The Battle of Carrhae (53 B.C.E.) 

In Spanish "Craso error" means fatal error, and is because Crassus made the mortal mistake of rejecting Armenian's help.

Alternative Title: Absolutely Not His Year - Crassus (53 B.C.E.)

"...but another tribune stepped forward and vetoed his veto." I'm just imagining him running up and flaunting an Uno reverse card.

Pretty sure the reason Crassus lost was a severe lack of building fortified encampments. Also not enough village burning.

Fun facts: -The Gallic cavalry contingent under the command of Publius was extremely loyal to him and would die defending his dead body. -One of the legates who took over after Crassus became inconsolable was Cassius, he led a legion to safety back to Syria were he mounted a defense of the province, repulsing Parthian attacks; he became a senator and he and Brutus were leaders of the conspiracy to murder Caesar; both died in the battle of Philippi against Octavian and Marc Antony.

" Nah " ~ Crassus 53 B.C.E

Hannibal at Cannae: Haha, I have tricked the Romans into letting me surround them! Parthian General: Are.... are the Romans *letting* us surround them? Vercingetorix: Caesar has us surrounded! But our allies have surrounded *him!* Wait, what is he.... No, there's no way he's that crazy

"He ordered the Romans to march off into the desert...at a breakneck pace". Good plan. If he had survived maybe later he could try and invade Russia in the winter.

Spartacus laughing his ass off from the underworld at "Crassus's Triumph".

"46,000 Armenians is a lot of Armenians" Historia Civilis dropping the truth bombs as usual

Oh my God..."Crassus's Triumph". Dude those Parthians don't fuck around. ⊙﹏⊙

Crassus tried being Caesar but only managed the "get into bad trouble" part and missed the part where you win with lucky stuff and weird tricks..

Sidenote: just imagine being a random farmer or something and getting your town destroyed and your whole family sold into slavery because your city leaders (who you've possibly never even seen in person) decided to actively troll a Roman general when they could have just laid low.

Crassus deployed in noob box formation ...

The Parthian general, Surena was executed by the Parthian king after this because he was seen as a threat to his power

17:30 that Parthian general clearly had an entire humiliation itinerary lined up for Crassus, but then the guy went and died and now he had to find some other way to get it done.

Man it's good to see the Parthian's researched Parthian Tactics giving them that +1/+2 armour and +4 attack against spearmen.

*sigh* *Fires up Rome Total War

so basically crassus invented the total war noobbox

Even after all that you have to feel kinda bad for Crassus, losing his son and being taunted by his severed head. I understand why he essentially went into shock.

"Crassus's Triumph" Absolutely brutal 😂

This is the perfect tragedy. A man who desires glory being ruined by his own hubris.

The way I see it is 1. Crassus started an unprovoked war (even Caesar had some version of a flimsy excuse) 2. He sent Soldiers to a garrison offer from a town in the empire he was attacking. 3. He constantly shrugged off the advice of his council. No man has all the answers and especially in war and always needs to accept advice of his council occasionally. 4. Chased an army in the desert away from water and food supplies (Caesar would have always put himself in a position to intercept supplies). 5. Indecisive leadership. He second guessed his tactics and when faced with encirclement he attempted very little to at least temporarily suppress the Parthian arrows and created some form of escape/ fortified encampment 6. Declined help from an allied power who’s cavalry would have significantly helped Crassus in a battle against Parthian horse archers. 6.5- the Armenian cavalry could have given Crassus the information he so desperately needed to execute a firm battle plan for where and how to invade.

18:34 such a humiliating defeat that it caused HC’s microphone to downgrade as it seems

The "Nah" led to his demise

That Parthian General has no chill.

Crassus went to Parthia for eternal glory. All he got was a mouth full of gold and 2000 years of shame.

Crassus: "Pompey! How far from Rome do I have to go to get away from that name!" Pompey: "Oh don't worry. You won't hear it again."

10:30 Fun fact: "parthian shot" ended up becoming an expression used by the romans to refer to those who keep yelling insults as they leave. Either way, Crassus was a noob.

In Portuguese you can call a gross error an _erro crasso_, literally meaning "crassus error". I guess that's a deserved tribute.

An impressive display of military strategy from the Parthians. Always sobering too to remember just how brutal and ruthless ancient warfare routinely was with regards to the defeated.

And the BibulusAward goes to....: CRASSUS, congratulations!

crassus, think OUTSIDE the box!

crassus didn't have large roman onagers or large roman ballistas in the middle. that's why his noob box formation didn't work

Parthian General: we need arrows. Parthian Supply Sargeant : how much do you need? Parthian General:.... *pause for dramatic effect*.... LIKE. ALOT.

