Deadly Moments in History - Avenging Crassus 

Albino I know why y'all really went down there 🤯

The Usher A project for an innovative director prepared to ignore cries of, "Hey, no one will go see a movie about Ventidius. No one's ever heard of him."

it'd be a mini series ;)

@@alanpennie8013 He dropped out of history after his return to Rome. He was awarded a Triumph for his victories, then retired to Picenum.

@@MarsFKA Not been killed he is a threat

Yep Rome War 3!

Luke Dysart get out

oooooooohhhhh lol. You sir, are a killer AND a scholar.

lol

Ha

the Parthians advancing with the head of Publius on display...bad news for Crassus...

I actually didn't know much about the son. I do know the son was the only one trying to make something happen, amongst his fathers indecision. I always love hearing about people who are born into nobility and privilege, but don't become stuck up or full of themselves, eventually winning over the common soldier. Nobles who actually act Noble.

Was he the rapist in Spartacus?

Neutron Alchemist Pharnapates : "You underestimate my power" *gets wrecked*

whakabuti Pharnapates :"I hate you!"

Testicles: "You were the chosen one!"

Star wars Fans/geeks we are everywhere 😝

Θ TRHC Pharnapates my allegiance is to the Roman Republic to DEMOCRACY!!!

If any story from the ancient world would make a good movie, it is the story of these two men.

The Ting thats strange, because the romans annaxed everything they conquered. They reached mesopotamia so why didn't they stay there?

ayoeb khan Horse archers perform poorly when the enemy is prepared to fight them though.

ayoeb khan Did you even bother to watch the fucking video? Oakley pretty much explains how an army without even Horse Archers were able to defeat one not once but three times! Hell they even killed a Parthian Prince which is supposedly a higher rank that a senator like Crassus.

That's actually pretty interesting, especially considering Crassus was the guy who defeated Spartacus, the leader of Rome's greatest slave revolt.

"It's over Pharnapates! I have the high ground!"

ayoeb khan Because Orodes saw him as a threat

They won dumbass.

The light cavalry tactic of feigned retreat was apparently used over, and over, and over again by Eastern tribes and kingdoms against European armies, but the Europeans never seemed to catch on. They were still falling for it with the Mongols a thousand years after this campaign.

ParthianShot53BC Yes, he couldn’t get enough of it.

et tu,brute

it could have also meant the world we live in today would be a diffirent world and probably you wouldn't exist in it

@@masterxmasterx7197 meh, you're probably wrong.

@@jjs8426 no, you're probably wrong

@@masterxmasterx7197 you are wrong here

Blitzkrieg not near enough cubes for me

I understood that reference!

Historia Civilis

I get it

Thanks a ton for all the help and the many revisions we went through, it came out awesome!

Follow this dude on Instagram, @roman.military.history

good job bud

nice job man! greetings from brasil

Do You Believe People you Don't Even Know.?? UGH*

Moreso the former...cmon

@@PurelyGoliath No, it was the latter. Surena was a superb tactician. He had the potential to be another Hannibal.

@@Cailus3542 He beat the a terrible roman general by using horse archers? What amazing unique tactics did he employ that won him the battle? None. He was an average general at best.

@@pooroldman5089 Go away.

@@alanpennie8013 Based

Labienus considered Gaius Julius a traitor to the Roman people, and had personally oversaw the killing of the men whom were captured from Gaius julius's army at the first confrontation of the pompey's and Gaius's armies in Greece, he saw nothing but a traitor in Gaius julius and he died fighting a man he followed for over 15 years ! that shows how corrupted and evil Gaius julius was, but also Pompey and Crassus the other two members of the Triumvirate of Rome, were exactly the same !

@@mehrdadparthian874 Evil is quite an intresting word use, as you say evil and have a persian profile picture i guess i have to correct ye. Labienus and Caesar were great freinds, and if Caesar was so evil, how does it come he left Caesar's legion, dirrctly without trying to suduce them to his Loyalist side. He only brought a small cavalry enteradadge as bodyguards. And when Caesar heard he deserted, he sent him all of his stuff, Is this evil? Is it evil to give your friend (who abandoned you, and is publically refering to you as a tyrant, back all of what is rightfully his) and not burning it? And Labienus only left because Caesar's decision jeopardised his politcal career, as his only hope to become a respected politian was to take over Caesar's post as Governor, which tells us that Labienus betrayed Caesar for his own politcal ambition. Then after the battle of Dyrrhachium He executed prisoners, something Caesar didn't do as he peronally gave mercy to a politcal rival who had raised an army to stop him. Is this truly evil compared to others?

