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
the Senate of Seleukeia, however, AEsopus[92] appeared to be a wise
man, when they saw Surena with the wallet of Milesian obscenities in
front of him, and dragging behind him a Parthian Sybaris in so many
waggons full of concubines, in a manner forming a counterpart to those
vipers and skytalae[93] so much talked of, by presenting the visible
and the front parts formidable and terrific, with spears, and bows,
and horses, but in the rear of the phalanx, terminating in harlots,
and rattling cymbals, and lute-playing, and nocturnal revels with
women. Rustius, indeed, merits blame, but the Parthians were shameless
in finding fault with the Milesian stories; for many of the kings who
have reigned over them, as Arsakidae, have been the sons of Milesian
and Ionian concubines.

XXXIII. While this was going on, Hyrodes happened to have been
reconciled to Artavasdes the Armenian, and had agreed to receive the
sister of Artavasdes as