ot abandoned. Still during the winter
of 703-704 Pacorus lay encamped in Cyrrhestica on this side
of the Euphrates; and the new governor of Syria, Marcus Bibulus,
as wretched a general as he was an incapable statesman,
knew no better course of action than to shut himself up
in his fortresses. It was generally expected that the war
would break out in 704 with renewed fury. But instead
of turning his arms against the Romans, Pacorus turned against
his own father, and accordingly even entered into an understanding
with the Roman governor. Thus the stain was not wiped
from the shield of Roman honour, nor was the reputation of Rome
restored in the east; but the Parthian invasion of Western Asia
was over, and the Euphrates boundary was, for the time being
at least, retained.

Impression Produced in Rome by the Defeat of Carrhae

In Rome meanwhile the periodical volcano of revolution was whirling
upward its clouds of stupefying smoke. The Romans began to have
no longer a soldier or a denarius to be employed against the public foe--
no longer a thought for the destinies of the nations. It is
one of the most dreadful signs of the times, that the huge national
disaster of Carrhae and Sinnaca gave the politicians of that time
far less to think and speak of than that wretched tumult
on the Appian road, in which, a couple of months after Crassus,
Clodius the partisan-leader perished; but it is easily conceivable
and almost excusable. The breach between the two regents, long felt
as inevitable and often announced as near, was now assuming
such a shape that it could not be arrested. Like the boat
of the ancient Greek mariners' tale, the vessel of the Roman community
now found itself as it were between two rocks swimming towards each other;
expecting every moment the crash of collision, those whom it was bearing,
tortured by nameless anguish, into the eddying surge that rose
higher and higher were benumbed; and, while every slightest movement
there attracted a thousand, eyes, no one ventured to give a glance
to the right or the left.

The Good Understanding between the Regents Relaxed

After Caesar had, at the conference of Luca in April 698,
agreed to considerable concessions as regarded Pompeius,
and the regents had thus placed themselves substantially on a level,
their relation was not without the outward conditions of durability,
so far as a division of the monarchical power--in itself indivisible--
could be lasting a