Customer Reviews

DEFEAT OF ROME IN THE EAST, THE: Crassus, the Parthians, and the Disastrous Battle of Carrhae, 53 BC

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book fills a void in popular history of the rise of Parthia and the policy of expansion eastwards by Rome. The build-up and character study of Crassus is well developed (whether one finds it's theme plausible or not) but when you get to the dramatic events of Carrhae, it is a narrative let down. After such a build up the battle narrative is rather blandly described, lacking all the embellishments of Plutarch. Some extracts might have been nice here. Also the maps do not detail the places of the actual campaigning very well. I would have preferred more context with inclusion of Antony's campaigns as well, which would have been much more ample 'proof' that Crassus was simply vilified as a loser, whereas Antony's campaign is given a "Mulligan"....
JJ

Gareth Sampsons book of the disaster that was the battle of Carrhae 53BC is a very richly detailed and multi faceted account of not just the battle itself but two great civilisations, and how their expansionist approaches as they swallowed up Alexanders Hellenistic kingdoms set them on course for collission well before the lifetimes of the main protagonists involved.

Marcus Crassus - the leading Roman protagonist - and his life are given plenty of careful study early on in the book. The unsettling influence his ambitions for power and use of his vast wealth had on destabilising the Roman Republic when he vied with Pompey for control are examined. Both mens drive to gain popular approval and power follow different paths - Crassus via meddling in domestic politics and Pompey through engineering reasons for Military campaigns. The minute detail of their tussle for prominance, manipulation of friend, foe and ally in a no holds barred pursuit of further glory, power and wealth dominate the first third of the book and are fascinating in themselves.

The quality of the research takes what could have been a dry and sterile account of one Roman battle (albeit a pivotal one)and elevates it into a truly thought provoking work as the main players motivations/connections/allegiances are nicely tied to their actions.The author always tosses in a "food for thought" approach that wets the readers appetite to keep turning the pages. And thats well before the battle itself even kicks off which doesnt occur till the middle of the book (approx page 114 of 224) An example being Pompey and his ally Syrian Governor Aulus Gabinius who - the author points out - practically engineered/plotted in tandem the campaign against Parthia commencing as early as 58BC before throwing it to Crassus and going off to meddle in Egypts affairs?

No stone unturned on what lead to the failure at Carrhae. Aside from Pompey and Gabinius's influence the author examines everything from the special barbed arrows, able to pierce Roman shields and armour, the lessons of which Pompey/Gabinius forces noted but hardly bothered warning Crassus about (which was later to prove detrimental). The superior nature of the Parthian composite bow. The greater length of the Parthian heavy cavalry lance. The inability of scouts - despite observing the Parthian forces - to realise the baggage trains of camels were not ordinary baggage trains carrying food and water but arrows only being so carried away were they to report their enemy was a smaller force with no infantry to support it. The decision by Parthian leader Surena to scap entirely the way Parthians fought in the past so as to negate Roman intelligence further and create an entire new force with revamped and improved tactics makes for interesting reading.

The book has a rivoting account of the actual battle. Crassus actions are not painted as an incompetent man jealous of Pompey for stealing his glory over Spartacus days or those of a man well past his prime in battle but more from more subtle points of warfare. Such as simply being out-thought by a tactical genius (Surena)of the day.

Its also a balanced account in that the author shows the rarely seen Parthian perspective too and portrays them as more than a docile race waiting for the Romans to make their move but as a sophisticated foe capable of forward planning, masking weakness and strength so as to best use their lesser resources against their more numerous enemy. They needed to make a statement if Rome was to be deterred from future agression and they had one throw of the dice in which to deliver it.

One by one the known decisions Crassus makes through the campaign(including the all important one for taking the fast path across flat country instead of the round about one via Armenia and its mountain passes)are looked at sensibly for the positives and negatives to see how the decisions he made stacks up quality wise.

