The Battle of Carrhae (53 B.C.E.)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 พ.ค. 2017
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In Spanish "Craso error" means fatal error, and is because Crassus made the mortal mistake of rejecting Armenian's help.
parthian calvary doesnt do well in mountains, they can easily avoid being surrounded by horse archers
Truth is he made way too many mistakes, hard to know which is the one that got him the title, but for sure another 43,000 corpses in the desert wouldn't look so good either.
In latin Crassus means simply "big/fat". I am not Spanish, but I personally don't think a "big error" is an expression only related to Crassus.
You might be right Lorenzo, but even if its false the coincidence is more fun
I made a craso error when I binge watched this entire channel in one day and then realised I would have to wait for the next episode like all the other plebs
Alternative Title: Absolutely Not His Year - Crassus (53 B.C.E.)
That was good
Lucrayon Lol
good parody
when it's not been your day, or month, or year.
His last year, it doesn't end well.
"...but another tribune stepped forward and vetoed his veto."
I'm just imagining him running up and flaunting an Uno reverse card.
One has to wonder how different the Roman system would have been if they didn't have vetos. Whether for senators, consuls or Tribunes
Could the other tribune have vetoed the veto that vetoed his veto?
@@mini2239 I wonder if, after declaring a veto, putting the legitimacy of that veto to a vote of the Roman people would've helped?
@@Bigbadbo121 With how many vetoes were being declared I don't think it would have been practical. Ultimately too many people had the power of the veto
@@mini2239 Limit one veto per bill? As in; a bill can only ever get vetoed once, and then it gets sent out for the legitimizing popular vote?
"He ordered the Romans to march off into the desert...at a breakneck pace". Good plan. If he had survived maybe later he could try and invade Russia in the winter.
Fun fact: Charles XII, Napoleon and Hitler never actually invaded Russia in winter. They invaded in summer and winter came long before Russia ever surrendered.
Carolus Rex supposedly had the Russians suing for peace but he refused, saying he’d only grant peace after he’d utterly annihilated his enemies. He led his army on a death march. Why did Napoleon and Hitler not learn from this example?
@@Hugh_Morris rex had the Russians asking for peace. But it was a peace where the Russians would gain some land (Saintperersburg). Peter (the great) knew that he had won, and wanted peace. But rex thought he could get a better deal if he invaded. Much like hitler
Fun fact: more of Napoleon's soldiers died in the summer than in winter.
Pro Aaron yea in the winter the metal holding their clothes together fell apart from the cold
Fun facts:
-The Gallic cavalry contingent under the command of Publius was extremely loyal to him and would die defending his dead body.
-One of the legates who took over after Crassus became inconsolable was Cassius, he led a legion to safety back to Syria were he mounted a defense of the province, repulsing Parthian attacks; he became a senator and he and Brutus were leaders of the conspiracy to murder Caesar; both died in the battle of Philippi against Octavian and Marc Antony.
The second fact is really interresting. Thanks!
Don't forget the TRUE biggest backstabber: Decimus
They were still soundly and spectacularly defeated by the Parthians, both Publius and Antony. "Repulsed" lol.
@@saeedvazirian No they were not. The Romans crushed the Parthian army several times after Carhae, which is why the Parthians never managed to seriously threaten the Roman East. Only the Sassanids did, and even they never managed to decisively defeat the Romans.
@I am Spartacus! Well in the Battle of Alesia he did prove himself to be a competent and valuable leader. It was for his actions at the Battle of Alesia that got him where he was.
" Nah " ~ Crassus 53 B.C.E
miridian2012 I think he should do a collab with extra history or alternate history hub
+Misael Ramirez it would be awesome
"Cheeky." - Gaius Julius Caesar on Ariovistus, 58 B.C.
Are you fucking serious ahahahaha? We kicked your fucking ass. Persians FTW!
"Moo" -Macedonian Provision Charriots, 326 BC
Hannibal at Cannae: Haha, I have tricked the Romans into letting me surround them!
Parthian General: Are.... are the Romans *letting* us surround them?
Vercingetorix: Caesar has us surrounded! But our allies have surrounded *him!* Wait, what is he.... No, there's no way he's that crazy
@Axis Anonymous who?
Axis Anonymous / sounds like some Gaullic legend
@wolfstudio Surena the unfortunate more like it. His victory was pretty impressive despite Crassus's utter incompetence, but it didn't really amount to much. The Roman advance was halted, but Parthia gained nothing from the war and Surena himself was executed by his king later that same year. Then a couple of wars a little over a decade later just led to more draws and little territorial change.
@@TheKripox in the end Parthia subsisted either as a tributary or allied kingdom, alternating the roles according to the power and sway Rome had in the moment.
Hitler: ""Let we declare war to both Russia and America. No way they will surround us""
Pretty sure the reason Crassus lost was a severe lack of building fortified encampments.
Also not enough village burning.
not really even with fortifications they'd be sieged in a hostile land. Village burning would be good if they got to them though.
No it was more about Crassus being too far away from any secure walls. They are horse archers. Put archers on the walls and watch them crumble. Also he should have retreated much sooner. Not waited an entire day just being hammered on
Guys Ano is being sarcastic
@@NguniPrince Not really the number 1 tactic the Romans had were building fortifications. The horse archers gotta eat too, so if you burned all their fields and camped hard enough you could get them to the negotiating table as a vassal. Of course the Romans weren't tanky enough.
GAnonymusG I know bro. But Ano1nymous is playing on how Caesar always did that in previous battles and was successful. Just as how Caesar would always frame his aggression as defensive. Well I thought that was the joke.
Spartacus laughing his ass off from the underworld at "Crassus's Triumph".
Muie Crassus & Pompey!
I am laughing as well that was lowkey hilarious
Spartacus from the grave just being like, "After 2 decades of being dead, it feels nice to see you so thoroughly humiliated."
"46,000 Armenians is a lot of Armenians"
Historia Civilis dropping the truth bombs as usual
Forty six thousand Armenians is too many Armenians, according to the Turks.
Vardan Simonyan eh my friend the Armenian genocide was not part of the holocaust but it was from the predominantly Muslim Ottoman Empire against their Christian subjects. Still terrible, but you gotta get your facts straight kiddo
Not for the turks, obviously
Well Iran lost 6times as many people during WW1 though
Karen Kalantari
Manzooresh ghahtie jange jahanie ke britianiyayi ha be vojood ovordan.
Oh my God..."Crassus's Triumph". Dude those Parthians don't fuck around. ⊙﹏⊙
Expecially since Crassus never had a triump, he was mad that Pompey got the triump over Spartacus despite Crassus doing the work. He got just an ovation. He probably really wanted a triumph after defeating Parthians. And he got the triump in Parthia in most humiliating way ever...
Galileo Gaming that shows how much Sorena (the parthian commander ) knew cursus's history
It kind of pissed me off. I played a lot of Total war so I'm fond of Rome and find that showboating a bit insulting. Anyway that shithead Sorena got executed later so fuck him.
htf5555 why ? by standards of the time he was quit clever and made sure the romans understand the consequence of attacking his territory
most generals of the time would have just killed all the soldiers(sorry for bad English )
Consequences are one thing. Parading a soldier dressed as a woman is just bizarre. No, most generals at the time would enslave the captured soldiers, perhaps kill some, which the Parthians did.
Sidenote: just imagine being a random farmer or something and getting your town destroyed and your whole family sold into slavery because your city leaders (who you've possibly never even seen in person) decided to actively troll a Roman general when they could have just laid low.
Ye this is the sad fste of many in the ancient world
Another normal day in life of ancient farmer... what did you expect?
topkek
@@y.r._ Yeah, a lot of 'defenders of the oppressed', have no compunction about using them as meat shields for the only campaigns.
@@forgetful9845 Just a reminder, Parthia had no slaves.
Crassus tried being Caesar but only managed the "get into bad trouble" part and missed the part where you win with lucky stuff and weird tricks..
Caesar had main character powers; Crassus didn't.
@@PoochieCollinsone was called competent the other was a egoistic idiot
Crassus was playing Risk instead of Minecraft. Classic blunder.
@@PoochieCollins, and even Caesar's plot armor wasn't as strong as he thought it was.
*sigh* *Fires up Rome Total War
not now Rome, I have to study...
alright, fine... one more empire
You should try the Europa Barbarorum II for Med 2. It's a much better game and is, in my opinion, the Rome 2 we should have gotten!
Thomas Allen This is the only historical battle I can't beat :P
Gonna play Rome II now
*Crashes once again.
The first one is easily one of the best games ever made.
Crassus deployed in noob box formation ...
Mustafa Alwan I believe its called defensive geometry
simple geometry
Total War squaaaaaad.
Turtling camper
Didn't you know Crassus? This isn't the time to experiment!
17:30 that Parthian general clearly had an entire humiliation itinerary lined up for Crassus, but then the guy went and died and now he had to find some other way to get it done.
I'm imagining the cost of this in terms of like money or wealth and the general just being like "okay I paid a lot for all this so one of you baby killers is doing this shit. You. You're crassus."
Emperor valerian got humiliated pretty bad
@@calvinware7957 😂😂
Man it's good to see the Parthian's researched Parthian Tactics giving them that +1/+2 armour and +4 attack against spearmen.
Indeed
11
Lol at Crassus using box formation.
The Parthian general, Surena was executed by the Parthian king after this because he was seen as a threat to his power
Barbaric logic for barbaric people.
@@Sonamyfan875 logic of idiots in power*, no matter where they come from
@@Sonamyfan875 seems that your civilized and advanced romans did the same with the general Ezio after defeating Attila by the hand of emperor Valentinian III for the same reason, or are they "barbaric" people too?
@@ramtin89 yes they are.
More like, because of that gross triumph at the end...
so basically crassus invented the total war noobbox
Even after all that you have to feel kinda bad for Crassus, losing his son and being taunted by his severed head. I understand why he essentially went into shock.
Pride cometh before the fall. It’s worth remembering that this entire war was nothing more than Crassus’ personal vanity project. How many people do you think senselessly lost their lives just so Crassus could earn some personal glory? How many more do you think would have died had he not failed so fantastically? It’s hard to feel bad for a man who marched in there for no other reason but to murder, steal, and enslave for his own enrichment.
@@andrewcornelio6179 You are afforded vanity when you can bring victory. A few dead Legion here and there is fine if you can make up for their lost. Crassus fucked that campaign up hard from the moment he blindly walked into the desert with no information beyond guys on horses.
@@jerm70 nah, bad logic.
@@iMajoraGaming It's really not though. Caesar messed up a ton but most of his men got to go home. The entire Civil War was to protect Caesar's vanity project. The difference is that Caesar didn't blindly tell his men to walk into the desert.
@@iMajoraGaming what? its not a bad logic mate. and indeed crassus was blinded by wealth
"Crassus's Triumph" Absolutely brutal 😂
Apart from forcing Crassus onto that wild horse, this was incredibly humiliating for Rome.
The Persians in various guises have a couple of good highlight reel dunks on Romans. 600 years or so later "Weh Antiok Khosrau" became one of the greatest piss takes in history at the expense of Justinian.
