Hereupon many died from fright at the very charge or the pike-bearers, and many hemmed in by the horsemen perished. Others were upset by the pikes or were carried off transfixed. The missiles falling thick upon them from all sides at once struck down many by an opportune blow, put many out of the battle, and caused annoyance to all. They flew into their eyes and pierced their hands and all the other parts of the body and penetrating their armor, forced them to take off their protection and expose themselves to wounds each minute. Thus, while a man was guarding against arrows or pulling out one that had stuck fast he received more wounds, one upon another. Consequently it was not feasible for them to move, nor feasible to remain at rest. Neither course afforded them safety, and both were fraught with destruction, the one because it was out of their power, and the other because they were more easily wounded. [-23-] This was what they suffered while they were fighting only against visible enemies. Abgarus did not immediately make his attempt upon them. When he, too, attacked, the Orshoeni themselves struck the Romans from behind in exposed places while they were facing in a different direction, and rendered them easier for the others to slaughter. For the Romans, altering their formation, so as to be facing them, put the Parthians behind them. They wheeled around again against the Parthians, then back again against the Orshoeni, then against the Parthians once more. Thrown into still greater confusion by this circumstance, because they were continually changing position this way and that and were forced to face the body that was wounding them at the time, many fell upon their own swords or were killed by their comrades. Finally they were shut up in so narrow a place, with the enemy continually assaulting them from all sides at once, and compelled to protect their exposed parts by the shields of those who stood beside them, that they could no longer move. They could not even get a sure footing by reason of the number of corpses, but kept falling over them. The heat and thirst--it was mid-summer and this action took place at noon--and the dust of which all the barbarians raised as much as possible by riding around them, told fearfully upon the survivors, and many succumbed to these influences, even though unwounded. [-24-] And they would have perished utterly, but for the fact that some of the pikes of the barbarians were bent and others were broken, while the bowstrings snapped under the constant shooting, the missiles were all discharged, every sword blunted, and, chief of all, that the men themselves grew weary of the slaughter. Under these conditions, then, when it grew night the assailants being obliged to ride off to a distance retired. They never encamp near even the weakest bodies, because they use no intrenchments and if any one comes upon them in the darkness, they are unable to deploy their cavalry or their archery to advantage.