The Romans did not have much luck fighting the Parthians. Crassus, the third member of the Roman triumvirate of which Pompey and Julius Caesar were the other two, wanted to make a name for himself before he got too old. He was about 54. Pompey had Spain and the west, Caesar had the center and he had the East. The march into Parthian territory became a military disaster. He and his son were both killed, and young Cassius managed to bring about 10,000 troops back to Syria to preserve the Roman hold there. Years later you may recall that Cassius was one of the ringleaders who killed Caesar because he was “too ambitious.” I always wondered what his ambition was, until I read this piece of history. Then I realized that Caesar’s ambition was to restore Roman honor by conquering Parthia. Dumb move, and also a dumb move 200 years later. And also a dumb move 10 years ago.
Regarding rats. The rat of the plague was the black rat, which was primarily a house and roof rat. It lived rather intimately with its victims, spreading fleas in the house. The Norway gray rat which replaced the Black rat is a sewer and cellar rat which has less contact with humans. We have endemic Bubonic plague in around 17 western states among the wild rodent population. However it seems the Hanta virus is more dangerous as you can get it from dust while sweeping mouse droppings, rather than the flea bites needed for plague.
The Romans had some setbacks against the Parthians, imo related to the battle tactics of the Parthians and general fighting style of the Romans, who generally prevailed with astonishingly little manpower.
Trajan, probably the greatest general who ever became Emperor (and that’s saying something) kicked the living hell out of the Parthians, seized their capital, and added the Roman province of Mesopotamia.
For one brief shining moment (about three years) the Roman Empire stretched from Scotland (and Ireland, but that’s another story) and Denmark (ditto) to the Persian Gulf and Arabia and much of the length of modern Egypt.
Alas, Trajan died before he could launch what would have been the final campaign against the Parthians, and was succeeded by his catamite-loving allegedly adopted son Hadrian, who abandoned Mesopotamia, retreated behind some long walls in Britain and central Europe, and squandered Roman resources on lame-brained projects like Antinoos in Egypt. He spent nearly his entire reign touring the Empire, and allegedly knew every soldier in the Roman army by name (that story is obviously horse dung).
Hadrian had to be talked out of abandoning Dacia — had he gone ahead with it, the Roman Empire would never have had Aurelian in the 3rd century (he was born in Dacia), who, despite a mere five years as Emperor, reunited the Empire by eliminating all the rival sub-Caesars, smashed barbarian invasions, built the first city wall around Rome (it can still be seen here and there today), and consolidated Roman control in (you guessed it) the east. He was murdered by some embezzler on his staff who was afraid of being found out and punished.
Hey, I was just checking dates, and find that the Wikipedia page on Aurelian is pretty close to what I’d written. I just want to go on record that I wrote this without that, and didn’t write that. :’)
Don''t think Cassius would have objected to that one bit.
The "too ambitious" was the perceived intention of JC to make himself King of Rome, anathema for many centuries to Republicans.
Which he probably intended, though not perhaps specifically under that title. Making himself Dictator for Life was pretty much the same thing.
His nephew of course actually accomplished this, but managed to disguise the autocracy with a veneer of republicanism enough to avoid his uncle's fate.
The history of the the wars between Rome and Parthia is complex, and unfortunately the sources are less than ideal in most cases. Sometimes the Parthians got the best of the fighting, while other times the Romans came out better. Capable Roman commanders like Ventidius Bassus proved that the tables of Carrhae could be turned on the Parthians when he used terrain favorable to the Romans to rout the Parthians. Later imperial invasions led by Trajan and Lucius Verus (actually Cassius Avidius for the latter) showed that a well led Roman army could march almost at will through Parthia.
I think one of history’s great what-ifs is what would have happened had Caesar lived to carry out his planned invasion of Parthia. For one thing, what was Caesar’s ultimate goal; to conquer Parthia (a tall order) or to decisively defeat them in war and dictate favorable terms (easy to imagine).
I think Caesar’s chances of success would have been high. The reasons for Crassus’ defeat were well known, so Caesar would not have made the same mistakes. Indeed it’s known that he planned to take a different invasion route through more favorable terrain. Caesar’s army would have included a larger cavalry force and more archers and slingers than Crassus’. Considering the success later Roman generals had against the Parthians (and Persians), it’s not hard to imagine Caesar emerging victorious in a war against Parthia.