I made this video in response to a very thoughtful comment left by ArsacesofConcodor which made me take a closer at the typical narrative of Crassus as a fool. Thanks again for all your thoughtful comments! If you are interested in learning more about this rehabilitation of Crassus I second the recommendation of the book "Defeat of Rome in the East: Crassus, the Parthians, and the Disastrous Battle of Carrhae, 53 BC" by Gareth C Sampson
Time to replace it with another over-simplified generalizing explanation I guess. How about thermopylae in reverse? Here you have mobile troops beating heavy infantry on mobile troops-friendly terrain whereas at thermopylae it was heavy infantry beating highly mobile troops on heavy infantry-friendly terrain. Or just simply: horse archers are OP?
I still think Crassus was rather foolish and not nearly as adept as his contemporary Julius Caesar or even Pompey for that matter, but your video does provide a better balance to things. It is easy to see how Crassus bungled the mission, made these mistakes, and fell into these traps logistically. He should have put a lot more thought into the situation he was getting himself into, though. You don't just march into a desert without a plan, especially against an incredibly mobile army compared to his mostly infantry-based army lacking horse archers to effectively combat against the other side. If he wasn't knowledgeable about Parthian battle tactics then that is still his fault, because the Romans weren't incapable of gathering intelligence about their foes. Overall, as outlined in your previous video, Mark Antony's officer Publius Ventidius Bassus was a much better commander and tactician, who wisely used the local terrain to his advantage against the Parthians at Mount Gindarus. Later Roman armies beginning with Trajan also invaded Parthia and sacked major cities like Ctesiphon without allowing themselves to be slaughtered and forced to flee, although the 3rd-century emperor Valerian was later captured by the Sasanians (who succeeded the Parthians).
@James Lourenco: actually, ironically, you have chosen to define "begging the question" by using the colloquial and modern vernacular meaning of the term. Using a stricter, more traditional definition, it is actually used to describe a specific logical fallacy, a type of circular reasoning in which the premise doesn't exactly support the conclusion. It stems from Latin "petitio principii" and ancient Greek "τὸ ἐν ἀρχῇ αἰτεῖσθαι". en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question
Caesar was the fool, what the hell did Gaul have? Cheese? Wine? Does the economy run on cheese and wine? No. Crassus could have been one of the oil majors two millennia ahead of any competition! Eat that John D. Rockefeller!
I suffered the same defeat as Crassus in Rome 2 total war... expecting an easy victory only to see my troops melt away to enemy missile cavalry. Then I googled it and found out about this battle. I can't blame Crassus
I had the same issue as playing Eastern Rome in atilla and my friend was playing as the huns. My armies stood no chance in open field, I had to form testudo in corner of the map. I had to rinse and repeat until I had substantial enough missle troops (not those shit javelins). After this I realized that 60 missile cavalry gets murdered by 120 archers (60 for each unit)
Ethan K. A seasoned war veteran, Roman noble, leader of a legion the most legendary military in history so much it’s influence even exists in most modern military’s. Gets called a fool by fat obese disgusting Cheeto covered finger arm chair generals.
But died while begging for mercy. Almost nothing you did matters before the the word but.. True legends die old men with a belly full of wine with a woman's mouth around their cock!
He should have secured an alliance with one of Parthia's enemies who also were also skilled horse archers. Fight fire with fire. Roman pride probably got in the way. Alexander and Darius both used soldiers with different skill sets.
In portuguese we have the expression "erro crasso" (Crasso being the "portuguesement" of Crassus), which means "severe mistake" due to the actions of, guess it, Crassus
We also have 'Crass mistake' in English, although I have no idea if that originates from Crassus (as in the person) or something else entirely different.
@@Moepowerplant lol...the statement above means that more money makes you more effective in war. Except if you're Crassus. Then more money does not make you more effective. According to Cicero. You're saying to he Mongols were like Crassus? An exception to this rule?
I remember thinking "Bruh, how could you mess up this badly?" until I played Rome II and lost my most veteran Macedonian army to a spam of thracian archers... It went pretty much exactly like the battle of Carrhae
Thinking about this, I guess I'm right in my tactics to suppress the enemy army early. Bunch them up and force them to melee. Cav circles the field to kill any archer units lucky enough to escape whilst my own ranged units either support the mainline or help wipe the enemy archers. Note, this is on normal difficulty, but it is already annoying on its own right. What was you're difficulty if I might ask?
In the original Rome, I used to destroy entire armies with a handful of horse archers as Parthia. I would use all my ammo and then retreat, drawing them deeper into my territory.
One more thing. The Parthian General Surena, who defeated Crassus was a hero, and you should make a video highlighting this and the despicable treachery of the Parthian King Orodes II who betrayed him afterwards and have in executed. If there is anyone to feel sympathy for, its Surena. Had he lost to the Romans he probably would have been executed. He defeated them and King Orodes II had him executed anyway, clearly because he reasoned Surena could have potentially be in a threat. Either way, when I read the history I thought to myself, it really sucked to be Surena. Talk about a Pyrrhic victory....