Crassus is shown to not altogether being helped by the competency/self interests of some of his own officers, nobles and trusted allies. People like Cassius (later famed for his part in the assassination of Julius Caesar) desserting Crassus post battle to save his own skin and taking a vital part of the force with him when rather than fight on and help save his men and commander though lesser officers set a better example. Or Armenian ally King Artvasdes (a no show with his much needed cavalry) convieniently meeting Parthia's King to sign a peace treaty while the dust of Carrhae had barely settled.

Sampsons book pits many historical sources such as Dio and Plutarch (as well as Cicero and others) against each other and examines the merit of each persons account of what actually happened. Disparity of accounts is discussed as they occur frequently and it becomes evident that one can not totally rely on them at face value even if they represent the sources closest to the event due to bias and a gap in era still existing between them and the events described.

All in all its a very informative, well written and thought provoking book. There is no lack of detail great or small, no lack of in depth analysis and many mouth watering questions examined that have one wishing there had been an inquest at the time able to answer them.

The only downside of the book is the lack of quality maps. Despite what the earlier review says there is a basic campaign map (black and white) in the beginning of the book showing broadly Crassus campaign route to Carrhae and some maps detailing the two Empires territories at that time. But no imaginative images of battle, or key maps outlaying the progress of the battle and changing tactics as the battle developed save for a small postage stamp like map on page 134 where the Romans are shown as a square, circled by Parthians. Apart from images of coins, photo's of ruins of Rome and the Parthian capital, images of marble busts of the key Romans of the day, some sketchy drawings of the fighters --> all in the middle of the book, its pretty much a text based experience.

Despite this, the quality of the research and the analysis formed and the questions raised and examined I believe still make this a book every bit worth 5 stars

I found this book to be pretty well written and researched about a battle most people really don't know anything about, Carrhae. This battle ended in a total defeat for the Roman legions under Marcus Licinius Crassus, one of the three most powerful men of Rome during this period, 53 BC. Their enemy, the Parthian Empire controlled what is now Iran and Iraq while struggled with Rome over the Armenian kingdom.

The book is relatively short and half of the narrative just deals with the introductionary material regarding the background to Rome, Parthia and Crassus. While the author relied on the ancient material as his main sources, he does not take them as gospel as so many have done in the past. He managed to insert his own insights into these events that produced a different perception of this campaign and battle. The author's take is that Crassus didn't really do anything wrong. He was an experienced commander, good leader and been through enough not to panic. However, he was also unfortunate enough to face the Parthian commander, Surena, who according to the author, was a total military genius who used his limited mounted army to maximum effects while reducing Roman strength to minimal while exploiting their weaknesses to the maximum. Considering that 40,000 troops under Crassus was totally defeated by 10,000 Parthians, it pretty hard to debate the author's insertions.

The Rome's defeat at Carrhae had far reaching consequences as it clearly spelled the end of the Roman Republic and the rise of Roman Empire as we know it today. The book covers the aftermath of the battle, fate of the prisoners (first Europeans to meet the Chinese??) and sad fate of Surena who was probably murdered by his fearful monarch.

Only major weaknesses of the book lies in its support materials. I thought there should be better photographs, more interesting battle maps and diagrams. It was a good thing I read Shadows in the Desert by Dr. Kaveh Farrokh that gave a short but equally interesting account of Carrhae and the Parthian Empire.

This book is rather expensive for the material involved. However, I found this book to be quite good and readable. It may be wise to get this at a reduced price or read it in the library.

A solid work summarizing what information we have concerning this battle and events prior and afterwards. The previous reviews have covered the major points but here are a few additional points/observations:

Crassus as commander--fairly typical Roman Republican Soldier-Politician carrer-wise and demonstrated significant skills as an overall comander during the Third Servile War by maintaining large bodies of troops in the field and conducting succesful operations resulting in the defeat of the principal slave army armed and fighting in Roman fashion. By the mid-50s BC, he was considerably older (60?) and facing a differently armed opponent with a "doctrine" quite dissimilar from Roman military practice. In the lead up to Carrhae he conducted a competent campaign, and might have come off the better had he faced the main royal Parthian Army instead of the Suren cavalry corps.

