Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Battle of Carrhae

Starting point is 00:00:00 In the year 53 BC, Rome suffered one of the greatest military defeats in its history. A Roman army led by Marcus Licinius Crassus was led into the desert in present-day southern Turkey and was systematically destroyed by an army from the Parthian Empire. The defeat itself didn't radically weaken Rome, but the death of Crassus led to a chain of events that would result in the end of the Roman Republic. It was also the opening salvo in a centuries-long rivalry between Rome and Parthia that would never be definitively resolved. Learn more about the Battle of Car High

Starting point is 00:00:34 and the role it played in the destruction of the Roman Republic on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now.

Starting point is 00:01:10 Time travel with us. week on the Thulein podcast from NPR. In a previous episode, I provided a list of what I thought were the most important battles in history. These were battles such as Yorktown, Yarmuk, Gaugemela, Tours, and Khahmarca, where the outcome of the battle had civilizational level implications. The winners of those battles became ascendant, and the battles were major inflection points in world history.

Starting point is 00:01:42 The Battle of Karhai was not such a battle. While Rome did suffer a humiliating defeat, the battle didn't result in the Parthians conquering Rome or the destruction of Rome itself. The reason why the Battle of Car High is of interest is due to the defeat itself, which was an embarrassing disaster for Rome, and because of the chain of events it put into play, which eventually did result in the end of the Republic and the birth of the Roman Empire. There are two threads of this story that we need background on before we can tie them together. and the first thread is that of Parthia. Parthia was the successor state to the Seleucid Empire, which in turn arose from the Macedonian conquest of the Achaemenid Empire, which is known as the Persian Empire.

Starting point is 00:02:27 I covered the various Persian empires that succeeded each other in a previous episode. The Parthian Empire emerged in about the mid-third century BC, eventually becoming a significant power in the Near East. Rome, after consolidating its powers in the Mediterranean, started encountering Parthia during its eastern expansion. By the first century BC, Rome had completed their conquest of much of the Middle East along the coast of the Mediterranean, culminating with the capture of Jerusalem in 63 BC. While Rome had known about and had relations with the Parthians for about two centuries, it wasn't until about this point that the Roman conquest had brought the borders of the Roman

Starting point is 00:03:07 Republic up to the borders of the Parthian Empire. Early relations between Parthia and Rome were kind of a mixed bag. Alliances were proposed, but fell apart. Around 66 BC, the two realms participated in a joint invasion of Armenia, and then later argued about their border in the Levant. The important thing to know is that both Rome and Parthia were expanding towards each other, but at least by the year of 60 BC there hadn't been any major hostilities between the two realms. The second thread of this story is in Rome, and it centers on the main protagonist, Marcus Licinius Crassus.

Starting point is 00:03:45 If the name Crassus sounds familiar, it's because it's been mentioned in several previous episodes. Crassus was arguably the richest man in the late Roman Republic. Crassus amassed his fortune through real estate speculation, slave trading, and exploiting the prescription list that were put out by the dictator Sulla. Krasas used his wealth to gain influence in Rome. It was common at the time for wealthy men who serve as patrons for clients. They would fund their campaigns for office and pay some of their debts, and in exchange, the clients would use their position to enact laws favorable to their sponsor

Starting point is 00:04:20 or to provide other favors. Given his extreme wealth, this made Krasis very powerful. However, wealth wasn't everything in Rome. The late Republic was a period when great Amherst. ambition was encouraged among the Roman elite. The two things that every Roman upper class man of this period sought were the twin concepts of actoritas and dignitas. Dignitas is a hard to define concept because it doesn't translate directly into English, but it's a combination of respect, prestige, and reputation. One of the most important ways that a Roman man could accrue