I actually went and looked up the definition of "crass" = "showing no intelligence or sensitivity.". Yup, must be linked to our pal Crassus, right? Nah...

The Chinese had a fairly simple (albeit expensive) way to deal with horse archers employing Parthian tactic. In a similar period, the chinese Han dynasty embarked on punitive raids deep into Mongolia. Han with their previous experience in dealing with the nomads employed a large percentage of infantry crossbowmen/archers. Almost half of the infantry were ranged troops armed with strong crossbows and bows. Even though both the Han and Mongolians used similar composite technology in their bow construction, horse archers use drastically smaller bows than the infantry counter part. Horse archer can't use big bows due to it interfering with them riding. The chinese crossbows were extremely effective. Not only it has an aiming device allowing it easy estimation of range. It also outranges horse archers due to its size, bigger the bow, more power, more power, longer range. So when the Mongolians tried to use shoot and scope against a large formation of Han infantry they were simply out matched. The horsemen lose the range engagement and can't charge in due to the other half the infantry were spearmen. Infantry ranged troops are also denser, because horses are bigger, so they can output far more arrows/bolts per area. Han's punitive raids were far more successful as a result.

17:27 So that's where GRR Martin got the ideo of viserys coronation...

For a long time, I knew nothing about Crassus outside of his history with the first triumvirate and this Parthian campaign. I used to think of Crassus as a tragic victim. Then I learned about Spartacus and the Servile Wars.

the virgin infantry vs the chad cavalry

2,000 years on and this is still the cringiest moment in history

My Lord, I am informed that the Armenian king is willing to aid us in our cause giving us a large portion of his army counting 46.000 men and providing us with a safe passage through his Kingdom. Should we accept his offer, the decision is yours. -Crassus : Nah.

Spartacus: God, revenge our death and suffering from Crassus. Surena: I'm on it, don't bother God.

I bet Spartacus was smiling in the afterlife.

Here's a case of defeat not due to stupidity, but *miscalculation.* The Armenian ruler's offer seemed too good to be true, and was beyond his initial goals anyway. Furthermore, a square would've been perfect for thwarting being flanked. He did everything *right,* but only in the context of what he knew. Except chasing after an army in the middle of the desert instead of city-hopping; that was fucking dumb.

20,000 legionaries annihilated to the loss of 38 Cataphracts. It was a Parthian stomp.

It's crazy how the massive crusader army under Guy de Lusignan made a similar mistake over a thousand years later at Hattin that cost them everything. Doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past if you don't learn from them.

You gotta love the Romans. "I want to go to war." "I veto that!" "well, I veto THAT!"

Fun fact: While the Romans suffered heavy casualties, the Parthians only lost about 38 Heavy Calvary and a light amount of Horse Archers.

Damn Crassus, you should have not used the noob square formation. Only newbie Spartan players do that.

I have been binge watching your content for 2 days now. By far my favorite history channel. The little drums for music goes perfectly with the retelling of past events. Don't stop, man.

I am addicted to your videos. Thank you.

The reason the Partians only had 10,000 men, was a larger army went to fight the Armenians. Thats the reason the Roman scouts overestimated their size.

This Was Really Not His Year - Crassus (53 B.C.E.)

I love your videos. They are very interesting and posted in chronological order. I get to see what Rome was doing in the East, and what they were doing in the Northwest at the same time.

Sincere thanks for this, Historia - you make for entertaining viewing, you Canadians.

Crassus is the definition of a 0/0/0/0 general

When Crassus's head was presented to the Parthian King, he was in the middle of watching a greek play, the Bacchae by Euripides. The actor in the play took the head of Crassus and danced around the stage shouting the verses of the play loosely translated "....a mighty prey, we have caught today!"

Im a history junky but have never gotten into the details of the Roman Empire, these videos are friggin awesome, keep up the great work.

how have i only JUST found your channel ! i love it, as someone who both loves and studies history, these vids are well made and well animated, and fyi the Whole Spartacus thing made me spit my coffee out in laughing, Spartacus is one of my most favoured parts of history please keep up the hard work

Watching a documentary of human evolution. Notification pops up, Historia Civilis posted a new video. Fuck evolution then.

That shit could be a perfect Drama. I kind of feel bad for Crassus, but if the sources are right, he really was making very stupid decisions.

That background music though, in the beginning. It has this tragic nostalgic feel to it. Like watching a great empire fall. Whenever I hear it I'm just expecting a bad/sad ending.

Very well done, I loved the humour, I'm looking forward to watching more of your videos.

