We bring from a mountain A young one new killed to the house, A fortunate prey.
This delighted all the company; and, while the following verses were being chanted, which are a dialogue with the chorus,
_A_. Who killed him? _B_. Mine is the honour,
Pomaxathres, springing up (for he happened to be at the banquet), laid hold of the head, as if it was more appropriate for him to say this than for Jason. The king was pleased, and made Pomaxathres a present, according to the fashion of the country, and he gave Jason a talent. In such a farce[96] as this, it is said, that the expedition of Crassus terminated just like a tragedy. However, just punishment overtook Hyrodes for his cruelty, and Surena for his treachery. Not long after, Hyrodes put Surena to death, being jealous of his reputation. Hyrodes also lost his son Pacorus,[97] who was defeated by the Romans in a battle; and having fallen into an illness which turned out to be dropsy, his son, Phraates,[98] who had a design on his life, gave him aconite.[99] But the poison only operated on the disease, which was thrown off together with it, and Hyrodes thereby relieved; whereupon Phraates took the shortest course and strangled his father.
[Footnote 5: Crassus belonged to the Licinia Gens. His name was M. Licinius Crassus Dives. He was the son of P. Licinius Crassus Dives, who was consul B.C. 97, and afterwards governor of the nearer Spain. In B.C. 93 P. Crassus had a triumph. He was afterwards employed in the Marsic war; and in B.C. 89 he was censor with L. Julius Cæsar, who had been consul in B.C. 90.
M. Licinius Crassus, whose life Plutarch has written, was the youngest son of the Censor. The year of his birth is uncertain; but as he was above sixty when he left Rome for his Parthian campaign B.C. 55, he must have been born before B.C. 115. Meyer (_Orator. Roman. Fragment_.) places the birth of Crassus in B.C. 114.]
[Footnote 6: Kaltwasser makes this passage mean that Crassus merely took his brother's wife and her children to live with him; which is contrary to the usual sense of the Greek words and readers the following sentence unmeaning.
Kaltwasser observes that we do not know that such marriages were in use among the Romans. I know no rule by which they were forbidden. (Gaius, i. 58, &c.)]