It must have been on some of these spurs that the wrecks of Crassus' army found refuge after their great defeat by the Parthians in the year 53 B.C. Carrhae, which gave its name to the battle, lay in the midst of the plains some twenty-five miles to the southward, and the actual scene of the fighting was some distance further south still: but the beaten troops made for the mountains, their only asylum from their pursuers; and here the last cohorts were surrounded and forced to lay down their arms.
Carrhae was a place of ill-omen for the Romans, for only 300 years later another similar disaster befell them upon the same ground. Here in the year 260 the Emperor Valerian was defeated and captured by Sapor I, the King of the Sassanid Persians, who had by this time inherited the Arascid Parthians' domains. Roman accounts assert that the hapless Emperor was flayed alive; but the Persians more credibly relate that he was kept a prisoner, and employed in building the great bridge across the Karun river at Shushter.[8] Both accounts agree that after his death his skin was stuffed, and preserved as a grim trophy in the Palace at Seleucia Ctesiphon.
A short distance within the hills our track struck the great metalled road that runs from Birijik to Urfa. It is a road which, as far as it goes, might be called good in any country: but only the Urfa half of it is completed; it comes to an untimely end not far from the point where we struck at, which was somewhere about a third of the way to Birijik. The remaining section, however, served us admirably, and we trundled along it in fine style for the last three hours of our day's journey, threading a winding rocky valley which debouched at the back of the town.
Oriental cities as a rule are rather a disappointment to sightseers. Picturesque they are indeed, but in such a squalid fashion that much of their charm is blighted. They are a mere agglomeration of hovels, with a few fine features here and there. We have even heard it said of Constantinople itself that, having seen the approach to the Golden Horn, the traveller had better take his departure; for that every nearer inspection brings a fresh disillusionment in its train. Urfa, however, may rank as one of the exceptions. It is beyond question the most picturesque city in Mesopotamia. And, being built chiefly of stone, it has some dignity in its dilapidation, and wears its tattered finery with an aristocratic air.