Jeffy The great Hahahaha lmao Ceasar killed prisoners all the time lmao He killed over 1 million Gauls in Total

Akira Moon So the Parthians had an army of Roman heavy infantry but never made effective use of it.

@@alanpennie8013 no, Labienus was a man, not an army. He probably managed to bring some soldiers but I doubt an army of Romans are just going to defect to the enemy just because some general does.

For sure.

Over 500 hundred years war with iranian empires including parthian or sassanids , and the romans often was defeated badly ... I don't think the romans even with ceasar could do anything different.

@@alibakhshi8017 The Romans held the upper hand for most of it, sacked the capital numerous times and had client states in the area.

@@lewistaylor2858 are you sure ? The sassanids kill or captive 3 emperor of byzantyne and they knelt down against shahpur I and sassanids reach meditranian coast and take all over egypt and anatolia and reach the constantinople gates . I dont say iranian was the winner of 500 years of war but i say it was imposible for romans to conquest all over the persia and reach the india . Actually both of empire were the loser of war , because those wars weekend two empire and create an opportunity for arabs and muslims to raid and destroy both empire and great civilizations

@@lewistaylor2858 The Parthian Capital was merely ornamental, sacking it was no big deal. It wasn't the all encompassing hub that Rome was.

@@rorykeegan1895 yeah but the city of Rome was almost untouchable too... Unless you're a Roman general...

Haha

Good old times, before it all had gone to shit...

Lake Ataturk in Turkey, too (1990).

Regardless is more fitting than otherwise, I think.

Assad ? Is.that lake name.for syrian president family?

The way you're phrasing it makes it sound stupid but this is pretty similar to European knighthood and feudalism. This system obviously has flaws but it existed for so long in so many places for a reason.

It's not unusual. Most military powers throughout history have largely drawn their cavalry forces from the upper classes, right up to and including WW1

@@cass7448 Not Romans though. And I am no fan of senate.

@@SMEGMA42069 Feudalism is indeed incredibly stable (city state of Sparta could be even considered such example of proto-feudalism). However, in case of catastrophic setback, single battle will wipe out entire leadership and the country simply collapses. This happened to Gothic Spain (single battle against raiding Moor party), to Serbia (Kosovo field) it almost happened even the most powerful european country, France, at Crecy. Arguably, it happened to Achameneids too, in Granicus, Issus and Gaugemala, entire imperial leadership was either killed, enslaved or turned fugitive. All in the span of less than three years.

Or put them in a trench and let them charge a machine gun ... War.

Even during the third century crisis, in a period of weakness, Rome repeatedly beaten the Germans, and the same Goths that would mark its end in fiftht century had been easily beaten by the rather obscure Emperor Claudius II. It had not been the enemies...

Mahbu don't forget germans where under the " holy roman empirw " and mongolia under the russian empire wich is known as third rome :) rome spirit got revenge

Rome too, like all empires fell however, people like to point out these victories, because everyone likes an underdog. It's more inspiring to hear a tale of David defeating Goliath, than the opposite.

That's fair, but the thing is I don't think they were all necessarily underdogs. Carthage was, at the time, one of the most powerful nations at the time. It dominated the sea when Rome had no sea power. Rome basically had to build a navy over night, train in unorthodox ways, and come up with new strategies and they managed to win. Parthia, too, was a great power though perhaps not as fearsome as Rome. And the Germans? They won not by plucky underdog resolve but because all the German guides betrayed the romans in Teutoburg forest and led them into a brutal ambush. And Rome did eventually fall but it's important to note that it is probably one of the longest lasting powers in the world. From the founding of the Roman (753 BC) to the collapse of the Byzantine Empire (1453), it left an indelible mark despite many powerful rivals throughout the ages. And numerous civil wars.

