Carrhae

poem

Experiment:
What happens when
One thousand kataphraktoi
With mail and chain,
Lance and scaled plate,
Red ribbons streaming down
From iron helm
And pointed crest
Greet the Gallic equine best
In the plains before Carrhae?

Hollow drum, Persian tongue,
Sung from every mount,
Issued forth this, paramount:
“All Romans here too shall die!”

Nine thousand horse archers
With barbed arrow and brace
Their feet firm in stirrup
To feign flight and fire behind.
From every side they surrounded
And rode and shot all around the
Thirty thousand Roman men
Whose blood became soaked
In the plains before Carrhae.

Hollow drum, Persian tongue,
Sung from every mount,
Issued forth this, paramount:
“All Romans here too shall die!”

The head of Crassus
Became a prop to perform the Bacchae:
Molten gold on his mouth and eyes
Cement his mistakes
In the plains before Carrhae.