Man, someone needs to make a Game of Thrones style Rome series, this would have been PERFECT for a drama series, and this shit ACTUALLY happened

i open my eyes and what do i see? A new historia civilis video. Today is going to be a good day

"46,000 Armenians are a lot of Armenians" -Historia Civillis, 2017

Great video! I'm addicted to your outro! sometimes I watch them just to listen to the outro music.

Marcus Licinius Crassus - *_NAH_*

Should be called how to be a terrible military tactician 101

this is a great channel. tons and tons of great historic infos.

This is my new favorite history series on RU-vid

Parthian Empire is legitimately incredible and doesn't get nearly enough recognition for keeping Romans from fairly rich lands of Mesopotamia. Also, Armenian Empire was quite a big player in the Eastern politics of that time, weird that Crassus decided to turn their proposal down - Armenians have been fighting descendants of the Persian Empire for years. And really would've helped against Parthian tactics. Oh well, Crassus couldn't command armies for shit anyway.

**Takes an arrow to the arm** OW

I cant believe I just found this channel lmao spent all day watching this playlist

Please include more about Trajan vs the Parthian Empire when you have the chance! Thanks for all of the videos so far! I'm a big fan of Roman military history and I'm enjoying all of your videos, even the ancient Rome political ones

This is why, in Rome II, I never invade further east than the Seleucids. Horse archers are just the worst.

i guess after this battle many soldiers got to switch to city guards because of an arrow in the knee

awesome. I learned about this on rome total war and now I know all the details. I love this video.

"It turns out that the Parthians had brought a lot of arrows... Like, A Lot." Historia Civilis. Best historical commentary since Herodotus.

"what if the khergits had good AI?"

Vetoing a veto. I can see russia's ambassador to the UN drooling

That was awesome! Great job!

Such a well produced video

This is basically a precursor to the success of the Monghols. Nobody had a real tactical response to mass horseback archery.

Fun fact: one of the legatii that took control of the army was Cassius ( the one who also organized the murder of Ceasar). He and Crassus were in a never-ending argument during the entirety of the campaign. Plutarch reported also that the encounter with Surenas, the Parthian general, happened after a second escape from Charrae to Syria (that apparently failed because of the betrayal of a scout that guided the roman in another trap). In that occasion, Cassius simply noped to everyone and everything and ran away with the cavalry, abandoning Crassus and the infantry to even more slaughter. And in that situation, Crassus was close to bringing his man to the mountains and back to Syria. I also have to break a spear in favor of Crassus decision to not joining the Armenians: it seemed that the Armenians were conscious that the main army of the Parthian (30 K infantry and 10 K cavalry) was heading to their territories. By maintaining the two forces divided Crassus was quite sure to have an open road to the richest Parthian capital, the desert road was taken mainly for rushing through Mesopotamia and cutting the main parthian army away from the region. We should not forget that Crassus wasn't only a rich, powerful politician, He was also a decent commander. He was the one who practically won Rome and handed it to Sulla during his dictatorship. Moreover, he was considered ( by Cicero!), the best orator of his time (except for Cicero himself of course), capable of shame Pompey and Ceasar on many occasions. And He was also quite popular for his plebian ancestry and his very approachable manners. In practice Marcus Licinius Crassus was a 60 years old man that, two thousand years ago, was capable of running on horseback, commanding his man and endure their same suffering while giving speeches and exchanging jokes with everyone. We should not be so harsh on him

4:52 "46,000 Armenians is a lot of Armenians." Turks: ...Unsubscribed.

Dobry opis, serdecznie dziękuję

So essentially, Crassus guaranteed his own death by perpetually making the wrong decision. Got it.

The Parthian Sphabed (a rank that would translate to General or Commander) for that battle was named Surena (a popular name even to this day in Iran). He became so popular in Parthia after his victoy that, fearing that he will turn against him, the king of the Parthians, Orodes II, ordered to have him executed. This, of course, did little to erase his "legend", Surena is seen to the Persians of present day Iran in somewhat the same level that Germans regard Arminius.

While talking about mistakes of Crassus, which were many, let us not diminish the genius of General Surena

This was probably your best video.

Thank you very much! I've been waiting for this battle so long!

man all those Armenian archers suuuure would of been nice right about then.

I always see myself returning to this video and a few others (like the Macedonian one where they were outnumbered and started singing to scare off the enemies & the battle of alesia, and many others) because they are always so interesting to watch, no matter how many times I rewatch it

excellent presentation.

I just can't get over how awesome this channel is mmkay

Happy to see my fav youtubers having sponsers

i cant believe i watched this whole video this is dope

"it started when he claimed victory for a war crassus won" even by todays standards I would be PISSED