You oversimplify. Carrhae, Teutoburg and Cannae were huge if we look from the point of Roman society. Teutoburg was such a big shock for Romans like Stalingrad to German society in WWII. Maybe Rome didn't collapse after those events, but this defeat lasted for centuries to come in minds of roman commanders and emperors. Germanicus campaign was clearly a PR move. Rome showed that they could avenge their losses even bring back few of the lost Eagles, but there was no intention to conquer these regions. There was not much to gain conquering sparsly populated forests, but a lot to lose if another Teutoburg happened. We should remember about Roman defeat at Atuatuca where Ambiorix massacred Romans using deception. Roman Legions weren't expert in forest fighting and ambushes like these were to be expected in dense forests of Germania. Arminius downfall was not because of Germanicus, but because of fame he gained. Some Germans were afraid that he became too powerful so they assassinated him. He ended similar as Julius Ceasar. Carrhae showed that Parthians are not a pushover and Romans would need a big military force to do this. At that point Empire was so stretched that expensive campaign so far East was not worth it. Cannae is a special example, because it was that moment in history were Rome faced a real threat. We don't know what would happen if Hannibal decided to march straight on the city. Rome won war of attrition, because of so many people it was able to recruit into Legions. Burning city to the ground might spread chaos and disorder and bring total collapse. Hannibal chose other strategy which proved to be ineffective in long run.

Invicta for me the name of Crassus automatically reminds about slave rebellion lead by Spartacus

Lord Alehandro after long humiliation of Rome, yeah. Though, if I am not mistaken, Pompey partly help Crassus to defeat Spartacus and his rebellion

Invicta Fuckin love this series please continue maybe in the medieval errors

Invicta, can you imagine Caesar's planned campaign against Parthia would have been like? Imagine if it had happened and how even more entertaining history might have been.

Yes! Thank you so much for this. I have long been interested in Rome's stalemate in the east. A good part of the reason they were never able to stabilize on their German frontier is that they had so much invested in their conflict with Parthia. In my opinion, Parthia played a greatly understudied role in the ultimate fall of Rome.

lol

"When enemies are everywhere - just make a noobsquare" - Crassus 54b.c

He fought Spartacus and also with Ceasar in gaul

@@jaynishnakar3115 Crassus' son fought with Caesar in Gaul. Crassus and Pompey were in Rome at the time.

Crassus wasnt a noob. He was highly intelligent and competent. He made a mistake. Thats all.

@kurgan highlander You are comparing modern warfare to ancient times. How dumb can you be?

@kurgan highlander you talk like America's enemies are just too good to use air support and artillery. When honestly you just cant afford to keep a real army, at least by modern standards. If it were Russia and China they'd also bomb your asses to oblivion before mopping you up. Because they can also afford it lol.

@kurgan highlander Forget all these Eurocentric racists. Parthians avenged the setbacks that they faced as well and they always want to gloss over these facts. In fact, the Romans only sound successful because the details in this video are strictly from their own sources And it ignores the less glorious parts.

@@phoneguy8588 So where are the parthian sources then?

It's called strategy burn ass. Ez roma

Caesar would've never charged like a fool through the shortest route to begin with, as for the horearchers remember the briton's charriots? they used a very similar tactic yet caesar came out triumphant(barely). he could have applied what he learned in britain to his campaign in Parthia. Caesar was 10 times the military commander Crasus was and i truly believe he would've come out somewhat victorious

Chariots are not the same as horse archers. The chariot is far less flexible in manoeuvre. Another issue is scale. There would be far more horse archers than ever chariots. Caesar may have been a competent commander but that alone is not enough. Army composition and logistics would be the deciding factor. Putting it down to individual leadership is far too reductionist.

Gowan James Ditchburn Briton Chariots were different in their mobility. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-LOCBWh5Iwm4.html&

ayoeb khan Yo if you’re gonna argue about Caesar, you gotta spell his name correctly.

It's not as though Romans had no answer at all to horse archer tactics, it's just that Crassus put himself into a situation where the Parthians could maximize their advantages and Crassus could use none of his. Caesar was also planning to invade with a much stronger force than Crassus had, including way more cavalry. But mainly I don't think Caesar would ever have marched his army into the desert with no intelligence on Parthian forces.

I think he did a video on the full battle a while back. MIght be why he glossed over it.

here you go, this video covers it very well. It was indeed brutal. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-bR7VDPUj5AE.html

Probably didn't want the video to be too long.

not as brutal as the way he made his wealth. that man got exactly what he deserved.

Two wrongs doesn't make a right.

He was :) Read my other comment on this, I think you may find it interesting.