Starting point is 00:04:59 actoritas and dignitas was through military glory. As I covered in a previous episode, Krasis' chief rival was Pompey Magnus, who had earned his fame through a series of military victories in the East. In the year 73 BC, Krasis had an opportunity to achieve military glory. A gladiator named Spartacus led a massive slave uprising, and Krasis led an army to put down the revolt. The problem was, even if he was successful and saved Rome, it wouldn't have been considered a great victory because he just beat a bunch of slaves. And even worse, when the uprising was finally

Starting point is 00:05:38 defeated, his rival Pompey showed up to take much of the glory. After the war in the year 70 BC, Crasus and Pompey served together as consul, and the two did not get along. Eventually in the year 59 BC, one of Crasis' clients, a guy named Julius Caesar, brought Crasus and Pompey together. He proposed that the two of them put aside their differences and that the three of them, them rule Rome together. And we call this period the first triumvirate, and it was a wholly unofficial and extra-legal arrangement. However, at least from the perspective of the three men involved, it worked extremely well. They could get all the laws they want passed and control the Roman government. In 59 BC, Caesar was consul, and after his year in office, was appointed the pro-consul of Gaul.

Starting point is 00:06:27 While in Gaul, he won many military victories, expanded Roman territory, and, and he was, and, and, and in the process became extremely wealthy and incredibly popular. Caesar's success as the junior member of the partnership left Crassus with arguably the least amount of dignitas of the three, having never had any major battlefield success. Crasis knew that if he wanted to truly have the respect of Rome, he needed military glory. His opportunity arrived in the year 53 BC, when Caesar's pro-consulship of Gaul was extended by five years, and as part of the deal, Krasas became the pro-consul of Syria. He was 62 years old, a very advanced age for ancient Rome. Syria was one of the richest provinces in Rome,

Starting point is 00:07:15 and Krasis wanted the appointment because it was the perfect launching point for an invasion of Parthia. Parthia not only offered the potential for territorial conquest and military glory, but also wealth. The time also seemed to have been favorable as the Parthian leadership was in flux. In 57 BC, King Faradis III was killed by his two sons, Arrodez the second and Mithridates the fourth. They then fought for the throne between themselves with Arrode's emerging victorious. Krasis's predecessor in Syria attempted to align Rome with Mithridides to put him on

Starting point is 00:07:51 the throne as a puppet ruler, but the effort was abandoned. Mithridides then tried to invade Bessipatania on his own, but was thwarted by a Parthian commander by the name of Serena. Krasus assembled an army of approximately 43,000 men, including 35,000 heavy infantry, 4,000 cavalry, and 4,000 light infantry. His plan was to just advance into the heart of Parthia. Historians have debated how well-prepared and equipped the army of Krasis was. On the one hand, all Roman legions were usually well-trained.

Starting point is 00:08:26 On the other hand, they were not prepared for the harsh desert climate that they would be going into, and they were not accustomed to fighting light cavalry in the form of mounted archers, which made up the majority of the Parthian army. Perhaps the biggest mistake that Crassus made was that he just assumed that the conquest would be easy. Part of his arrogance was rejecting the offer of 40,000 troops and a route into Parthia that avoided the desert by the Armenian king Ardavastis. Krastus marched his legions right into the desert, a place where Romans weren't accustomed. him to fighting, and a place they weren't logistically prepared to enter.

Starting point is 00:09:04 The Parthian commander Serena heard of the Romans entering Parthia, and he went to confront them with his army of approximately 10,000, mostly cavalry. Serena didn't engage the Romans immediately. He kept retreating, lengthening Roman supply lines, and getting the Romans into position on the plains outside of the town of Karai. On the day the battle took place, the Romans went into battle immediately, rather than setting up camp and resting for the next day. The Parthians did what they could to intimidate the Romans by banging drums and hiding their armor under cloth. Crassus set up as men in a hollow square formation, which was unusual for the Romans as it greatly decreased their mobility. This was the

Starting point is 00:09:45 first time that the Romans fought the Parthians in a major battle. The Romans were not accustomed to the Parthian style of fighting, which was almost entirely with cavalry. The Parthian-like cavalry would advance and then feign a retreat, tricking the Romans into pursuing the false retreat. As the Parthians feigned retreat, they would shoot their bow backward in what became known as the Parthian shot. The immobile Roman infantry couldn't really fight back against the Parthian mounted archers, and the Roman cavalry was no match for the Parthians. Eventually, the Parthian cataphracks, their heavy cavalry, attacked and broke the Roman lines, causing the Roman positions to fall apart.

