The token of victory, the hand and head of Crassus, reached Orodes in Armenia just as he had made peace with Artavasdes and betrothed his eldest son Pacorus to the daughter of the Armenian king. The Roman disaster was due primarily to the novelty of the Parthian way of assault, which took them wholly by surprise, and partly also to bad generalship; but the Romans always sought a traitor to account for a defeat, and in the present case they threw the blame partly on Andromachus of Carrhæ, who really did mislead Crassus in his retreat, and was rewarded by the Parthians with the tyranny of his native town, but had no great influence on the disaster; and partly on Abgar, whose advice was no doubt bad, but not necessarily treacherous. Surenas, the victor of Carrhæ, whose fame was now too great for the condition of a mere subject, was put to death a little later, the victim of Orodes’ jealousy; the victory itself was weakly followed up. Not till 52 B.C. was Syria invaded, and then with forces so weak that Cassius found the defence easy. Orodes avoided a threatened breach with his son Pacorus, by associating him in the empire; but the Parthians took little advantage of the civil wars that preceded the fall of the Roman Republic. They occasionally stepped in to save the weaker party from utter annihilation, but even this policy was not followed with energy, and Orodes refused to help Pompey in his distress because the Roman would not promise to give him Syria. Labienus was with Orodes negotiating for help on a larger scale when the news of Philippi arrived, and remained with him till 40 B.C., when he was at last sent back to Syria, together with Pacorus and a numerous host. The Roman garrisons in Syria were old troops of Brutus and Cassius, who had been taken over by Antony; those in the region of Apamea joined Labienus; Antony’s legate Decidius Saxa was defeated, and fled from the camp afraid of his own men. [Sidenote: [43-36 B.C.]] Apamea, Antioch, and all Syria soon fell into the hands of the Parthians, and Decidius was pursued and slain. Pacorus advanced along the great road and received the submission of all the Phœnician cities save Tyre. Simultaneously the satrap Barzaphranes appeared in Galilee; the patriots all over Palestine rose against Phasael and Herod; and five hundred Parthian horse appearing before Jerusalem were enough to overthrow the Roman party and substitute Antigonus for Hyrcanus. The Parthian administration was a favourable contrast to the rule of the oppressive proconsuls, and the justice and clemency of Pacorus won the hearts of the Syrians. Meantime Labienus had penetrated Asia Minor as far as Lydia and Ionia. The Roman governor Plancus could only hold the islands; most of the cities opened their gates to Labienus, the “Parthicus imperator.”