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Full of high-flown hopes he estimated the difficulties of the march as slight, and the power of resistance in the armies of the enemy as yet slighter; he not only spoke confidently of the subjugation of the Parthians, but was already in imagination the conqueror of the kingdoms of Bactria and India. Plan of the Campaign The new Alexander, however, was in no haste.
And so he went on naming a number of knights of one squadron or the other out of his imagination, and to all he assigned off-hand their arms, colours, devices, and mottoes, carried away by the illusions of his unheard-of craze; and without a pause, he continued, "People of divers nations compose this squadron in front; here are those that drink of the sweet waters of the famous Xanthus, those that scour the woody Massilian plains, those that sift the pure fine gold of Arabia Felix, those that enjoy the famed cool banks of the crystal Thermodon, those that in many and various ways divert the streams of the golden Pactolus, the Numidians, faithless in their promises, the Persians renowned in archery, the Parthians and the Medes that fight as they fly, the Arabs that ever shift their dwellings, the Scythians as cruel as they are fair, the Ethiopians with pierced lips, and an infinity of other nations whose features I recognise and descry, though I cannot recall their names.
The air there had not improved in the least, and presently he was off again, this time on the banks of the Euphrates, arguing with the Parthians, avoiding danger in the only way he knew, by facing it. It was then that the sheen of the purple glowed. If lustreless at home, it was royally red abroad. In a campaign that was little more than a triumphant promenade he doubled the empire.
Some of them who had served with Pompeius knew him as one who had received favours from Pompeius, and was supposed to be a friend to the Romans; but he now came to Crassus with a treacherous intent, and with the privity of the royal generals, to try if he could draw him far away from the river and the foot of the hills, into a boundless plain, where he might be surrounded by the enemy; for nothing was further from the intentions of the Parthians than to attack the Romans right in front.
Why not, then, count as manvantaric doings in West Asia this rise of the Parthians to power? Why relegate them and their activities to the dimness of pralaya? It was anything rather than a world empire. The countries west of the Euphrates never owned its dominion, and even of Iran itself not one half was subject to the Arsacids.
What could be a stronger proof of the blindness and infatuation of human nature, when carried away by its passions? Had they been willing to enjoy the fruits of their labors in peace and tranquillity, the greatest and best part of the world was their own. Or, if they must have indulged their thirst of victories and triumphs, the Parthians and Germans were yet to be subdued.
Any doubts that may have lingered on this point have been removed by the character of the objects found, which are never older than the Seleucidæ or the Parthians, and sometimes date even from the Roman epoch. What then did the Assyrians do with their dead? No one has attacked this question more vigorously than Sir Henry Layard.
Ventidius repaired to Rome, where he was honored with a well-deserved triumph. He had left it as a mule jobber; he returned with the laurel round his brows. He was the first, and almost the last, Roman general who could claim such a distinction for victory over the Parthians. The alliance with Sext. Pompeius was not intended to last, and it did not last.
The Parthians clapped their hands with shouts of joy and the attendants, at the command of the king, seated Sillakes, while Jason handed over to one of the members of the chorus the dress of Pentheus, and, laying hold of the head of Crassus, and, putting on the air of a bacchant, he sung these verses with great enthusiasm:
Will there be any peace, any happiness in life, so long as we call ourselves freemen, yet endure the chains of a despotism worse than that of the Parthians?" "Ah! amice!" said Cæsar, twisting the long limp grass, "every enemy is a tyrant, if he has the upper hand. Consider, what will the war be? Blood, the blood of the noblest Romans! The overturning of time-honoured institutions!
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