Ctesiphon Capta
About
Trajan's legions marched down the Tigris and took the Parthian capital, sending the Parthian king Osroes fleeing and seating a Roman puppet, Parthamaspates, on the throne. Trajan reportedly seized the king's golden throne as a trophy and pushed as far as the Persian Gulf, farther east than any Roman army before or after. He was hailed Parthicus by the Senate for the conquest. The gains proved impossible to hold and were largely abandoned within a year of his death.
What happened here
A Roman army fights the way it camps: in lines, by drill, on ground chosen if possible. The legions form up in cohorts with gaps that let ranks rotate, throw a volley of heavy javelins at close range, and then close with the short sword, pushing behind the shield. Auxiliaries hold the flanks and do most of the cavalry work and most of the skirmishing. Battles are short and decided by whether one line breaks, and the killing happens in the pursuit rather than the fighting. The camp is dug and palisaded every night regardless. Afterwards the dead are stripped and the field is looted for days; the ground is remembered locally long after the campaign is a paragraph in someone's history.
In ancient writing
- Cassius Dio, Roman History 68.28–30
Trajan takes the Parthian capital, then rides down to the Persian Gulf and says he would sail for India if he were younger.
Sources
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →