been seen as an impenetrable human tank. Except that not only did the Parthian arrows find their mark, they also showed they were capable of tearing through Roman armour with considerable ease. Bleeding and bothered, his commanders urged him to reconsider tactics but Crassus, being Crassus, would hear none of it. After all, he repeated, the Parthians were going to run out of arrows any minute now. They didn’t. The arrows kept coming and penetrating armour to sink into the soft, red, Roman flesh below and — most worryingly — showed no signs of running out. That’s because the Parthians, being well-acquainted with Roman tactics, had led the legions to a place where they not only had arrow ‘factories’ busy churning out projectiles but had also set up camel caravans to keep the front lines supplied. End result? All seven legions were decimated and Crassus himself lay dead. Legend has it that the victorious Parthians chopped off his head and poured molten gold into his mouth to mock his thirst for wealth.
Interestingly, Crassus’ name in Latin meant ‘thick’ or ‘dense’ which is where we get the modern word ‘crass’, meaning grossly stupid and/ or uncouth. Sound like anyone we know?
The writer is a journalist.
X: @zarrarkhuhro
Published in Dawn, March 23rd, 2026