Fox D Yeah that one is pretty damn funny and humiliating
Just quality ownage
Fox D
*Khosrau’s Better Antioch*
The "Nah" led to his demise
18:34 such a humiliating defeat that it caused HC’s microphone to downgrade as it seems
It was such a cringe defeat even the audio quality cringed away
The way I see it is
1. Crassus started an unprovoked war (even Caesar had some version of a flimsy excuse)
2. He sent Soldiers to a garrison offer from a town in the empire he was attacking.
3. He constantly shrugged off the advice of his council. No man has all the answers and especially in war and always needs to accept advice of his council occasionally.
4. Chased an army in the desert away from water and food supplies (Caesar would have always put himself in a position to intercept supplies).
5. Indecisive leadership. He second guessed his tactics and when faced with encirclement he attempted very little to at least temporarily suppress the Parthian arrows and created some form of escape/ fortified encampment
6. Declined help from an allied power who’s cavalry would have significantly helped Crassus in a battle against Parthian horse archers.
6.5- the Armenian cavalry could have given Crassus the information he so desperately needed to execute a firm battle plan for where and how to invade.
10:30
Fun fact: "parthian shot" ended up becoming an expression used by the romans to refer to those who keep yelling insults as they leave.
Either way, Crassus was a noob.
*All Greco-Romans were noobs.
He made the noob box
+Sepehr Voshmgir Nope
Yep.
Compared to Persians, Greeks and Romans were absolute shite in leadership, governance and creativity in leadership. Darius III, who Arrian and Plutarch call weak and icomptenet made more long-lasting leadership decisions despite his "failures" than Alexander. One of the biggest reasons why Iranian culture is still alive is thanks to Darius III.
For example was appointing a satrap to Persepolis, one which no other Achaemenid had done. This allowed a decisive ambush against Alexander's men and made all Greeks and Romans to never dare invade Persia again. He appointed historians to copy their work into both tablets and paper (goat and sheepskin ofcourse) as a fail safe.
Alexander the Great [Failure] on the other hand decided to burn a palace he just invaded, force his own cultural and religious ideals and language on people on the basis that they are just Persians.
Darius III's customs still live in Iran and Greater Iran to this day. Alexander's don't. But ofcourse propaganda is propaganda and blind people will revere a thug (the Macedonian) and vilify or disrespect the intelligent (the Persian).
+Sepehr Voshmgir You can literally find scores of people that support the Persian side of history...
crassus, think OUTSIDE the box!
But he is a Square! How can he think out side the box?
Boxed in.
He did and it killed his son.
This is gold just like Crassus insides
12:51 the Boxer Rebellion.
Crassus: "Pompey! How far from Rome do I have to go to get away from that name!"
Pompey: "Oh don't worry. You won't hear it again."
Crassus went to Parthia for eternal glory.
All he got was a mouth full of gold and 2000 years of shame.
Mouth full of gold out-of-context sounds pretty good
In Portuguese you can call a gross error an _erro crasso_, literally meaning "crassus error". I guess that's a deserved tribute.
Leopoldo Aranha Em português de Portugal? É que sou brasileira e não conhecia essa expressão.
eu sou brasileiro e ja escutei essa expressão
Filipe Martins Sério? Caramba, nunca tinha escutado!
sim, inclusive uso bastante essa expressão e só descobri o que ela significa ontem hasushauasuh
"Crassus" em latim também significa "grande"
Ou seja, mesmo em Latim, e mesmo antes da morte de crassus, "crassus error" significa "grande erro".
Então pode ser que a expressão já existia antes da morte de Crassus.
That Parthian General has no chill.
what is his name
TheBasjenator Thanks I needed to know the name of the world's savigest savigest person XD
It's ok, the Parthian king at the time grew jealous of Surena's (the Parthian General) fame and had him executed. That's what you get for excessive showboating.
Thanks, that was getting to depressive.
@CarrowMind: Fuck man, this entire story ends up in a downer.
I actually went and looked up the definition of "crass" = "showing no intelligence or sensitivity.". Yup, must be linked to our pal Crassus, right? Nah...
Crassus in latin means stout or solid or fat or dense. It might be a synonym for the lang term for dense, but I like your idea better.
@@yahyachothia what about pompous and Pompey? Any connection? I can certainly make one in my head
@@sleazymeezy I thought the same too. Whilst Crassus and Crass maybe connected it doesn't stick true for Pompey. Pompey (Latin Pompeius) is thought to be derived from the Oscan given name Pompo whereas pompous is derived from Latin/Greek pompa ‘procession, pomp’.
It comes from Crassus
An impressive display of military strategy from the Parthians. Always sobering too to remember just how brutal and ruthless ancient warfare routinely was with regards to the defeated.
crassus didn't have large roman onagers or large roman ballistas in the middle. that's why his noob box formation didn't work
Abu Troll al cockroachistan
Lol he’s talking about the noob fort strat in total war: Rome 2
@@Kurvaux Rome 1*
Noob? You think the pussy parthians were not noob? Thats exaclty how i started to play Rome I total war, having only cavalry, i find it long but easy, then i felt bad because i played as a woman
Fucking Noob box 😂😭
@@saguntum-iberian-greekkons7014 when I used to play Rome 1 I never engaged outside my settlements much. I used mostly just Levy Pikemen and archers. Anytime the AI tried to use Egyptian Chariots or Parthian horsearchers I used the walls and alleys to my advantage. Eventually they all had to enter the city. Some cheap pikes were their end every time.
This is the perfect tragedy. A man who desires glory being ruined by his own hubris.
Shame those soldiers had to die, this is why you shouldnt join the army.
Bernard Bruinsma what if are conscripted
Bernard Bruinsma
This is exactly why you try to become an officer, so you can stop this sort of thing from happening, and be there for the poor chaps who happen to be caught in it
Kind of like what happened to Hillary.