Surenas (or the Suren) as commander--Scion of one of the principal Parthian families and apparently already a personage of some military repute/authority as they provided the Mesopotamian defensive corps while the Parthian King campaigned in the north. Dr Sampson terms him a military genius; that's probably a stretch based on one battle, however, decisive (not so successful regarding Parthian court intrigue, apparently). The sources do indicate that he was a tactical innovator by ensuring a continuing arrow supply for his light horse and he succeeded in leading his Roman opponent onto a prepared battlefield where Parthain capabilities could be maximized. In the main, he appears to have drawn upon historical Parthian modes of warfare, (they were a nomadic horse people, originally) as opposed to the Hellenistic miltary model that seems to have had some influence in the "royal" Parthian Army. At the same time he was assisted by the historical aggressiveness of Roman commanders for meeting engagements and their penchant for poor reconnaissance.

Parthian verses Roman arms: It's unclear that the mysterious barbed arrows were anything new despite some of the ancient sources which Sampson quotes. Steppe horse archers had numerous types of arrow heads for various work and long, pointed three or four-sided ("bodkin")heads with a right angled extension or barb are known from before this period. Coupled with compound bows at close range, these could penetrate Roman chain mail (the standard heavy infantry armor of the era) and hide covered multi-wood ply shields. The extent of fatalities inflicted is unclear--Plutarch cites Crassus as urging his men to counter attacks only to have them point to hands nailed to shields or feet nailed to the ground by the arrow storms. Regarding the reach of the Parthian heavy lancer's Kontos, there's nothing original here. Roman troops of this period following the Marian reforms, were rather uniformly equipped with one, maybe two javelins (pila) for throwing prior to engaging in close quarter combat; they were not intended as defensive pikes to repel cavalry. While the Parthian heavies could probably charge--their high cornered saddles substituting for the apparent lack of stirrups, it appears that the forming of the Roman army into a square possibly limited their effectiveness except against isolated elements or small counter attacks such as Publius'. Absent riding down individual infantrymen, they would have faced the dangers of a melee--there's some hint of this in the descriptions of Publius' Gallic troops pulling riders from their horses or stabbing the horses themselves. All in all, it appears that the arrow attack was decisive in chiefly wearing down and demoralizing the Roman force which then broke up in the following days and was destroyed in detail. Sampson gives a good account, extrapolating from Plutarch who gives the fullest coverage of Carrahe, but there are still lacunae in its actual duration and conduct. My own thesis is that Plutarch drew on a now lost contemporary or near contempary military account (Cassius?) from which he asbracted details for dramatic and didactic purposes.

That the Romans drew lessons from the battle seems clear. Caesar planned a Parthian campaign with a much larger light infantry and cavalry component (had he fought in Crassus' place with a "conventional" force, as Adcock, writing in the 1940's, notes, he might have had a similar fate). Antony seems to have implemented this plan with little result, but the sources do indicate that slingers could reduce the effect of horse archers.

I always read about Roman history and wondered about Rome's arch-rival, the Parthian empire. Most historians have treated Parthia as the enemy beyond the horizon. Sampson actually tried to understand Parthia and the battle at Carrhae. He treats the Parthian empire with respect, and in particular gives Parthian general Surenas credit for brilliant military planning. He also attempts resurrect Crassus' reputation as a powerful and skilled politician and military leader who was simply outdone by an even better general (Surenas). Sampson's work is revisionist history at its best, providing a new perspective on a much-ignored battle (Carrhae), politician (Crassus), and empire (Parthia).

I would warn that this is not a beginner's book in Roman history. While Sampson provides some background relevant to Carrhae, he refers only obliquely to Pompey's competition with Crassus and the other Roman history. This would be a good book to read after reading Tom Holland's Rubicon.

