Crassus, of course, that’s what happens when 70 year olds make comments after midnight. Interesting tidbit, the Parthians carried a quiver with about 70 arrows. Could lay down such a barrage that it destroyed advancing troops. Kind of what the English longbow did at Crecy(?). Hope I got that right. ;-)
:’)
The Emperor Trajan pounded the crap out of the Parthians (pro-Persian fanatics in here in 5, 4, 3...) and annexed the short-lived province of Mesopotamia. Unfortunately he died right after, and equally unfortunately his successor was the alleged adopted son, the flamer Hadrian. Hadrian wasn’t a military leader, and had to be talked out of withdrawing from Dacia (which was Trajan’s and Rome’s biggest-ever payday); he did pull back behind certain geographical features and the Roman Empire spent the following centuries cowering behind his arbitrary borders.
IOW, Crassus and a handful of others just didn’t know that the hell they were doing when they headed east. In eastern Anatolia, Rome tried maintaining trade links into Parthia and a peaceful border by supporting various buffer states. The arid terrain in what is now Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia served as a natural barrier for both empires. Rome’s trade with India was by sea, and the ships it built for that were huge, and sailed in convoys, following the monsoon winds in and out.
I don't know about Parthian battle tactics besides the "Parthian shot".
right about the pounding, wrong about the 'short-lived' part. Mesopotamia was on and off a Roman province -- with Carrhae, Nisibitis etc. being sometimes Roman, sometimes Persian
a better successor to Trainus would have pushed further to make all of Persia part of the Roman Empire and pushed north
But remember that north of Persia were the various tribes -- one of which was the Parthian, then there were other Indo-European/Iranic tribes and the Turkic-Mongols like Uighar, Kazarians, Cimmerians etc. were moving in. Hadrian's idea of using natural areas as boundaries was not a bad idea. Rome fell to Germanics because it didn't maintain those boundaries
the usage of rivers, mountains etc. made perfect sense until aerial war and even now it still makes sense -- the US and UK have an easier job of defence because they control the seas around them.
Crassus did know what he was doing -- he wanted to prove his position as part of the triumvirate and get some booty to give to his supporters. he failed.
the point about buffer states is also very true and one that if one reads history always makes sense -- remove the buffer state and it leads to horrific war that destroys the two big guys: cases in point:
1. Armenia providing the buffer state between Rome and Sassanid Persia
2. The various Canaanite states providing a buffer between the Hittites and Egypt
3. Poland-Lithuania as the buffer state in the 1700s between Austria and Russia
4. Tibet as the buffer state between India and China
5. Afghanistan under its kings between Tsarist Russia and the British South-Asia Empire.