Ah, yes. The vain, avaricious rich man, known for his sleazy business tactics, reviled by the populace for initiating a foreign war with no tactical benefit except to further inflate his own bloated ego, whose obvious incompetence is matched only by his arrogance, who repudiates the wise counsel of his allies and instead draws close to him a treacherous man of dubious origin who leads him and his men into the jaws of utter destruction. Remind you of anyone today? That's right. It's just like Hillary Clinton.
And the BibulusAward goes to....: CRASSUS, congratulations!
Omg, hes so bad at this!
Parthian General: we need arrows.
Parthian Supply Sargeant : how much do you need?
Parthian General:.... *pause for dramatic effect*.... LIKE. ALOT.
Parthian General: we need arrows.
Parthian Supply Sargeant : how much do you need?
Parthian General:*YES*
Parthian General: Unlimited
@@victorstroganov8135 moving ammo crates
@@red2theelectricboogaloo961 inserting the cartridge magazines
I'm afraid that what you heard was "bring me a lot of arrows." What I said was "bring me all the arrows you have."
The Chinese had a fairly simple (albeit expensive) way to deal with horse archers employing Parthian tactic. In a similar period, the chinese Han dynasty embarked on punitive raids deep into Mongolia. Han with their previous experience in dealing with the nomads employed a large percentage of infantry crossbowmen/archers. Almost half of the infantry were ranged troops armed with strong crossbows and bows. Even though both the Han and Mongolians used similar composite technology in their bow construction, horse archers use drastically smaller bows than the infantry counter part. Horse archer can't use big bows due to it interfering with them riding. The chinese crossbows were extremely effective. Not only it has an aiming device allowing it easy estimation of range. It also outranges horse archers due to its size, bigger the bow, more power, more power, longer range. So when the Mongolians tried to use shoot and scope against a large formation of Han infantry they were simply out matched. The horsemen lose the range engagement and can't charge in due to the other half the infantry were spearmen. Infantry ranged troops are also denser, because horses are bigger, so they can output far more arrows/bolts per area. Han's punitive raids were far more successful as a result.
Works in theory but the romans Never had Good archers or cavalry. Also the parthians in this instance had an unlimmited Supply of arrows
But there wasn't an unlimited supply of horses and archers. Honestly, given the massive Roman numerical advantage, even a large force of soldiers with slings could've beaten the Parthians - just move the box each time you run out of rocks to sling at the horsemen :D
Ildskalli
Cough cough
Mount jindarus cough cough
What happened at Mount Jindarus? I honestly have no idea :/
@@Ildskalli again, works in theory, but again the roman archers/skirmishers and bows were significantly inferior to the parthians. Also men don't want to die, so the romans wouldn't really be able to just hunt after the parthians until they ran of, because they would take massive casualties trying to do so. They only reasonable thing to do for crassus would have been to force a pitched battle by taking parthian settlements and thus taking out the parthian supplies etc., forcing them to engage the romans.
17:27 So that's where GRR Martin got the ideo of viserys coronation...
Safrus Salmus
Yup. Also see the Black Dinner for the Red Wedding, Greek Fire for Wildfire, the Wars of the Roses for the general outline of the series, and the Jannisaries for the Unsullied.
GRRM toned up some, and toned down others, but he does it with style.
Safrus Salmus yes. In the A Song of Ice and Fire universe Every single thing. Every event, family, and character have their basis in either historical fact or mythology
Nothing about it is new. Nothing. The unique thing is putting it all together in one epic story. GRRM basically reforged human history and mythology into a giant story.
Sam might be the only unique thing since he's GRRMs Mary Sue character (he represents GRRM himself)
If you don't know where an aspect of the novels comes from it's just because you don't know that part of history/mythology yet. It's great learning more because you'll slowly start to see how everything fits together
The war of the five kings is the war of the roses
The red wedding is the black dinner
The white walkers are Ragnaroks Jotun (or frost giants). They'll come and destroy the world in a great long winter and kill the gods and only two humans will survive to repopulate
I could write a fucking novel about how many different historical and mythological things the ASOIAF books have in them. I've found hundreds of different things
Well, most of the novels you read is just a reforging of older ideas. Rarely anything is original.
dont forget that the tactics ramsay used in the battle of the bastards lokked like hannibals in the battle cannae
@@TheBacknblack92 tru but the books are still entertaining
For a long time, I knew nothing about Crassus outside of his history with the first triumvirate and this Parthian campaign. I used to think of Crassus as a tragic victim.
Then I learned about Spartacus and the Servile Wars.
You gotta love the Romans. "I want to go to war." "I veto that!" "well, I veto THAT!"
My Lord, I am informed that the Armenian king is willing to aid us in our cause giving us a large portion of his army counting 46.000 men and providing us with a safe passage through his Kingdom.
Should we accept his offer, the decision is yours.
-Crassus : Nah.
Nah, we march deep in enemy territory, through the fucking desert without stopping, looking for some horsey bois.
Nah we’ll just decide to deploy in a dumb way after chasing down an army of horse archers a quarter our size and suffer a decisive defeat.
The thing is, the Armenians were mainly doing it because they wanted Crassus to basically fight the main Parthian army for them.
@@hammer3721 the 46,000 Armenian army was bigger than the 40,000 Roman army how does that add up
@@Yrkr785 It adds up because the bulk of the Parthian Army was actually preparing to invade Armenia. The army at Carrhae was just a token force compared to what Crassus would have had to face in Armenia.
This Was Really Not His Year - Crassus (53 B.C.E.)