If Surena allows Crassus to live after he won the battle, i think the king would not kill him, because he would not overshadow your lord. In Antiquity, we often see generals executed or flogged when their king/emperor begins to suspect them. Why? Because they have more fame and more support of the army than the lord himself. Roman Empire, Parthian Empire, Han Dynasty... Everyone is the same, or do you forget about Justinian and what he did to his "most trusted general" Belisarius? Its a method to assert autority over all.
Vinicius Ribeiro To be fair Bellisarius became so much famous and loved that it scared the living hell out of justinian. He was scared that Belissarius might turn against him with all the power and fame he acquired. Remember Caesar?
Horse archers has been a thing for centuries. It was no surprise. It was standard practice to form tight infantry formations and let their horse archers exhaust their arrows on shields. The surprise was Surena's use of logistics to keep his horse archers supplied with and endless supply of arrows. This hadn't been done before and caught the Roman's totally off-guard.
@Alshamari Baha2 right. I understand what you're saying, but if the horse archers won't get close enough out of fear of the infantry archers then what's keeping them pinned down? They could keep moving while the archers keep ready to launch a volley. Until they run out of arrows...
@Alshamari Baha2 that doesn't make any sense. If the horse archers are out of range of the Infantry bows and they are sure as hell out of range with their own bows, which are always, comparatively speaking, going to be less powerful. I guess they could ride around in circles in the desert, but that's probably not going to do them much good. The fact is, if the Romans have been better prepared, with some proper formation or equipment to counter this tactic it would have been very different. But Crassus for many different reasons simply was not, and he paid for it.
@S F i see your point. Thanks for the explanation. I think marching away in formation would still have been better than sitting there if they were unable to get the fight in the terms they wanted. Perhaps they could have found a location or terrain that would have been more to their advantage.
I remember reading once that Carrhe was where a competent Roman General met an Excellent Parthian General. Thanks very much for showing this in your video as well as your level and unbiased views.
We love simple, sensible narratives of "heroes" and "fools". The reality is actually always grey, and remember that the winners tend to write the stories.
Derek Bates No. It meant that history, written and made sense by human, is heavily riddled with our flaws and cognitive biases. History is also heavily tied into power. To really learn from it, we need critical thinking. History IS written by the winner, but that doesn't mean that these schmucks' "version" is automatically more valid. The examples you've written, for example, fail because they cannot stand up to the same notion of critical thinking.
Derek Bates I don't get why you get so triggered. Why did you imply that critical thinking = believing in conspiracy theories? That's a poor strawman. Almost all conspiracy theories fail to stand up to critical thinking, it's pseudo-critical at best. The notion of "critical thinking" is often hijacked by conspiracy theorists (those who say that global warming is a hoax, etc). With intellectually disciplined analysis (CRITICAL thinking), we can safely and easily say now that Holocaust happened, slavery was an issue, etc2. So, good for you to know that. But the reality is more nuanced than the simple, black and white reality that you believe. History needs to be continuously questioned, like all science. Especially, since history is uniquely prone to be influenced by power.
+firman It's funny that your critical thinking would lead you to assume that I called it a "conspiracy theory"; I may have gotten a bit preachy, but I don't remember saying or alluding to it. Where are you getting conspiracy theory? And, why are certain moments in History above your "continuous questioning"? "The reality is more nuanced than the simple, black and white reality that you believe"; well, by that logic someone could just as easily refute the Holocaust and our view of Nazism, because THEIR intellectually disciplined analysis says so. Why do you assume everyone is going to reach the same conclusions as you; as you said, history is uniquely prone to be influenced by power, and since the allies won WW2, that would make us the "power" wouldn't it? Thus, by intellectually disciplined analysis implied by your statement, it would stand to reason that we doctored up the actual account, right?
+firman So, rather than provide any kind of reasonable examples to support your argument, thereby confirming some validity, you instead compare me and any examples I provided to support my argument to wikipedia play-doh? You must win a lot of arguments that way; "I am rubber and you are goo!"
When I said on the last video; "Think you glossed over the Retreat of Crassus. It sounds absolutely brutal being pursued like that.' This was not what I was expecting as a rebuttal... 10/10 :D
In the future you should probably remove some of the artificial lakes in Iraq on your map as most of them were created in the 20th century. You know, for historical accuracy.
Its actually quite hard to reconstruct the landscape of that time in that areas, because we know that there was once large somewhat fertile steppe between the euphrates and the levante, that had been over grazed and degraded to the desert we know today, nevertheless it was probably for the most part a desert like today, but actually we don't really know. Therefore the distances that the armies were by our standards in deserts cant be determined by modern maps. I hope you can see what kind of problems and questions arise when you take the change of landscapes into account
This map doesn't really show fertile land though. It does however show several large lakes that weren't there only one hundred years ago. My super power is geography and it bothers me.
Since your superpower is geography. Were Euphrates and Tigris already connected around that time? I remember reading that Shatt al-Arab appeared relatively recently in geologic terms, but I cannot find a good estimation when exactly that happened.
