9. Could Caesar Have Conquered Parthia?
Parthia was no pushover. In 53 BC, a Parthian cavalry force of 10,000 all but annihilated a bigger Roman army of roughly 50,000, led by Caesar’s fellow Triumvir, Crassus. In 38 BC, Mark Antony invaded Parthia with an even larger force than that which Caesar had planned to use, numbering over 100,000 legionaries, 24,000 auxiliaries, and 10,000 cavalry. He met with disaster.
However, neither Crassus nor Mark Antony were in Caesar’s league as generals, while Caesar was an all time military great. And Parthia was vulnerable to a Roman army led by a gifted general. In the 2nd century AD, the emperor Trajan did what Caesar had planned, conquering Dacia, then invading and defeating Parthia, seizing its capital city of Ctesiphon, annexing Mesopotamia, and dictating a highly favorable peace treaty. Caesar might have done the same in the 40s BC, but he never got the opportunity: he was assassinated three days before he was to leave Rome for the Parthian campaign.