Battle of Carrhae in the context of "First Triumvirate"

The Roman–Parthian Wars (54 BC – 217 AD) were a series of conflicts between the Parthian Empire and the Roman Republic and Roman Empire. It was the first series of conflicts in what would be 682 years of Roman–Persian Wars.

Battles between the Parthian Empire and the Roman Republic began in 54 BC. This first incursion against Parthia was repulsed, notably at the Battle of Carrhae (53 BC). During the Roman Liberators' civil war of the 1st century BC, the Parthians actively supported Brutus and Cassius, invading Syria, and gaining territories in the Levant. However, the conclusion of the second Roman civil war brought a revival of Roman strength in Western Asia.

In the Roman Republic, triumviri or tresviri were commissions of three men appointed for specific tasks. There were many tasks that commissions could be established to conduct, such as administer justice, mint coins, support religious tasks, or found colonies.

Most commonly, when historians refer to Roman "triumvirs", they mean two political alliances during the crisis of the Roman Republic. The informal First Triumvirate of Julius Caesar, Pompey the Great, and Marcus Licinius Crassus was a loose political alliance arranged in 60 or 59 BC that lasted until the death of Crassus in the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC; they had no official capacity or function as actual triumviri, and the term is used as a nickname.

The Temple of Mars Ultor was a sanctuary erected in Ancient Rome by the Roman Emperor Augustus in 2 BCE and dedicated to the god Mars in his guise as avenger. The centerpiece of the Forum of Augustus, it was a peripteral style temple, on the front and sides, but not the rear (sine postico), raised on a platform and lined with eight columns in the Corinthian order style.

According to Suetonius and Ovid, the young Octavian vowed to build a temple to Mars in 42 BCE just before the Battle of Philippi if the god would grant him and Marcus Antonius victory over two of the assassins of Julius Caesar, Gaius Cassius Longinus and Marcus Junius Brutus. However, work did not commence on the temple until after the recovery of the Aquilae in 20 BCE that had been lost by Marcus Licinius Crassus in the disastrous Battle of Carrhae 33 years earlier. Originally, the Roman Senate had decreed that the returned standards were to be housed in a temple to Mars Ultor that was to be built on the Capitoline Hill. Augustus however, declared that he would build it at his own expense on the site of his new forum. Augustus’s decision to wait to fulfill his vow has been speculated to have been due to a reluctance to celebrate his victory over those who were seen as the defenders of Libertas, whereas the return of the standards, and its symbolic revenge against the Parthians, was a more acceptable victory to commemorate.

The Abgarid dynasty was a dynasty of Nabataean Arab origin. Members of the dynasty, the Abgarids, reigned between 134 BC and AD 242 over the city of Edessa and the Kingdom of Osroene in Upper Mesopotamia. Some members of the dynasty bore Iranian names, while others had Arabic names, including Abgar itself. J.B. Segal notes that the names ending in "-u" are "undoubtedly Nabatean". The Abgarid dynasts spoke "a form of Aramaic".

Following the Battle of Carrhae (53 BC), members of the dynasty pursued a broadly pro-Parthian policy for about two centuries. At the turn of the 2nd century AD, the Romans turned Osroene into a Roman client state. During Caracalla's reign (r. 198–217), most likely in 214, Abgar IX Severus was deposed and Osroene was incorporated as a Roman province (colonia). Thereafter, Abgarid dynasts only ruled in name. Abgar X Frahad, the last nominal Abgarid ruler, settled in Rome together with his wife.

Marcus Licinius Crassus (86 or 85 BC – c. 49 BC) was a quaestor of the Roman Republic in 54 BC. He was the elder son of the Marcus Licinius Crassus who formed the political alliance known as the "First Triumvirate" with Pompey and Caesar. His mother was Tertulla, the daughter of Marcus Varro Lucullus. His father and his younger brother, Publius, died at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC, after which time Marcus continued to be a partisan of Caesar.

Marcus served under Caesar in the Gallic Wars, first as quaestor, then as proquaestor in 53 BC. He is attested as a legatus under Caesar in 49. He was also a pontifex of Roman state religion, probably as early as 60.

The kontos and contus (Ancient Greek: κοντός), from κεντέω meaning to prick or pierce, was a type of long pike with a pointed iron at the one end. Initially it was used for a variety of reasons, but most notably as a punt-pole by sailors who put it into the ground in shallow water, thereby pushing on the boat, and as a means of determining the depth of the water. Later, the term applied to the long pikes or lances which were used as weapons and the soldier armed with it were called Contarii and Contati (κοντόφοροι, meaning contus-bearers). Romans used this term to described the huge pike of the Germanic warriors and the long pikes of the Sarmatians.

It also described the wooden cavalry lance used by the Iranians, especially Achaemenid successors' cavalry, most notably cataphracts (Grivpanvar). A shift in the terminology used to describe Sarmatian weapons indicates the kontos was developed in the early to mid-1st century AD from shorter spear-type weapons (which were described using the generic terms for "spear"—longhe or hasta—by Greek and Roman sources, respectively), though such a description may have existed before the Battle of Carrhae, in which Parthian cataphracts, in conjunction with light horse archers, annihilated a Roman army of over three times their numbers.

Surena or Suren, also known as Rustaham Suren (died 53 or 52 BC), was a Parthian spahbed ("general" or "commander") during the 1st century BC. He was the leader of the House of Suren and is best known for defeating the Romans at the Battle of Carrhae. Under his command, the Parthians decisively defeated a numerically superior Roman invasion force under the command of Marcus Licinius Crassus. It is commonly seen as one of the earliest and most important battles between the Roman and Parthian empires and one of the most crushing defeats in Roman history.

"Suren" remains popular as a name in Iran and it is sometimes pronounced as "Soren". "Surena" is the Greek and Latin form of Sûrên or Sūrēn."Suren" also remains as a common name in Armenia. Suren means "the heroic one, Avestan sūra (strong, exalted)."

Sagittarii (Latin, plural form of sagittarius) is the Latin term for archers. The term sagittariorum in the title of an infantry or cavalry unit indicated a specialized archer regiment. Regular auxiliary units of foot and horse archers appeared in the Roman army during the early empire. During the Principate roughly two thirds of all archers were on foot and one third were horse archers. Mercenary foot archers already served with the Roman republican army, but horse archers were only introduced after the Romans came into conflict with Eastern armies that relied heavily on mounted archery in the 1st century BC, most notably the Parthians, whose mounted archers were decisive for Crassus's major defeat in the Battle of Carrhae. Since the time of Augustus however, Romans and Italians were also levied as dedicated archers. In the early 1st century BC horse archers were already in widespread use and even supported Roman campaigns against the Germanic tribes in the Central Europe.

The normal weapon of Roman archers, both infantry and cavalry units, was the composite bow, although Vegetius recommended training recruits "arcubus ligneis" (with wooden bows), which may have been made in the northern European self bow tradition. It has been suggested that most Roman composite bows may have been asymmetric, with lower limbs shorter than the upper.