This ignores much about Antony. I did a comment about this below if you want to check it out c:

Check out my other comments too thanks

Rex Galilae Cleopatra was a puppet.

김성산 dude go check out his profile, it goes from raising small birds, a couple of songs by Blondie to FUCK All BLACK PEOPLE!!!!!! 😂😂😂

Parthians: *Bane Voice* "For You..."

@@timurthelamest5630 Rome: No, you.

@@BasedForever0 Parthians: Your dad lesbian

@@timurthelamest5630 Haha, subhuman.

Uh, waht? The Parthians won.

Ass burn

Would have been merciless probably, being Crassus was a young Ceasar's patron. But then I wonder if that would have clouded his judgement any.

glad I was able to make history more interesting and accessible as that has always been my goal

True.

Agreed. I remember learning about WW2 in high school and my teacher managed to make one of the most historical wars in human history boring as all hell.

Yo if you guys liked this, I think you will like Historia Civilis

Is This Rain? Already subbed so second that 👍🏾

Desert area Just watched a video about Herod the Great and he commanded the Southern front in what we might call the Ventidian War.

He may have been a great general but you really don't need a genius to beat Crassus lmao

Then that general would become a dangerous political opponent and overthrow the king? Is that what you were hinting at? Just like Caesar overthrew the senate?

​@@PersimmonHurmo based on our historical records he died trying to save the king life from roman assassins and in parthian age Megisthanes parliament had the real power not king.

​@@sina-alavi1962 Thank you for the legit info. What I mostly see here is just a bunch of ignorant and Roman fetishist comments not truth seeking.

@Alex F I'm not saying it is impossible that such thing had happened among the Parthians or something! I'm simply saying stop getting all your info from Roman fetishists etc and Surena was not executed under the order of the king! This info is Roman propaganda! What you called "facts" are biased and inaccurate!

ayoeb khan Surena was already dead by that point, executed by Orodes because he feared his popularity

ayoeb khan No, Caesar knew how to use allies and play enemies against each other. Gauls were far more dangerous than any Parthian. He's one of the greatest generals in history for a reason. Horse archers are over rated and can't stop heavy infantry attacks.

Marty Moose So you wich Ceasar wasnt dead so he could kill more people ?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Cilician_Gates en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Amanus_Pass en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mount_Gindarus

ayoeb khan Did you know that the Kola Superdeep Borehole is the second deepest hole in the world? Followed by how deep your head is up your ass. Read some history before making stupid comments, thank you.

I always appreciate the feedback and support, thanks

same, I had actually never really known what happened after the immediate defeat of Crassus

Publius Ventidius "Bossus" Bassus

@@InvictaHistory It's sad this brilliant Roman general is so little remembered.

What’s worse is that he turned down help from Armenia. The Armenian King hated the Parthian Empire. So he tried to strike a deal with Crassus by offering him 20,000 troops to join in the Roman invasion and even give them a free route straight into the heartland of Mesopotamia through Armenia itself. Of course, the price for this deal was likely a fair amount of the spoils from any victories, of which Rome was known to have made such deals before, but Crassus refused.

well he did have some military experience operating against Spartacus but that is definitely an entirely different type of campaign

meh not necessarily since in Rome, politics and military command went hand in hand and certainly produced many competent generals

I wouldn't just dismiss Crassus as a "stupid rich man" with no military talent. He did defeat Spartacus's slave revolt, which many other Romans had attempted to defeat and failed. It's just that he didn't get much credit for this because to Roman aristocracy, a victory over slaves wasn't considered impressive (despite the fact that these slaves came close to sacking Rome). He just pales in comparison to Caesar and Pompey, but saying he had no military skill because of that is like saying someone sucks at basketball because Steve Nash and Michael Jordan are better. But you're right, it's not surprising that a guy who spent his whole life in the legions and rose up the ranks from the bottom was more competent than Crassus. But he also had the benefit of learning from the defeat of Crassus. Before Carrhae it seems like there wasn't much direct military confrontation between the two powers, so their tactics were probably pretty new to the Romans.

Perhaps Crassus was blind, like Goliath. He dismissed his weaker opponent and didn't account for cunning tactics because he thought he could force a win through brute strength alone.

