mmediately
rode off to attack Crassus.

XXVI. With Crassus matters were thus. After ordering his son to make
an attack on the Parthians, and receiving intelligence that they were
routed to a great distance, and were hotly pursued; seeing also that
the enemy in front were no longer pressing on him so much as before,
for most of them had crowded to the place where young Crassus was, he
recovered his courage a little, and drawing his forces together,
posted them on a sloping ground, being in immediate expectation that
his son would return from the pursuit. Of those who were sent by
Publius to his father, when he began to be in danger, the first fell
into the hands of the enemy and were killed; and the next, after
escaping with great difficulty, reported that Publius was lost, if he
did not receive speedy and sufficient aid from his father. Now,
Crassus was affected by many contending feelings at once, and he no
longer viewed anything with sober judgment. Distracted by alarm for
the whole army, and love of his son at the same time, he was urged by
one motive to go to his aid, and by the other not to go: but finally
he began to move in advance. In the mean time the enemy came up,
making themselves more formidable by their shouts and paeans, and many
of the drums again bellowed around the Romans, who were in expectation
of a second attack. The Parthians, carrying the head of Publius fixed
on a spear, rode close up to the Romans, and, displaying it
insultingly, asked who were his parents and family, for it was not
decent to suppose that so noble and brave a youth was the son of so
cowardly and mean a man as Crassus. The sight of this broke and
unstrung the spirit of the Romans more than all the rest of their
dangers; and it did not fill them with a spirit for revenge, as one
might have supposed, but with shuddering and trembling. Yet they say
that the courage of Crassus on that dreadful occasion shone forth more
brightly than ever before; for he went along the ranks, crying out,
"Mine alone, Romans, is this misfortune: but the great fortune and
glory of Rome abide in you, if your lives are saved, unbroken and
unvanquishcd: and, if you have any pity on me, who have been deprived
of the noblest of sons, show this in your fury against the enemy. Take
from them their rejoicing, avenge their cruelty: be not cast down at
what has happened, for it is the law that those who aim at great
things must also endure. Neither did Lucullus v