In his defense, I think the pressure was just getting to him. With the fracture of the first triumvirate leaving him as the one with the least achievements garnered, he was thinking it was high time he got his own laurels to flaunt in rome. Maybe we'd have a different history if his conquest of the east played differently. Alas, he wasn't as great as his ambitions.
Dominic Monceda Have you seen how hard it is to hold Persia if you're an external conqueror. Alexander did it for what 25years that's how long it lasted before collapsing in to the selucid empire which then got defeated by the Parthians and Persia became Persian again or Iran which is what Persia called themselves
Wrong. Crassus' strategy was perfectly viable. Hold out in turtle formation until Parthian cavalry ran out of arrows. Also important to note is that Crassus was misled into the trap by his lying Syrian guide. However it just happened that in this fight the Parthians had brought along caravans full of arrows and supplies. Both sides gambled and Crassus lost. Crassus was a great man but luck was against him. Meanwhile even Caesar admitted he would've never made it to the top without being so lucky.
No he schould stay out Truimpirath or do just bussnes but greed sometimes in bigger so he learn that in hard way. You are richest man in Rome stay out politics give some money to new Emperior money buys everthing except dead.
That's what the slingers of Publius Ventidius Bassus's Roman army must have said as they bombarded them with lead missiles, or what Publius Ventidius Bassus's heavy infantry said when they cut down the cataphracts to pieces.
You should take Crassus's trackrecord into account too. He did some pretty stupid things during the Spartacus uprising aswell. I.E. raise legions and train them for 2 weeks instead of the normal 6 months, then had them decimated when they turned and ran. Now thats a poor excuse of a general, punishing his men so harshly for his own mistake.
The Spartacus crisis left him little time to properly train his legions, he did what he could to meet the exigencies of the situation, and while shocking to our modern sensibilities the decimation of the legion ensured they never ran away from battle again which is why the won. They feared their own commanders more than the enemy.
Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't he decimate them because he commanded them NOT to attack and to head for the enimies flank to wait for his order? They charged in without orders, failed and ruined the plan. So a strict punishment was kind of needed to establish control and stop others from acting without his orders. Not saying decimation is a good thing but it sure as shit worked to get everybody in order.
I'm not disagreeing with you, they may have been greater. All I meant to say was that all ambitious men in the ancient world who lived after Alexander wanted to become or outdo Alexander, including Seleucus and Demetrius. Alexander was the tangible myth, not Seleucus.
Alexander wasn't a tangible anything. Sorry, I stand corrected. He was a tangible failure. Invading and murdering doesn't build a(n) [stable] empire. The Persians won their land mostly by cultural influence. This is why Darius III had the last laugh against Alexander. His ancestors went to become the Sassanids. We Persians tend to lose the battles, but fuckin A do we win the wars!
Eumenes, who was not even general when Alexander was alive, gave most of the Successor generals ass whippings...Demetrius was only famous for the sieges he took on and the two biggest ones were still failures. Seleucus lost against an Indian dude and got 500 Indian Elephants in exchange for the territory he was forced to give up. Those 500 elephants changed his life lol. Though, how quickly he moved those elephants to back east was brilliance.
I studied Ancient History as a Minor with an Influence in Military, when I was going to College, not that I am an Expert or anything. I will say, had Crassus used his Cavalry properly, by keeping them out of the square and used to harassing, flanking and drawing off troops and attacking the supply lines (which if I remember correctly, Rome normally did this and would ensure after Crassus' defeat) the outcome could have swayed into Rome's hands. Again, I like how you put it though with hindsight 20/20 and especially the FOG of war (Which is still a huge factor, today, even with all the tech we have). I did a 20,000 word research paper about how today's modern Army and all of the Armies before now still used tactics developed during this Age. I am quite confident some of the tactics are even older however, that would be pre-historic and we only have second hand accounts of these battles from poets and not Tacticians. I am a new subscriber so I don't know if you have done this but one major battle in the Bible about Jerricho and the walls come crumbling down is actually a unique use of a mixed Military Unit using very Unique Tactics to cause a walled city's walls to crumble. All they did was use the concept that took almost 2000 years to figure out by architects and that is the liquefaction effect. When you cause micro-casims to the earth the buildings not built on hard fondations like bedrock etc... The sand or earth will liquify causing the structure to fail. They used this by marching day and night around the walls singing, taunting and chanting to cause as much vibration as they could. I say mixed unit cause they actually used the entire unit and camp followers. This story along with a lot of others in the Bible made me who I am today: a Soldier of God, a U.S. Paratrooper (Desert Storm Vet) and a Christian. To go back to my Original statement, about how the Modern Armies use Ancient Tactics, all one has to do is look at Blitzkrieg by the Germans, U.S., British, Australian, Canadian, almost all NATO units Tactics employed Today. Those who used "New" tactics or ones that don't work well with today's tech, look at the Soviet Tactics used by Iraq during Desert Storm. They used the "Coiled Snake" for Armor which has been proven many times it doesn't work with Tanks as they have to move out of it quickly. The U.S. uses the Roman Square even today when at a "soft camp" or Rest Camp (these are less than a day, and only for the driver's to sleep) We used them a lot during Desert Storm as it still gave us flexibility and time to move if we were attacked. Our Armor still uses the Phalanx or Spear (Cav's word for a fast moving Phalanx). As for Blitzkrieg this was based upon Genghis Khan's use of Cavalry to overwhelm and envelope entire Armies before they had time to react. When I did my research around 2000 A.D. I could not find a single Tactic that did not either use completely old Tactics and called new or were so heavily influenced that only the tech used was different yet again they were called "New" and "Revolutionizing". Jmho.