I have been binge watching your content for 2 days now. By far my favorite history channel. The little drums for music goes perfectly with the retelling of past events. Don't stop, man.
Spartacus: God, revenge our death and suffering from Crassus.
Surena: I'm on it, don't bother God.
and the got executed by his own king. lol
@@razgriz821 thats exacly what romans did to julius,surena is a hero kids are named after him...and that wont change the fact that he thrashed rome...cry ;)
@@mf.m6343 and you think kids arent named after caesar? Hell the name caesar was elevated to mean king or emperor in some countries. Besides, i dont give a shit about rome or crassus. It sucks to be killed by the people you pardoned, sure, but your very own king rewarding you with death for winning is worse. Lol
@@razgriz821 that can be said about kasra or king of kings anyway its a fact that this was sweet but battle of edessa maaan!! that was complete sugur😆😂
@@mf.m6343 true, worse than carrhae, haha. you seem to have a grudge against rome. But hey to each, their own. My interest in rome starts with july and ends with august.
2,000 years on and this is still the cringiest moment in history
I know a certain WW2 French line that would like to have a word with you.
@@Gameshunter3012 .
@@Gameshunter3012 the world's most impregnable defense line, defeated by some sneaky bois going behind it ;)
@Brylle Cruz Really, I heard that the French didn't defend the forest at Sedan because they thought the germans couldn't get through the trees? That being said, the Maginot was still strong and stopped the germans directly attacking it.
@Brylle Cruz No. Was it good?
Damn Crassus, you should have not used the noob square formation. Only newbie Spartan players do that.
Darion Solaris apparently the Partian army wasn't controlled by the AI.
I'm a noob
I like to do it and fill it with archers and slingers. Works pretty well!
Axiomatic
For the Emperor of Man...
um... for Sigmar!
Forward Adeptus Astar...
er... fuck it! Forward!
haha i know right noobie total war formation
I bet Spartacus was smiling in the afterlife.
It's crazy how the massive crusader army under Guy de Lusignan made a similar mistake over a thousand years later at Hattin that cost them everything. Doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past if you don't learn from them.
Fun fact: While the Romans suffered heavy casualties, the Parthians only lost about 38 Heavy Calvary and a light amount of Horse Archers.
he left out the parthian loses and also name of parthain general lol he is biased to be honest.
How can you NOT be biased in such an EXCRUCIATING defeat? Romans were left to lick their wounds.
As a german, it makes me happy.
name öga büga, where the Italic women at.
NewsOracle tbh I don’t think he’s biased. Without casualties the fact that a force of 10.000 beat one way bigger than it speaks for itself.
This is because this battle is the result of Roman and specifically Crasus’s incompetence. He had the chance to accept Armenian aid, to scout before advancing, to stop encirclement (if he hadn’t formed a square he might have actually won or been better off as flanking with a much smaller force is quite hard.
Bias to what? I'm confused on how you can be biased with history, is there some political drive picking Romans over Parthains or Partians over Romans?
20,000 legionaries annihilated to the loss of 38 Cataphracts. It was a Parthian stomp.
No way, it was a dick move, try to play like that in Rome total war series against an opponent and ask him how he felt after you just brought horse vagina mounted archers, go ahead go play the parthian way in a tournament and we will see if the comments congratulates you or insult you of fucking coward
@@saguntum-iberian-greekkons7014 don't hate the player, hate the game
The strategy of moving faster and having more range is basically invincible as long as it stays out of choke points.
that also was the main advantage that the legions had over the hoplites
@@horstherbert35 yeah but guess what the startegy (hit and run is inspired by real tactics of steppe nomad pussies, turkic parthians, even Scythians at some points)
@@saguntum-iberian-greekkons7014 someones salty👌
@@ImiriAgami22 Miri as in Sarawak?
the virgin infantry vs the chad cavalry
I am addicted to your videos. Thank you.
That shit could be a perfect Drama. I kind of feel bad for Crassus, but if the sources are right, he really was making very stupid decisions.
Also he was a greedy invader, soo dont feel bad.
How does this have anything to do with hindsight? If this video got it right, Crassus' own soldiers repeatedly told him that they should not just march into the desert, which is only made worse by not letting your soldiers rest or rehydrate.
Before all that started he also completely ignored the first rule of Roman warfare. Divide et impera: get local allies for intelligence and let neighboring tribes fight each other instead of you. Conveniently there was one perfectly fitting candidate offering his help and expertise on how to deal with the Parthians (or rather what not to do) but Crassus ignored that. Apparently the Parthian cavalry could be difficult to deal with in the open desert.
So in hindsight the Armenian king got off lucky by not getting himself involved with such a knucklehead.
That he understood basic Roman combat tactics doesnt really make any of this better.
P K not really. We have information laid out for us very neatly which he had no way of knowing. Most reasonable people would have expected him to win irl until at le”ast the camels part 🐫 “bloody camels! Crassus at Carrhae
he made my total war desicions.
P K Crassus was a piece of shit enslaver who also crucified thousands and thousands of slaves. Don’t feel bad for him, he deserved to go out in such a pathetic fashion
Here's a case of defeat not due to stupidity, but *miscalculation.* The Armenian ruler's offer seemed too good to be true, and was beyond his initial goals anyway. Furthermore, a square would've been perfect for thwarting being flanked. He did everything *right,* but only in the context of what he knew.
Except chasing after an army in the middle of the desert instead of city-hopping; that was fucking dumb.
AlgaeNymph well if the Armenians would have been with Crassus, the main parthian Army would have fought against them. Surenas Force was only meant to delay the romans until the King dealt with the Armenians, which he did, but the romans heavy infantry was just no Match to the parthian heavy cav in an open plain.
