and right hand when Crassus was lying on the ground. But these are
rather matters of conjecture than of certain knowledge; for of those
who were present some fell there fighting about Crassus, and the rest
immediately fled back to the hill. Upon this the Parthians came and
said, that Crassus had been punished as he deserved, but Surena
invited the rest to come down and fear nothing: whereupon, some of the
Romans came down and surrendered, and the rest dispersed themselves
under cover of night, of whom a very few escaped; the rest the Arabs
hunted out, and put to death when they caught them. It is said that
twenty thousand perished in all, and ten thousand were taken alive.

XXXII. Surena sent the head[87] and hand of Crassus to Hyrodes in
Armenia; and, causing a report to be carried by messengers to
Seleukeia that he was bringing Crassus alive, he got ready a kind of
ridiculous procession which, in mockery, he called a triumph. One of
the Roman prisoners who bore the greatest resemblance to Crassus,
Caius Paccianus, putting on a barbarian female dress, and being
instructed to answer as Crassus and Imperator to those who addressed
him, was conducted, seated on a horse, and in front of him trumpeters,
and some lictors rode upon camels; and there were purses[88] suspended
from the fasces, and, by the side of the axes, heads of Romans newly
cut off. Behind these followed courtesans of Seleukeia, singing girls,
who chanted many obscene and ridiculous things about the effeminacy
and cowardice of Crassus. All this was public. But Surena assembling
the Senate of Seleukeia,[89] laid before them certain licentious books
of the Milesiaca of Aristeides,[90] and, in this matter, at least,
there was no invention on his part; for they were found among the
baggage of Rustius,[91] and they gave Surena the opportunity of
greatly insulting and ridiculing the Romans, because they could not,
even when going to war, abstain from such things and such books. To