There was no such a thing as a roman revenge, this narrative is roman fanboy fantasy, Parthians under pacorus went to ravage asia minor but they got pushed back, Pacorus got killed, end of story, status quo antebellum was restored, no revenge. The extent of damage to parthia here is over stated, in fact The parhian emperor came off the throne because of the death of his son and grief, but obviously parthia had much more where that came from, hence anthonys utter failure against parthia. 2nd more important point, parthian empire had a lot of internal quarrelling and fighting on its eastern borders with nomads, romes few successful incursions into parthia happened only when parthia was going through civil war

@@bongoseropersa5240 Sounds like you have an axe to grind. Reclaiming territory previously lost, and doing so in a number of successive battles resulting in decisive victories, is avenging a defeat in anyone's language. Only a biased partisan would claim otherwise.

@@laudace1764 sure buddy...

@@bongoseropersa5240 Amen, genius.

I think he already did do one on Carrhae

o shit you right

Agreed, everyone knows about Carrhae, but a video about some of the follow up successful Roman campaigns in the east would be unbelievably fantastic

bebop 417 Or worked out badly. Perhaps Crassus' could have prevented the quarrel between Caesar and Pompey.

He was not a military counterpart of either of them, rather a "third wheel with a ginormous amount of fund" so that the whole Sulla - Marius situation wouldn't happen again, the same could somewhat be said about Lepidus. His death meant that Pompey and Caesar had no mediator between them and duked it out one on one.

The outcome wouldn't have been different regardless. The army was same tactics was same except this time the Roman army wasn't solely infantry based but composed of different skirmishers and light troops and the army was well trained

your first comment i've seen where you don't have 50000000 likes

we were discussing doing one on Avenging Varus and maybe Avenging Caesar

nice!!!!

Seriously? Why bother with a battle that everyone knows about, that every history channel has covered? At least the events of this video are obscure and actually informative.

most don't know about Germanicus Ceasar and his retaliatory campaign against the Germans

Just like Teutoberg, Carrhae was also very much known, but much like the formers retributary campaigns, The Campaigns by Germanicus is also not know and obscured by history.

looking in to some aztec content soon : )

Lol nope crassus was a fool he had plenty of opportunities to win but he decided not to use them and paid the price also Spartacus revilt isn't the same with the parthians

don't get excited there was nothing like revenge in the campaigns mark Anthony defeated hard in iran and his retreat was a complete disaster nothing like revenge while they're flags where in hands of parthians and the king was Dead no a commander of an army and after that more kings got killd an defeated in Roman persian wars

The port of Charax was a major entrepot for Roman trade with China and India

No, you will be emperor when you are the commander of the Roman army

M.R. Khan i rlly want a video about war elephants

The Cool Persian That's the problem of an army based on feudal cavalry. It tends to be undisciplined because every warrior wants to perform some notable feat of arms.

@@alanpennie8013 How tf was Surena a military genius???

What is this, for God's sake, it was one of the countries belonging to the Mongols

Dshim You'd think so. With Roman legions on their side the Parthians ought to have beaten Ventidius if they had had competent leaders.

Nah he still would've got rekt, he only won one battle, which was against Romes' worst general. Lucky for surena, if he had met Ventidius then it would of been Surenas head getting paraded down the street instead of that other parthian general

Surena was in good and very numerous company. Happened a lot in ancient times and not unknown up until quite recently in some dictatorships.

Pretty much impossible for me to feel sorry for Crassus, given his slaughtering and crucifixion of thousands of slaves, his arrogance and greed. I think he met an end of his own making, and a rather fitting end it was.

He deserved it for being an idiot. Spartacus was on Roman land and barely had any fighting men, mostly slaves.

Lion King its what I see commonly used in my sources but I get what you are saying

+Lion King What did they call themselves? We don't normally switch a country's name with a dynasty change. Did new dynasties differentiate and disassociate themselves from past ones?

PlzShoo 1893 - Wrong. Persians and Medes were NOT part of the Parthian ruling system. In fact, Persians and Medes considered themselves subjugated under Parthian rule. They were waiting for the weakening of the Parthian ruling class to revolt against them and recovery control over their homeland, which eventually happened in 208 AD. Once the Parthians were overrun by the Persian/Median uprising, they restored the Persian Empire in 224 AD under the Sassanid dinasty.

+e77fan Thanks man. That's honestly really good info!

No, they were not. Parthians were the only ruling elite. Those you have mentioned were merely subjects.