I'd argue he didn't do everything right at all. Saying it was within the context of what he knew doesn't make it okay - he chose to start a war against a foe he sorely underestimated and which fought in a way his army wasn't capable of easily defeating. He chose not to scout. He had the initiative, he had the time and opportunity. Therefore, to be thwarted by his lack of knowledge was maybe his biggest mistake alongside his underestimation of his enemy and his overestimation of himself (not listening to his advisors again and again).
It's certainly hard to believe Caesar would be so reckless... or is it? Caesar did chase various Gallic armies out into No Man's Land from time to time. There are moments where I believe if the Gauls had just been as clever as Surena, they would have wiped Caesar out prematurely, and we'd be talking about just another Roman disaster during the dying years of the Republic.
Caesar tended to make better use of reconnaissance though, so he might have known what he was up against, and I don't think he would have used Crassus' box formation. The box formation does make a bit of sense against a full cavalry army because, as the video says, it covers any potential flanks. However, Caesar would probably have found out about the size of the Parthian army in the first place. He might also have recognised the withdrawal into the desert as the (in hindsight obvious) lure that it was.
@@napoleoncomplex2712 Well that's why experience and being able to adapt to the situation is the difference we remember Caesar as a great general and Crassus as a wealthy man who was looking for glory, but found only his doom.
I'd almost argue the same thing, but there is one thing that always kept Romans back: their dumb pride and refusal to use cavalry. Crassus logically had no other option but to accept the foreign army for a lot of reasons:
1. Intel on both the surrounding terrain and the enemy army
2. Free cavalry, which you need when fighting other cavalry units, especially when it comes to ranged cavalry.
3. A stronger bond with the local populace which makes annexing easier
I'd fear being backstabbed as well, but anything is better than trying to fight an unknown enemy in hostile terrain without a supply line.
4:52 "46,000 Armenians is a lot of Armenians."
Turks: ...Unsubscribed.
lmao
"46,000 Armenians are a lot of Armenians"
-Historia Civillis, 2017
When Crassus's head was presented to the Parthian King, he was in the middle of watching a greek play, the Bacchae by Euripides. The actor in the play took the head of Crassus and danced around the stage shouting the verses of the play loosely translated "....a mighty prey, we have caught today!"
The reason the Partians only had 10,000 men, was a larger army went to fight the Armenians. Thats the reason the Roman scouts overestimated their size.
John Smith makes sense because the Armenians were probably trying to raid while the romans distracted the Parthians.
General noob
More like trying to create bufferzones in Atropatene and Vaspurakan.
John Smith Im curious. What was the name of the battle the armenians fought?
Narek_ jwz doubt they would be able too too much conflict with the romans if they succeeded.
General noob
Armenia under Tigran the great became an empire and the strongest state in the east for a short period, I think the Romans wanted to stop the Armenian Kingdom from regaining power in the region... even if this meant refusing their help.
I love your videos. They are very interesting and posted in chronological order. I get to see what Rome was doing in the East, and what they were doing in the Northwest at the same time.
Sincere thanks for this, Historia - you make for entertaining viewing, you Canadians.
Watching a documentary of human evolution. Notification pops up, Historia Civilis posted a new video.
Fuck evolution then.
N14 learning exams for tomorrow. Historia Civilis is more important than chemistry.
Pepe Jazbec It's more important than physics
more important than my ap macroeconomics exam tomorrow
if you are a god watching humans interact is much more interesting than creating them
more important than spanking my publius?
Crassus is the definition of a 0/0/0/0 general
Vincent S. id say 0/0/0/1 after all he did seige alot of towns down in quick succession. useful seige pip
Not really, he made a lot of mistakes here, but you can tell from the beginning of the video that he's not a complete fool.
BlueSword You can be a competent politician or economist, but still be an utter moron on the battlefield.
BlueSword he may be a 3/3/0, but he will never fight as good as Skanderbeg
But Crassus didn't have to deal with 500 Aggressive Expansion.
Dobry opis, serdecznie dziękuję
this is a great channel. tons and tons of great historic infos.
**Takes an arrow to the arm** OW
or foot
or...knee?
+Anastasios Gkotzamanis
I to was a Roman soldier, then I took an arrow in the knee...
Sprite Boi Bloody elves commander...
*o r h e e l*
Man, someone needs to make a Game of Thrones style Rome series, this would have been PERFECT for a drama series, and this shit ACTUALLY happened
There's already a tv series by HBO creatively titled 'Rome', and a lot of scenes in GoT are heavily copied from the 'Rome' series
and that ended because the budget cost was to high as they spent a lot for the props to be accurate.
zakback99 yup. The entire second half of the second season had to condense three seasons worth of stuff into half a season. That's why Octavian inexplicably gets his actor changed midseason. They couldn't tell the story with an actor who looked that young and they thought they'd have longer to do it and the actor would naturally age up during the course of the show.
They got the news they were cancelled partway through the filming of the second season so it shows
Rome is an awesome TV series. Love it.
+Don Donnie Lol what the fuck are you even talking about? That's a big ass lie
That was awesome! Great job!
That was cheating, rules said max 4 horse archers
Max 2 in Rome 1 cwb rules and 31k
i open my eyes and what do i see? A new historia civilis video. Today is going to be a good day
Should be called how to be a terrible military tactician 101
His tactics weren't his problem- a line would expose the rear to create more casualties. He just set himself up badly.
strategist*
He should've just pulled all his men into a testudo formation, like a kind of large block of men, this would limit his manoeuvrability, but until the literal infinite supply of arrows stopped, he would be largely protected, with tight shields packed together. Or he should've pushed his men out in testudo formation which would've either scared off the horse archers or disrupt their infinite arrows for the cavalry to come in and smash them.