@array s Actually no. War is a period of time where one group fights another group and doesn't have to engage in a single battle. Flanking is not as old as Battles.
What happened in Crrae is a nice example for understanding why romans never tried to conquer Scythia, it had armies of pure cavalry that would never surrender, and unless the romans where willing to open burows there was nothing to gain.
@@user-ez9ng2rw9c I dont know. Tho by is actions in Britain and Gaul he did show that, he ignored kinship and would be willing to wage such a war even on the royal scythians.
the Defenders to Attackers kill-to-loss ratio is amazing. the Parthians only lost 38 cataphracts (strange how it doesn't get mentioned). If that's not the most epic rolfstomp in the history of military warfare, i don't know what is.
Iron Warrior of course, the fact that an eastern army could thrash the mighty romans so badly might hurt the West's self esteem and tarnish their reputation as peerless warriors.
@@zarakdurrani7584 It's well-known to those who've read about the battle, though these same Westerners would've also read that the Romans would continue on to win battles against the Parthians, though the situation strategically turned into a stalemate. The lack of interest in holding on to gains in these wars would've also been understandable to said readers due to logistics.
@Zarak Durani Zalmaye Anyone that knows Roman history but isn't a Rome fanboy will say that Carrhae was one of the worst defeats and the proof that Parthian's tactics were too hard to counter by the Romans. You either care too much about what some mindless fanboys say on the internet (which is understandable) or you have some... "problems" with Roman's success in history. Maybe it's just a wrong feeling, though.
Imagine that an entire phrase meaning "big mistke" in various languages such as "erro crasso" or "Craso error" , is named after YOU because you messed up so badly.
Even 16 year olds get that Crassus was unprepared against the Parthians and should have listened to Armenia's advice, not abandon his only ally in the region and go blindfolded. Just like the death star was a flawed design and should have a fleet to support it. Stupidity kills, always.
Mayer Just shut up and don't make it worse, you are the perfect example of what I was talking about. Any 16 yo would have done better hur on my games I'm an omniscient god with an army of robotic soldiers and I only have to deploy for battle with perfect information and everything is fine hur duhr, hannibal wasn't that good I mean isn't it obvious you have to surround the enemy? I do that every week hur duhr.
You know you could've appreciated the genius of Surena instead of explaining the Crassus's point of view, as you concluded Crassus didn't do anything extremely out of ordinary, it was Surena who showed up with a cavalry only army
I mean, would have the Parthians won if they had deployed a "typical" army? I'm not trying to diminish anyone's achievement but having a cavalry only army is a big plus when you're against an infantry mostly (or only) army. There are many examples of this in history and the Mongols pushed it to the extreme 1300 years later.
@@reporterid Probably. Parthia's infantry was no match for Roman infantry, but their cavalry was some of the best in the world. It wouldn't have worked though had they attack in an environment poorly suited to cavalry though.
@@jeffbenton6183 Good point, I would also say that the reverse is true as well. In all fairness, on a battlefield poorly suited to Rome's infantry, the Romans would have done even worse.
chaar It does appear that Crassus was simply unlucky in encountering a military genius. Though the Persians were always Rome's most formidable opponents.
Alan Pennie Parthians aren’t, or i should say weren’t, Persians, they were Parni. Though they ruled over territory that was once Persia, for first half of their empires existence, they maintained a lot of the same Hellenistic court practices of their former Seleucid overlords, before adopting certain Persian customs as well. They spoke a different language to to the dominant language of Achaemenids and their religious practices were slightly different. They also ruled from Ctesiphon, not Babylon, which was a practice that would be continued by the Sassanids, who WERE truly Persians.
Great video, I’m glad you took this approach of analyzing what truly happened. It is so easy to say we could have done better by watching squares move around on a computer screen and not think about what was going on at the time. Great video man, make more like that one.
The main reason behind Crassus's defeat might not be its incompetence, but rather his failure to acknowledge the strength of his army and his emotions. While his troops were still fresh and lack any real experience, they still have the advanced heavy armors and shields to protect themselves from horse archers and shock cavalry forces. Their mental stability however could only be strengthened by engaging and winning battles. The psycological terror caused by force marching and seeing their friends killed by seemingly infinite amount of arrows was probably the reason they send Crassus to surrender to the Parthican. Crassus sending his son to a suicide charge might be his last straw of effort to secure his men's confident and prevent them from collapsing. Had his son succeed, the tide of this war might change as even if they ultimately loses this battle, Crassus's men would not hand him over to surrender and continue fighting, winning this war with more careful planning and cunning after learning from the defeat like how later Roman generals did. Sun Tzu mention in the art of war that the outcome of a war is not decided by arms alone, but knowing yourself and the enemy, knowing neither would result in defeat most of the time. If you are using fresh troops like you are using ceasar's legionaries, you are probably going to lose
Crassus invaded Persia because he heard of their huge olive oil reserves, of which the growing population of rome was in desperate need of. But it was faulty intel. It was some other kind of oil.
