The Roman legions trudged through the hot desert in their heavy metal armor. Crassus never stopped very long at any water sources, which slowly exhausted his troops.
53 BCE: The Roman scouts spotted the Parthian army.
Crassus hurriedly called his troops into a standard line formation
But freaked out that the Parthians were entirely mounted, Crassus changed his mind mid formation.
and called his troops back
to form a Hollow Square.
Continuing forward, the Romans eventually come face to face with the Parthian army.
With 9,000 mounted archers, and
1,000 Heavy Calvary
The Parthian army was outnumbered four to one, but they were led by the brilliant young General:
Surena
Thus began the Battle of Carrhae.
The Parthians Surrounded the hollow square letting loose volleys of hard-hitting arrows.
Unable to hit the mounted soldiers The Romans had to hunker down behind their shields and wait for the Parthians to run out of arrows.
They waited . . .
and waited . . .
and waited . . .
A mounted archer can run out arrows fairly quickly,
but Surena was a brilliant general ...
He set up a supply line of camels to constantly resupply the archers with fresh quivers.
the Parthian arrows continued to fly for hours, slowly piercing into the Roman shields, wounding their arms and feet.
occasionally landing a lethal blow.