He did both, and neither worked. Weren't you paying attention?
Because they had firearms and bayonets. If you have no ranged weapons and the enemy does, it's a disaster waiting to happen. He should have just accepted the Armenian's aid, it was victory on a silver platter if he had.
"It turns out that the Parthians had brought a lot of arrows... Like, A Lot."
Historia Civilis. Best historical commentary since Herodotus.
Yup, I guess that the number of Parthian arrows can only be matched by the Herodotus's number of Persians invading Greece!
Herodotus? Not saying much. A homeless person has a better handle on history than Herodotus.
@@saeedvazirian
Lol. Ancient History gatekeeper here... Let's see you be the "Father of History" then...
Such a well produced video
This is why, in Rome II, I never invade further east than the Seleucids. Horse archers are just the worst.
Sam Otten dude take some foot archers. they are good against mounted ones and are more precise. ;)
Seleucids were long, long dead. The Parthians massacred all the greek usurpers.
Parthian Empire is legitimately incredible and doesn't get nearly enough recognition for keeping Romans from fairly rich lands of Mesopotamia. Also, Armenian Empire was quite a big player in the Eastern politics of that time, weird that Crassus decided to turn their proposal down - Armenians have been fighting descendants of the Persian Empire for years. And really would've helped against Parthian tactics. Oh well, Crassus couldn't command armies for shit anyway.
True. The Parthians undid the filth of Alexander.
dude get lost )))
Alexander died from desperately trying to subjugate the Persians. BTW I like how fucking racist you are but you wouldn't glorify Xerxes, who actually had legitimate reason for invading Greece. Alexander died by the hands of Persia itself, because you never fuck with the Persians and expect to live early. Darius III has the last laugh. The culture, art, history, philosophy of Persia to this day remains Persian. Where are the remnants/legends/leftovers of Alexander now in Iran? Nowhere. On the other hand, the Achaemenids are immortals in Iranian culture. The Islamic government also respects them. Sassan I was a descendant of Darius III.
Also get your fucking history right, the Parthians undid the Seleucid filth who were way after Alexander.
Darius III was not incompetent, his resistance is the prime reason for the survival Persian culture to this day. His electing of Ariobarzanes as the satrap of Pars (Persis or Pasargadae) is what delievered a massive blow against the hellenistic cunts, ensuring that even though Iran might be sacrificed, the rest of the world will remain protected. The Indians then took vengeance for him, and the Parthians wiped the floor with the Greeks. This is why Greece respects Iran now.
Fuck yes.
Sepehr Voshmgir Here I thought he died from malaria
dude
Then why hadn't Parthia conquered it? It wasn't as powerful, but it could compete.
how have i only JUST found your channel ! i love it, as someone who both loves and studies history, these vids are well made and well animated,
and fyi the Whole Spartacus thing made me spit my coffee out in laughing, Spartacus is one of my most favoured parts of history please keep up the hard work
Very well done, I loved the humour, I'm looking forward to watching more of your videos.
i guess after this battle many soldiers got to switch to city guards
because of an arrow in the knee
Marcus Licinius Crassus - *_NAH_*
Legion XIII I have seen you on MATN videos. I am also one of the generals, formally Lentulus Brutus and now ADMIRAL JON
Heyo, it seems we watch similar channels...
Joey Kevorkian I watched his Rome playthrough too
Great video! I'm addicted to your outro! sometimes I watch them just to listen to the outro music.
This is my new favorite history series on TH-cam
This is basically a precursor to the success of the Monghols. Nobody had a real tactical response to mass horseback archery.
And man was that a depressing end to Crassus' story. Can't say he didn't play a part in creating it, though.
Bennett Harnisch watch lindybeiges video on this topic
Which Lindybeiges video?
He made strategic errors. He should've known that the strength of the Parthians was their adaptation to desert warfare. The Arabs and Mongols would later do the same.
Marcus Antonius had more missile troops, to counter horsearchers, when he invaded.
"what if the khergits had good AI?"
Historically, these armies are superb in a large field but aren't as good at taking cities that are built to withstand siege.
Sw4gBeard Twas a mount and blade reference my dude
@@11leeson I'm aware. The statement applies.
@@teegamew766 heavy cav isn't all that useful either in most sieges, but bowmen can always put work wether they're afoot or on horse back. Mongols swept hundreds of places, including walled cities using mostly their traditional forces.
@@admontblanc
Mostly traditional forces, if you exclude captured siege engineers who could build seige equipment. And "volunteer" foot soldiers from defeated people.
While talking about mistakes of Crassus, which were many, let us not diminish the genius of General Surena
His genius led to the enemy making mistakes. Interconnected
HAHAHAHAHAHA! GENIUS? THIS PUSSY WITH NO BALLS ARE YOU SERIOUS M8? YOU ARE IDIOT, NO A PROUD IDIOT, just like Crassus.
Parth had different figthing style and a lot of preparation, they are on their territory and they got the suprise effect, Crassus just couldn't find a way to respond this, but i don't think we can call this genius.
Septic Neuron That battle wasn’t fought by Surena though, he was executed before the Parthian counter attack. Plus, even you must admit that the infinite arrows was actually really smart, as well as adapting to Publius’s counter attack
@Septic Neuron Yeah wrath. Yawn. Was it wrath when the Persians decimated Antony or when they captured THE ROMAN FUCKING EMPEROR? Lol.
excellent presentation.
Vetoing a veto. I can see russia's ambassador to the UN drooling
Goose Hamsterson XD
So essentially, Crassus guaranteed his own death by perpetually making the wrong decision. Got it.
This is so compelling
This was probably your best video.
man all those Armenian archers suuuure would of been nice right about then.
