Sulaimān),[1] which he was forced to besiege.[2] Lack of siege equipment was a great handicap, for Antony had to build huge mounds in lieu of the usual towers. Phraates, when he saw that the task of reducing the well garrisoned and strongly defended city was likely to occupy Antony for some time, turned his attention to the baggage train. Statianus, caught off his guard, was surrounded by cavalry, and in the battle which ensued the Roman commander and all his men were lost.[3] The valuable siege engines and the baggage were destroyed by the Parthians. Among the numerous captives taken was Polemon, king of Pontus, who was afterward released for a ransom. Artavasdes the Armenian deserted either just before the battle, which may account for the completeness of the Roman defeat,[4] or shortly afterward when he despaired of the Roman cause.[5] He took with him, besides his own troops, some of the allied forces, a total of sixteen thousand men. Antony, hastening with reinforcements in response to messengers from Statianus, found only corpses.
The Roman commander was now in a peculiarly
- ↑ Praaspa is the classical Vera, Strabo xi. 13. 3. See Sykes, Hist. of Persia, I, 360 and n. 1; H. C. Rawlinson, "Memoir on the Site of Atropatenian Ecbatana," Journ. Royal Geog. Soc., X (1841), 113–15.
- ↑ Dio Cass. xlix. 25.
- ↑ Plut. Antony 38 mentions the loss of ten thousand men; Livy Epit. cxxx and Vell. Pat. ii. 82, two legions.
- ↑ Dio Cass. xlix. 25.
- ↑ Plut. Antony 39.
