But even then their troubles were not ended. Crassus either would not or could not stay at Carrhæ, and set out in the hope of reaching the friendly country of Armenia. He was overtaken, and consented to hold a conference with the Parthian commander to discuss the terms of an armistice. It is not clear whether the Parthians intended treachery; anyhow the Romans suspected it. A fierce quarrel ensued; the Roman officers were killed, and Crassus put an end to his own life. Of the army many were taken prisoners, and a few contrived to escape. But as a force it ceased to exist. [Illustration: Crassus defeated by the Parthians.] The battle of Carrhæ, as it may be called, though it happened at some distance from that town, was one of the worst disasters in Roman history. What especially touched the pride of the Empire was the submission of the numerous prisoners to their fate. Horace inveighs against the cowardice of the men who were content to forget all the glorious associations of Rome and to become the subjects of a barbarian king. He seeks to console himself by telling how the standards captured from the army of Crassus were torn down from the Parthian temples by the victorious Augustus. What really happened was that these trophies were given up under the conditions of a peace made between Parthia and Rome. There was more than one struggle between the two powers, and the superiority of Roman arms was vindicated more than once. Parthia, also, had its triumphs. One Roman Emperor, Valerian, ended his days in Parthian captivity. When the Empire fell in the third century of our era it was by a rebellion among its own subjects. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 37: Nearly £5,000,000, taking the talent at £240.] [Footnote 38: "If these men come as ambassadors," Tigranes is reported to have said, "there are too many of them; if they are an army there are certainly too few." But he was not the first to use the witticism.] [Footnote 39: Mommsen speaks of it as the _Second_, the First being a coalition of the same persons ten years before. It is as well to remark that the coalition had no legal existence. It was an informal agreement between the three most powerful citizens to act together. The _Second_ Triumvirate, in 43 B.C., was a regularly constituted body.] VI THE CONQUESTS OF CÆSAR