Starting point is 00:10:27 Krasas' son was killed in an attempted counterattack, which only demoralized the Romans even further. The Romans had never seen anything like this before. The Parthians were mowing them down, and the Romans could barely touch them. This went on all day, and eventually Krasis ordered a general retreat to the town of Kari. Krasis had proven himself to be a terrible field commander.

Starting point is 00:10:51 The next morning, Serena offered a parlay with Kras. and offered to allow the surviving Romans to leave on the condition that they give up all of their lands east of the Euphrates. Krasas initially refused to meet, but his troops threatened mutiny if he didn't. So we went to the meeting where he and all of his officers were killed. The Parthians had minimal casualties. The Romans suffered 20,000 dead, 10,000 captured, and another 10,000 managed to flee. It was one of Rome's worst military defeats at that time, perhaps second only to the Battle of Caney in the Second Punic War. And it wasn't just the loss of soldiers. The Parthians captured several legionary

Starting point is 00:11:35 Eagles, which were the golden standards that each Legion carried into battle. Losing them was considered one of the greatest dishonors possible and a bad omen. The biggest fallout from the battle was the death of Crassus. With Crassus gone, the Triumvirate fell apart. Without its third member, could be checked by the other two. Caesar and Pompey eventually began to feud, which resulted in a civil war, which resulted in Pompey's death, and Caesar's establishment as dictator for life, which was the effectual end of the Republic. If Crassus had never gone to war, he may have survived long enough to have intervened in the

Starting point is 00:12:13 attempts to bring Caesar to trial, which was the cause of the civil war. Without the civil war, the republic would have survived in some form, and the Roman Empire would never have arisen, at least in the way it did. The Battle of Karai also began centuries of conflict between Rome and Parthia. Before Caesar was assassinated, he was preparing to go to Parthia to restore Roman honor and retrieve the lost legionary standards. While that never happened, Parthia remained the foil to Rome for years. Rome was never able to decisively defeat them, and the Parthian Empire served as the limit

Starting point is 00:12:51 of Roman influence in the East. In the generation after Car High, Parthia tried to unsuccessfully invade Rome in 40 BC, and Mark Anthony tried unsuccessfully to invade Parthia in 36 BC. Before I end, I should address one legend about this battle. Later on, a story began to spread that Crassus had actually been captured. Mocking his greed and his thirst for wealth, the Parthian supposedly executed him by pouring molten gold down his throat. There is no record of this in any of the recorded histories of the battle,

Starting point is 00:13:27 and it appears to have been made up well after the battle took place. That being said, this story was the basis for the death of Viseries Targaryen in the Game of Thrones. The Battle of Karai was a major humiliating defeat for the Romans. They had never experienced a fighting force like the Parthians, who extensively used mounted archers. The battle was a foreshadowing of what other European armies would experience at the hand of the Mongols, over 12 centuries later. Most importantly, however, it began a series of events that changed the history of Rome

Starting point is 00:14:01 and as a result, the entire Western world. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Benji Long and Cameron Kiever. I want to give a big shout out to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon, including the show's producers. Your support helps me put out a show every single day. And also, Patreon is currently the only place where every single place where every single Everything Everywhere Daily merchandise is available to the top tier of supporters.

Starting point is 00:14:31 If you'd like to talk to other listeners of the show and members of the Completionist Club, you can join the Everything Everywhere Daily Facebook group or Discord server. Links to everything are in the show notes.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Battle of Carrhae

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