Crassus did violate several principles of sound military practice like having no real intelligence of his enemy or the terrain. His grand strategy seems to just kick ass and eventually conquer. He ignored the good military advice he was given and foolishly marched his army into ideal cavalry terrain. He was "fighting the last war" of the Romans stomping the Seleucids, the surviving Greek autocrats after Alexander. They proved NO match for Rome. Rome had never fought so many well trained horse archers or cataphracts (proto knights). They had never had to deal with horse archers this proficient or heavy cavalry in the Persian style (that was way ahead of its time). Both the archery and horsemanship of the Parthians was of the highest level for it's day. Cyrus the great had used all cavalry strike forces like this 500 years previously. The Romans had no experience of this. In the West, the primacy of the mounted warrior over infantry is stated to be from 500 AD to 1500 AD. However, the Parthians/Persians had already perfected mounted warfare. They were the elite warriors of Iran. They were so damn good that the Romans had to copy their equipment and tactics. "Better to copy than to envy", as the saying goes. It is so strange that the next general to fight the Parthians, Vintidius, learned these lessons and soundly beat the Parthians. He planned his battles to focus on the strength of heavy infantry by keeping to the hills or high ground. In the 3rd Century Crisis, the Romans forget these lessons and were smashed by brilliant Persian generals like Shapor many times. Roman generals fought the Persians the same way Crassus did .........................with the same results.
Agree with this.The Romans had never encountered an enemy who utilized cavalry so much (and so efficiently) ,in a favorable terrain, until Crassus' campaign. However as much as I agree with the video that Crassus' incompetence was overblown, his greatest mistake was not taking Artavazdes' (the Armenian king's) offer. Even if his promise of 10.000 cataphracts was a lie, the safe passage into Parthia (without having to travel through the Syrian desert) was still a good deal.
1. Roman generals were notorious for placing battlefield intelligence extremely low on the list of priorities. 2. Roman scouting was almost always terrible. 3. The Romans were always fighting the last war and it almost always worked. (in fact most people until WWI could plan for the last war and not be too surprised) 4. There is no military principle that states "Don't march into cavalry country" and I would like you to provide me with what military advice you think he received. 5. The Romans have fought cavalry powers before and trudged through it. As the video stated, it was unusual for a Parthian army at this time to be entirely composed of cavalry which means in most cases the Romans could be expected to smash a portion of the enemy army, the horse archers eventually run out of arrows, and then the Romans camp and then move on.Instead there happened to be no infantry for them to smash and the Parthians didn't run out of arrows (which is the norm). 6. The Romans had good reason to believe their manipular formations of heavy infantry were flexible enough to adapt to most situations and few Roman generals at the outset of a new campaign would recreate the wheel just in case. Scipio Africanus might have trained and drilled his army to near perfection before (and during) the campaign. He might have added a significant cavalry and cavalry recon force to the army that was way out of line with Roman doctrine. He might have done something with skirmish doctrine to mitigate horse archers. He may have been able to maneuver his legions under arrow fire and constant movement of enemy horse in such away as to consistently trap parts of the Parthian forces in order to eventually wear them down. But Crassus wasn't Scipio. In fact if you read "The Ghosts of Cannae" you'll find that Crassus' level of competence and desire to ride out and meet an enemy force based on faith in the Roman manipular system was fairly standard. The typical general during the 2nd Punic war wanted to march his army out to fight Hannible, changing nothing after multiple armies were destroyed because that's how a man does things. Crassus easily was an average Roman general.
@@Dadecorban No, no, this is the best comment by far, the anothers are only fanboys playing videogames. Roma eventually would beat parthians on his own land, and only the bubonic pest could prevent the roman conquest of Persia.
Lloyd Chappell The Romans had faced plenty of cavalry-centric factions. Numidian’s and Cantabari to say the least. Crassus was just outplayed. And there was nothing magical about the way the Parthains fought, Crassus just wasn’t expecting and entire army composed of cavalry. The Parthians weren’t step people, they had good cavalry but their armies usually comprised of infantry aswell.
He was already dead before it was rumoured that gold was poured down his throat. Yes, there is not proof of they actually did pour any gold down his throat. Rumours were very common things at those times. Crassus was killed or committed suicide at the parley, after fighting broke out.
This is a legend but it’s widely accepted it’s just a story and not true, due to lack of any evidence. What did happen is that his head was cut off and used as a prop in a play.
Crassus was at least less able to wage war vs Parthia than other future Roman generals, Marcus Antonius made the same mistake as Crassus showing his true colors as a B tier general as well. Romans more capable would eventually nearly destroy Parthia, sacking their capital multiple times. Supply lines were neglected in both invasions and Romans suffered for it. Julian had a relatively successful campaign against the Parthians but the Romans had to retreat due too supply issues again. One thing to say is that Crassus and Antonius both invaded in the late republican era, rather than imperial. They would not have the same support as say Trajan did as emperor during his much more successful invasion of Parthia. Something to think about.
Ctisphon was capital of Parthia and Sassanid both, it was these Iranian empires tactic to build their one of their capital on the border unless the Roman capital was in heart of their land. the second capital for the Parthian was in "Nisa" and for Sassanids in "Estakhr"
Crassus was dedicated to honoring the Roman standard, he swore sacramentum to never break rank or flee enemy and especially since his son died in the same battle, this was a moment where Crassus gave one final example of a true Roman soldier. - I'd like to also say shame on anyone for calling him a fool, you don't know but Crassus was over 60 years old, maybe he wanted to die by campaign because it was his life and he accomplished all back in Rome, I believe it.
I like this.... what an awesome way of throwing a spin on "what the history" teaches and putting in a different perspective. Nicely done Invicta. Could you possibly do this same type of video and discuss other failures in history?
Excellent video. You use animation and maps sparingly, but effectively to illustrate the narrative. Your concise, well written commentary is easy to follow. I have listened to Mike Duncan’s entire HoR podcast as well as Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History miniseries on the death of the Roman republic. I will start to consume your work with similar appetite. I’d love to see some content on the period covered in Duncan’s The Storm Before the Storm, the era of Scipio Emelianus, the Grachi brothers, Marius, and Sulla. The generation that wrote the playbook for Crassus and his contemporaries. And thanks for the book recommendation.
Lindybeige got so fed up with it he developed alternate meanings. One can simply say BC is "Backwards Chronology" and AD is "Ascending Dates", turning it into a non-problem.
@@Althemor Sure, but then you're changing it anyway, and if you are going to change it then might as well switch the letters. CE and BCE also fit together nicer than AD and BC. IMO though, I don't udnerstand why people give a damn. I think it's kind of silly to use the traditional Christian dating system but switch out the names and pretend that changes anything, but it is equally silly to consider "Common Era" and "Before Common Era" to be some affront or somehow inferior to "Anno Domini" and "Before Christ".
If Crassus knew that he was facing a cavalry force then how did he expect to bring them to favorable battle? He left too much to chance considering the makeup of his army.
Crassus had calvary, according to other sources. Rumor says ,that at the start, Crassus deployed his calvary properly to protect his flanks. But suddenly and inexplicably, he recalled them into the square. The removal of Roman calvary left the flanks open. The enemy calvary were armed with barbed arrows and compound bows. With no calvary to stop them, the Parthian archers rode freely into the openings left by the recall of Roman horsemen,, and that was the decisive tactic.
Hey! Thanks for noting my input about the pronunciation of "Carrhae" from the previous video! Great new video, by the way. The second pronunciation you offer, the one I suggested, is more in line with Classical Latin pronunciation and ancient Greek (Κάρραι).
On tennis team, our coach had us practice "our bread and butter" of ground strokes. It was meant to get us so good at ground strokes, we didn't care what the opponent did, we were so good at that aspect, we would win. Romans did this too, and Crassus was part of this system. Romans would do their bread and butter strategy against an opponent, forcing the opponent to react and adapt. And when it did, Rome would get caught with an embarrassing defeat. They would make an adjustment, and get right back at it, because they had armies to spare. Crassus drew the short straw in history on this one. Give credit to the Parthian leader coming up with ingenuity that defeated the Roman bread and butter. Crassus was a competent general, he did defeat Spartacus where others had failed. Pompey took the credit for that though, most likely causing some of Crassus' blindness.
Interesting video and insights! I would like to point out that the legionaries of the time were wearing the so called lorica hamata, basically a chain mail, which seems not to have been able to stop arrows from composite bows such as those used by the Parthian light cavalry: legionnaires from later periods wore the lorica segmentata, the armor that has become most iconic when thinking about legions. Studies have proven that this second type of armor could stop arrows, especially if shot from a long distance, which leads to another aspect that put Crassus' troops at disadvantage, ie not having enough skirmishers or artillery. Legions of later periods would have auxiliary archers (from Syria, from instance, using composite bows themselves), and would have a "battery" of war machines attached to them: this way, their "range" of threat would be considerably increased compared to that of Marian reformed legions. Aside from possible tactical blunders, which I personally believe he did commit despite the overall historical sources' bias, Crassus did not have the right "legions" to face Parthians and come out on top of the engagement: he could not keep them at a distance, and did not have enough "support" in terms of retaliation, be it cavalry or ranged infantry.
Armchair General: "Crassus was a fool." Me, an unintelligible mess: "Crassus, like all defeated generals, fueled Rome's Autistic Rage and eventually led to defeating the East."
