The highlands of Armenia would be gained by the fugitives during the night, and further pursuit of them would be hopeless.  It remained that he should effect by craft what he could no longer hope to gain by the employment of force; and to this point all his efforts were now directed.  He drew off his troops and left the Romans without further molestation.  He allowed some of his prisoners to escape and rejoin their friends, having first contrived that they should overhear a conversation among his men, of which the theme was the Parthian clemency, and the wish of Orodes to come to terms with the Romans.  He then, having allowed time for the report of his pacific intentions to spread, rode with a few chiefs towards the Roman camp, carrying his bow unstrung and his right hand stretched out in token of amity.  “Let the Roman General,” he said, “come forward with an equal number of attendants, and confer with me in the open space between the armies on terms of peace.”  The aged proconsul was disinclined to trust these overtures; but his men clamored and threatened, upon which he yielded, and went down into the plain, accompanied by Octavius and a few others.  Here he was received with apparent honor, and terms were arranged; but Surenas required that they should at once be reduced to writing, “since,” he said, with pointed allusion to the bad faith of Pompey, “you Romans are not very apt to remember your engagements.”  A movement being requisite for the drawing up of the formal instruments, Crassus and his officers were induced to mount upon horses furnished by the Parthians, who had no sooner seated the proconsul on his steed, than he proceeded to hurry him forward, with the evident intention of carrying him off to their camp.  The Roman officers took the alarm and resisted.  Octavius snatched a sword from a Parthian and killed one of the grooms who was hurrying Crassus away.  A blow from behind stretched him on the ground lifeless.  A general melee followed, and in the confusion Crassus was killed, whether by one of his own side and with his own consent, or by the hand of a Parthian is uncertain.  The army, learning the fate of their general, with but few exceptions, surrendered.  Such as sought to escape under cover of the approaching night were hunted down by the Bedouins who served under the Parthian standard, and killed almost to a man.  Of the entire army which had crossed the Euphrates, consisting of above 40,000 men, not more than one fourth returned.  One half of the whole number perished.  Nearly 10,000 prisoners were settled by the victors in the fertile oasis of Margiana, near the northern frontier of the empire, where they intermarried with native wives, and became submissive Parthian subjects.