compass, and falling one on another, they were wounded and died no easy nor yet a speedy death, for tortured with violent convulsions and pain, and writhing with the arrows in them, they broke them in the wounds, and, by trying to pull out by force the barbed points, which had pierced through their veins and nerves, they increased the evil by breaking the arrows, and thus injured themselves.  Many thus fell, and the survivors also were unable to fight; for, when Publius encouraged them to attack the mailed horsemen, they showed him that their hands were nailed to their shields, and their feet fastened right through to the ground, so that they were unable either to fly or to defend themselves.  However, Publius cheering the cavalry, made a vigorous attack with them, and closed with the enemy; but the Romans were under a disadvantage, both as to attack and defence, striking with small and feeble spears against breastplates of raw hide and iron, and receiving the blows of long spears on the lightly-equipped and bare bodies of the Gauls, for Crassus trusted most to them, and with them indeed he did wonderful feats; for the Gauls, laying hold of the long spears, and closing with the Parthians, pushed them from their horses, the men, owing to the weight of their armour, being unable to stir themselves; and many of the Gauls, quitting their own horses, and slipping under those of the enemy, wounded them in the belly, and the horses springing up through pain, and, at the same time, trampling on their riders and the enemy, fell dead.  The Gauls were most oppressed by the heat and thirst, being unaccustomed to both, and they had lost most of their horses by driving them against the long spears.  They were, therefore, compelled to retreat to the legionary soldiers, taking with them Publius, who was badly wounded.  Seeing a sandy eminence near, they retreated to it, and fastened their horses in the middle, and closing in their front by close-locking their shields, they thought they could thus more easily repel the enemy:  but it turned out just the other way; for, while they were on the level ground, the front ranks did, in some sort, give relief to those who were behind; but on this spot, which raised the men one above another, by reason of the inequality of the ground, and placed every one who was in the rear above the man in front of him, there was no one who could escape, and they were all alike exposed to the missiles, lamenting their inglorious and unresisting death.  There were with Publius two Greeks, who belonged to the dwellers in those parts in Carrhae,[79] Hieronymus and Nikomachus, both of whom attempted to persuade Publius to retire with them, and to make his escape to Ichnae[80] a city which had taken the side of the Romans, and was not far off.  But he replied that no death was so dreadful as to make Publius, through fear of it, desert those who were losing their lives for his sake, and bade them save themselves, and taking leave of them, he allowed them