The only reason I did not give this book 5 stars is that the writing is somewhat stilted and wordy. The book is already short, and too much is already taken up with superfluous words. If the book goes into another edition, I would recommend a good editor to tighten up the language. Other than that, great book.

Disappointing is being generous. The up-side of this book is the overall background given on Crassus and Roman politics, as well as doing a fair job criticizing ancient sources. The rest of the book is not so grand. I don't ordinarily worry about type-o's but the editing here is substandard. There were sentences where I had to guess as to the intent, errors like "...it it...", and I am pretty sure the author meant "honorific" instead of "horrific" in describing Rome's priestly college. The little stuff aside, the majority of this book is repetitious and utter speculation. The first chapter is background on how Rome made its way East and how this played into the Parthian rise. The second chapter is background on the rise of Parthia and how this played into Rome's Eastward expansion. The third chapter is how Rome expanded East and how Parthia rose to power. These themes are then repeated at points throughout the book. I got it in the first chapter, thank you. A lot of energy is also spent on defending Crassus and his decisions. Some of these apologetics are sound but some of it goes over the top. No doubt Crassus was a clever and intelligent general, but he still made choices that resulted in the destruction of his army and his own death. No amount of praise erases his responsibility. Cassius, who is represented in ancient sources as the guy warning Crassus against his bad decisions has his role inverted, without clear explanation, as the bad guy who deserted Crassus. As for the battle, the book hardly addresses it in any detail of worth. The author seems to brush over it quickly in order to devote his energies to his fertile field of speculation. There is a single chapter devoted to the book's cornerstone battle and only in broad terms.

When writing on a subject, one expects reinterpretations of old evidence, introductions of new evidence and possibly a review of the latest in archaeology, etc. Unforntunately, this book does very little of this. As stated earlier, a large part of the book is pure speculation. Barring new discoveries, we will never know if Surenas planned to wage a set piece battle to destroy Crassus' army, took advantage of events as they unfolded or was just plain lucky. The author's clear opinion is that Surenas was a military genius who planned to destroy Crassus' army from the outset. While this could be, there is no evidence to support the claim except the author's own fertile imaginations and reaches of logic. The tactics described to support these assertions were standard tactics employed by Asiatic horsemen centuries before Surenas. Having reserves of arrows brought to the battlefield are described by the author as a brilliant new development of Surenas. I really doubt if horse archers before him went off to war without arrow reserves. It is further asserted that Surenas was such a military genius that he could have single handedly driven Rome out of the East if not for being held back by a jealous King--again, not a single shred of evidence is presented to support this. And so on. We have very little in record of Parthia's rise to power or their internal politics, yet, the author spares nothing in presenting these events for us. The amount of criticism that could be offered at this point would require writing a book. Suffice it to say that a book is valued by the quality of its content, not by the number of its pages. A very large chunk of this book should have been omitted.

The book provides, based on thorough research of the literature from antiquity, alternative accounts of what happended adn by a process of eliminatioin based on logic of accounts as well as the author's knowledge of deep knowldege of topic such as local geographical topology, military strategies prevailing at time, weapons, etc, THis, by far, is what trully distinguishes this book.

The book starts off with introductions to the internal policial and external geopolitical situation in both Rome and Parthia, their leaders and the relevant military generals. Then the book delves into the specifics of ROman-Parthian relatison before the war and factors leading to it. Then the book describes the war itself and provides an excellent descritpion and analysis of the battle itself. Particularly interesting were the revolutionaly and novle tactics used by the Parthian general in charge against the Crassus, a force of (almost exclusively) horse mounted archers that circled the Romans and pelted them from a far. It was this surprise tactic that took the Romans completely by surprise and lead to their route and the Parthian victory in that war. The Parthian mounted archers were wre supplied by an endless supply of arrows carried by camels.

The book finally concludes with the aftermath of the war itself - another war a little later between the two states that could have been won by Parthia had the Parthian general responsible for the first victory not been put to death by the Parthian king. This was due to that general's competence threatening the king's own regime which, in turn, suffered from lack of popularity due to the recent civel war and the king's resulting lack of legitimacy. The general's replacements were quite inept and, as a result, they were unable to complete Parthias victory over Rome. As a result of this lack of decisiveness to crush Rome while it was still in dissaray from the Battle of Carhae the Parthians lost an opportunity to kick the Romans out of this theatre of operations. Rome evenually recovered but still proved unable to conquer Parthia, even long after the Roman Civil war between Pompey and Ceaser had ended. The only negative atttribute of the book - and why thie reviewer give it four stars instead of five - is the fact that tthe book is written in a very dry manner that can easily, despite the interesting content, put the reader to sleep.

The Battle of Carrhae, the climax of the First Partian War, has long represented only the failure of Marcus Licinius Crassus, a preventable disaster. The surviving sources from the time or shortly thereafter invariably dump on Crassus, often for political reasons unrelated to the battle; there is generally a lack of other perspectives. Gareth Sampson sets out to change this.

Sampson spends considerable time setting the stage for the clash between Rome and Parthia. Both of these powers were founded and grew on the fringes of the ancient world, and each moved unconsciously towards the other to fill the vacuum created by the slow collapse of the Alexandrian/Seleucid empire in between. Rome's progress up to the advent of the First Triumvirate is described in detail; then we examine the founding, the rise, the occasional near collapse, and the re-creating of the Parthian Empire. Crassus' career up to the fatal Parthian war is closely followed; the royal family of the Parthians, as well as what we know of the Satrap general we call Surenas who ultimately defeated Crassus is examined. The development of the campaign, the battle, and its ruinous aftermath is presented complete with maps and charts. Finally, the aftermath is discussed as it unfolded tactically, over the following two years, and finally what it meant for the Romans/Byzantines and the Parthians up to the rise of Islam 700 years later.

Throughout, Sampson utilizes and interprets what historical primary sources we have; where there are conflicts, as there often are, he gives us all points of view, and makes what seem to be reasonable assumptions. An appendix goes into detail on each and every one of the sources available, with commentary. One result of this is that we can see just how little information is really available on the Parthians, and how/why the Romans came to portray Crassus and the Carrhae campaign as they did.

Sampson's work is historical reconstruction and reinterpretation at its finest. The book is informative, carefully and well-written, superbly researched, and thoroughly enjoyable. I hope Sampson writes many more like it in the future.

A great overview of a lesser known defeat of Rome. These series tend to be OUTSTANDING. Very detailed with photographs and studies. I highly recommend !

What was interesting about this book is that it is not until about two-thirds of the way through the book before the reader finally arrives in Carrhae. The author does not jump right to the battle on page 1 because as the author points out you need to understand the Roman politics and ambitions of the Triumverate - Caesar & Pompey & Crassus - that led Crassus to take 30,000 Roman troops to Parthia. Caesar was able to get alot of "good press" and gold while conquering Gaul so there was some political and personal ambition that led Crassus to try to make a name for himself as well. I wasn't expecting it, but the time the author took to give the reader a clear overview of all the dynamics that led to Carrhae was helpful. But then Crassus and his troops soon find out that close order Roman battle tactics may work well in Gaul and Germania, but in Parthia...not so much. The author does go into detail of the battle between the Romans and Parthians who were led by a great leader and tactician who was later killed by the Parthian king because he did not appreciate the competition from this Parthian general. Sound familiar Romans ? The author does explains the Roman tactics versus the Parthian tactics and why the Parthians won...decisively. The author addresses the role of the Parthian heavy calvary, the physical layout of the battlefield, the Parthian compound bow...with lots and lots of arrows, and the poorly executed Roman retreat. The death of Crassus left Caesar and Pompey as the two most powerful men in Rome. Guess what happens next between these two. Overall a good book. Could have used some more maps, there were only four provided at the front of the book but no big thing.