I feel that there are two other major common Roman elements to Crassus' defeat: a lack of understanding/respect for cavalry, and even more a lack of understanding/respect for archery. Both of those were essentially seen as "unmanly." You're supposed to face your enemy directly and with honor. This not only removes the potential of using cavalry or archery yourself much, it also discounts both as the domain of cowards without knowledge of proper fighting.
I'd argue that most of Rome's eastern losses were due to its own distractions elsewhere. When a Roman commander did focus their attention on these wars it was a fairly one sided affair, at least when a battle could be forced
When they actually engaged the enemy, it was always a walkover. Also theres not many nations who just sit down after being defeated in one short war, it usually took 2-3 to completely subdue the enemy population (Punic Wars, Macedionian Wars, Invasion of Britain etc)
Abu Troll al cockroachistan Good point then again it didn't really stop Atilla and it wasn't really as decisive as it should've been to permanently stop Atilla. Plus the reliance on the Germans did lead to their downfall
Crassus was halfway towards a fantastic retaliation strategy with the square formation, correctly neutralizing one of the key advantages of light cavalry (namely its flanking potential). He was unfortunately missing the other half though, which is having ranged troops of your own to return fire against the enemy. If he'd actually had a better quantity of archers in his army, he might've been able to make something happen
First, this was very thoughtful and Invicta deserves credit for taking time and energy to explore time honored assumptions re: Crassus and his war against the Parthians. But the bottom line is that he screwed up. Of his three options, he could have gained allies if he had taken the Armenian route (plus the sort of terrain that would have hindered Parthian attacks by mounted archers. Going down the Euphrates, he could have used the river as a shield against large scale surprise attacks and with his approach on the important cities to the south, forced the Parthians to move to protect them. Instead, he chose a near trackless desert to march his inexperienced army across, with over-reliance on questionable scouts. Another problem is that his defensive formation played into Parthian hands; all the Romans bunched up in the face of a withering bombardment of arrows. A defense of Crassus' refusal to modify his strategy and tactics due to time-honored Roman habits, is no excuse; good field commanders, such as Surena, do just that. Finally,, saying that if he had won no one would be questioning his decisions; well, duh--that is just the point. He lost and like most bad commanders, contributed to his own defeat.
All he needed was a bunch of foot archers. Also, Cassius defeated the Parthians and even killed their general just after the battle of Carrhae, when they invaded Syria, so defeating a cavalry focused army was far from undoable for the Romans, even immediately after defeat.
@@saeedvazirian No one needs your trash. I know you because I have seen you in multiple videos. You are a fanatical pro persian persian. You are extremely biased. Get out of here!!! By the way, the parthians weren't persian
I think it's entirely reasonable for people to criticize Crassus for opting to push his tired men into a pursuit of a retreating cavalry force in its home turf, especially when the doctrine/typical Roman strategy is to force the enemy into battle by marching on a major city that the enemy would stand and defend. There's also the obvious flaw: if Crassus lacked major cavalry assets of his own, what made him think that he could catch up to a retreating army if his own men were already tired (and in unfamiliar terrain)?
I have to say I absolutely loved this video because it weighed both sides and took source tendency and critism into account. It might be hard to cater to a wide audience with a 'on the one hand... On the other' approach but I feel like it gave some nuance that can help the sometimes set in stone types of videos that can be seen on youtube. I think it gave some food for thought and could make someone think more like a historian to see this video. 🙂
It's just superior mobility and firepower. The Roman army of this period was ideal for beating Gauls and other infantry but came up against superior technology in the east, the horse. Western European horses were smaller breeds. In the east the horse soldier was just more developed, and would remain so for centuries. Crassus was just an old greedy politician who was looking for a triumph. With a competent general I think the Roman army could have avoided defeat but I doubt they could have won.
Gary Hewitt That is a grotesquely simplified view. Horse archers were nothing new, nor were horse-centred factions. The Romans had fought plenty of expert horseman - the Numidian’s, Cantabari and Bedouins were second to none, as were the capadochians. Moreover being smaller is entirely meaningless. Mongols utilised small horses by comparison to the Western European’s breeds, and indeed the breeds of all Eurasia, they were ponies really. Yet I don’t need to tell you how effective they were. It’s not about the size of the horse, it is about what it is being used for. The cataphracts? Yeah they would have been large but they horse archers? Being large offers no Inherent advantage. This was also not standard practice for Parthia, they usually fielded infantry along side their cavalry, their infantry was inferior to the Romans which is likely what Surena did what he did. An entirely cavalry army was a gambit which payed of brilliantly, the Romans weren’t expecting it, because no settled empire fought that way. The Parthians also wouldn’t continue to fight that way. Crassus was not an idiot, he just got outplayed. The Romans also won plenty of victories against the Parthians and Sassanids and sacked their capital numerous times. They did not live inf ear of their superhuman horses. Nonsense. They existed mostly in a stalemate. Neither side truly being able to get the upper hand but one was no inferior to the other one sister breed of horse certainly was not a relevant factor.
I'm loving these videos on Rome. If I may make a suggestion, subtitles would help those of us who don't know all the names (or who, like me, can't always decipher the English pronunciation because we learned Latin with the old one, rolled Rs and all ^^). RU-vid's automatic subtitles do a decent job with English, but not so much with proper names.