The square probably could have worked with Armenia archers, like in the Battle of Jaffa, where Richard's crossbows behind shield walls defeated Saladins cavalry.
What's this point to Armenian!!? Parhtian are Persians!!
@@imm0rtalguard Did you watch the video? lmao
@@Loj84 what video lol you mean Zionist globalism history!? I talk about reality not stupid westerns thoughts!!
Ahmadreza Iglesias you've gotta be braindead lmao
Fun fact: one of the legatii that took control of the army was Cassius ( the one who also organized the murder of Ceasar). He and Crassus were in a never-ending argument during the entirety of the campaign. Plutarch reported also that the encounter with Surenas, the Parthian general, happened after a second escape from Charrae to Syria (that apparently failed because of the betrayal of a scout that guided the roman in another trap). In that occasion, Cassius simply noped to everyone and everything and ran away with the cavalry, abandoning Crassus and the infantry to even more slaughter. And in that situation, Crassus was close to bringing his man to the mountains and back to Syria.
I also have to break a spear in favor of Crassus decision to not joining the Armenians: it seemed that the Armenians were conscious that the main army of the Parthian (30 K infantry and 10 K cavalry) was heading to their territories. By maintaining the two forces divided Crassus was quite sure to have an open road to the richest Parthian capital, the desert road was taken mainly for rushing through Mesopotamia and cutting the main parthian army away from the region. We should not forget that Crassus wasn't only a rich, powerful politician, He was also a decent commander. He was the one who practically won Rome and handed it to Sulla during his dictatorship. Moreover, he was considered ( by Cicero!), the best orator of his time (except for Cicero himself of course), capable of shame Pompey and Ceasar on many occasions. And He was also quite popular for his plebian ancestry and his very approachable manners.
In practice Marcus Licinius Crassus was a 60 years old man that, two thousand years ago, was capable of running on horseback, commanding his man and endure their same suffering while giving speeches and exchanging jokes with everyone.
We should not be so harsh on him
Wow I never knew that there were people so willing to defend Crassus. I always wonder what would of happened to the triumvirate had his campaign been a stunning success. Would the Caesarean civil war even happen?
Considering his "firefighter" scheme we should be way more harsh
I thought Cicero considered Catullus the best orator after himself
Too bad the Parthians didn't kill Cassius as well. At least that bastard wouldn't have killed Caesar.
I know this is arm chair general shit but the battle was stupid and made no sense whatsoever. The box formation was a good call but the parthian army was made up of a mix of light cavalry and heavy cavalry. There was no way in hell the roman infantry was going to chase and kill cavalry once the parthian army ran out of ammo, they can just run off to go get more for another attack. He shouldve began a march back or just hold the defensive postion until they could later march through the night, minimizing whatever losses. He already held mesopotamia, the pressure was on for parthia to actually storm and besiege the holdings.
Im a history junky but have never gotten into the details of the Roman Empire, these videos are friggin awesome, keep up the great work.
Excellent video! I like it a lot
The Parthian Sphabed (a rank that would translate to General or Commander) for that battle was named Surena (a popular name even to this day in Iran). He became so popular in Parthia after his victoy that, fearing that he will turn against him, the king of the Parthians, Orodes II, ordered to have him executed. This, of course, did little to erase his "legend", Surena is seen to the Persians of present day Iran in somewhat the same level that Germans regard Arminius.
Thanks for sharing this interesting detail.
He got the Scipio Africanus/Hannibal Barca treatment. Kings and their equals were so ungrateful back then.
No evidence that Orodes II actually executed him.
Happy to see my fav youtubers having sponsers
jolly co-op Geography Now?
jolly co-op yay, more videos
He beat a half starved slave army and then tried his hand against a real one. Silly man.
I find this war fascinating but the only thing I hate is when I read or listen to someone else's account of the war certain details are always different, but the end result is the same Crassus army got slaughtered and he got killed
that slave army, the only feat i remember from Crassus, but it was Pompei, lol
Gizel Z *Pompey. (POMpey). Pompeii (pomPAY) is the place
Just a little note, but understandable since in history videos like this the narrator often mistakes the two, find it rly annoying (don’t think the one here does though, which is good).
Crassus was NOT A completely incompetent leader...he was not dissimilar from other generals of.the time. The Roman war machine valued strength and wealth and honor above all. So generals never used foraging parties or scouts to survey enemies. He was just a product of his time...he had won damn near everything he had ever tried in life...he didn't know the advantages of a fully horsebacked army, or horseback Archers (which were the equivalent of fucking aircraft in the ancient world) a skilled cavalry bowmen could reign HAVOC down on enemy infantry ten times in number, as shown here.
@@connormcmurphy4276 no, that's because of his incompetence, take Caesar for example, he would have conquered the entirety of the parthian empire
awesome. I learned about this on rome total war and now I know all the details. I love this video.
The Parthians definitely had a sense of humour lol
I laughed so hard at "Crassus's triumph" with the prostitutes.
They also supposedly used Crassus’s head as a stage prop.
Not for me. Not funny.
@@Gameshunter3012 Think of the guy they picked to play the role of Crassus! Poor bastard!
To me, what they did definitely shot above the threshold between the domain of "funny" and "horrendous".
I dont know if you do Greek history, but the "March of the Ten Thousand" by Xenophon would be an amazing subject to cover.
@Mr. P. Enis he doesn't
@@mk9650 he did
Please include more about Trajan vs the Parthian Empire when you have the chance! Thanks for all of the videos so far! I'm a big fan of Roman military history and I'm enjoying all of your videos, even the ancient Rome political ones
I cant believe I just found this channel lmao spent all day watching this playlist