Man I ve been always thinking about Crassus mindset during the the entire process of the battle...why he did this and that... thanks for the video very clear objective...
As a RTW modder, I would really like to know... ...how you can get a longer fadeout like at the end of this vid. Pretty sure it's more faded out than the original. Thanks in advance. Btw, nice take on this subject. It's easy for us history buffs to call a commander an idiot or a coward, but most of the time, when you read more about the subject, you discover that they're highly capable people only trying to make sense of the facts at hand. Fortunately, more and more historians understand this, and apart for that PC thing going on these days, I think they're a golden generation, compared to the idiots we had just 30 years from now.
So I do think that Crassus made a great "fall guy" for the mistakes in his campaign. However I do think that although in conemporary roman belief his errors may not have been too great I do think he deserves censure for his performance and certainly was bested in strategy by his Parthian opponent. His timing of the invasion was correct due to an internal strife however I don't know if this was judgement or chance is not clear. He appears to have been underprepared - not waiting for cavalry reinforcement. His choice of route appears wrong to me, whist I agree with your argument he had a predominantly infantry focussed army against an unknown enemy (although his enemy seems to have known him). Advancing across a plain seems unduly risky, yes a campaign through the mountains would have played to the strengths of his infantry based army, whether or not artivasdes turns up - he would have run into King Arodes but I don't think it would have been undoable as mentioned the Romans had had success against mixed parthain forces in the past. The route he took is to a certain degree understandable, the hollow square is actually a pretty good formation for facing a full cavalry force. My own feeling (armchair general point) was that he failled to gather sufficient intellignece about his opponent - particularly their bows and that the charge by Pubilus should have been directed against the Camel train carrying the arrow resupply - which I think was his last chance to escape. I think he was defeated in battle by a superior general who had taken the time to develop intelligence about his enemies army and tactics, planned better and executed his play better all of which could have been countered.
Very fair assessment of Crassus. Love total war series too lol. You should check out Mike Duncan's history of Rome series if you haven't already. He does a great narration
He was a crooked property developer, so yes he was greedy. The romans met their match in Persia, both sides were locked in a stalemate for centuries. Enough of this revisionism.
The Parthian army at Carrhae may not have been “typical” of the cavalry-heavy armies of the Parthians, at least not in the western part of the Parthian empire. At Carrhae it was the Suren (Head of the Suren clan, his real name is lost to history) and his personal army who fought the Romans, and his army was composed - and fought - in a purely steppe nomad fashion, something Rome had never encountered before. In fact modern historians, when trying to describe a steppe cavalry army in action, will often quote Plutarch’s description of the Parthians at Carrhae, inevitably overlooking the fact that the Parthians had left the steppe and given up their nomadic steppe existence for a sedentary and often urban one almost 200 years previously. That the army of the Suren family maintained steppe cavalry traditions was likely due to their location and duties within the empire. The seat of the Suren family seems to have been Sakastan, where they stood as a bulwark against the constant threat of incursion by steppe nomad armies. In fact, the light horse archers in his army were probably his dependents (incorrectly termed “slaves” by Plutarch), drawn from nomadic Iranian Saka tribes that owed fealty and service to the Suren clan, likely in exchange for grazing rights. What’s never been mentioned by any historian, as far as I know, is that the Suren and his army would have had to travel no less than 1,300 miles to get to Carrhae. The decision to send the Suren clan alone against the Romans while the rest of the Parthian armed forces invaded Armenia was simple genius. It’s unlikely that any Roman general of that time - Caesar and Pompey included - would have fared any better than Crassus against what was the Classical equivalent of a Mongol army.
Man, I would like the prelude to battles in Rome 2 would be like this, put more importance to the logistics and location of the battle. Casus Belli would be neat too. Good work Invicta.
A very good video. It's always easy to criticize people without actually helping - we have a proverb here that says "the best helmsmen are all standing ashore". Asides from that not everyone would admit to learning from a youtube comment that criticized them. But I consider it an important thing to do. We're only human and make mistakes / do not have perfect knowledge. If someone points out a legit point of criticism in something you made, doesn't it only make things worse if you counterattack them instead of acknowledging them?
Serena Statue is in the Tehran Museum, born in Ghor Province of Modern-day Afghanistan. Serena or now Suri is an Afghan tribe who also fiercely resisted Ghingiz Khan at Bamyan. Another famous figure of this family is Farid Khan Suri who killed a lion single-handedly and entitled Sher Shah Suri (The Lion King). Sher Shah Suri defeated King Hamyun (India) and thus established the magnificent SURI Afghans dynasty who for the first time introduced centralized currency Rupaya, the fastest Post/courier system and grand trunk road.
Something that has always puzzled me about Crassus. He knew invading Parthia was on the 2 do list. Why didn't he send in his own scouting parties years ahead of time to map out the area and get a feel for how the Parthians waged war? P.S. It's like waking up on Monday in Detroit deciding to invade Canada next Friday. It doesn't make sense to me.
