Battle of Carrhae

[dombom]

It has been some time since my last project, but I finally found some time to start a new one and made a decision about what it will be.
I took some of my childhood figures and thought: "why just don't use them and make something nice of it".

I took my old Roman Republics and some Parthian Cataphracts and started altering the poses and fixing up the colors. Since they were painted already (even not that nicely) it saves a lot of time. I gave them some washes, added some details und that's it.
I will have to finish more Parthians however, before I can start with the diorama itself.

Some information about the battle of Carrhae:
Marcus Licinius Crassus, the richest man of Rome, joined the first triumvirate.
He and his rival Pompey were the ones who defeated the Spartacus slave revolt, which made Crassus prominent.
However, he lost I fluence over the years in the senate and planned to gain some prestige by winning battles in war.
As his enemy he choose the Parthian Empire. The largest battle of that first roman-parthian was fought in 53BC in southeastern Anatolia at the Town of Carrhae.
It was one of the largest defeats in roman history (besides for example the battle of Cannae or Teutoburger Forest).
The romans had 7 legions with 35000 legionaries, 4000 light infantry and 4000 cavalry. The parthians used only cavalry with 1000 Cataphracts and 9000 horse archers.
Due to the desert terrain, the Parthian cavalry had a big advantage over the roman heavy infantry.
The parthian tactic was to shoot the Romans with their archers when in loose formation and when the Romans closed the formation to protect themselves from arrows, the Cataphracts charged causing great losses due to the tight formation. It is reported that the lances could impale 3 legionaries at once.
The result was 20000 roman soldiers killed and 10000 captured. Crassus and his son lost their lives and the parthians allegedly poured molten gold down of crassos throat to mock his greed (it might remind you of game of thrones).
Crassus dead ended the triumvirate and this might caused the end of the roman republic and the beginning of the roman empire.

Get ready for the impact:




Most of them are from childhood and only got some touch up. Some I had to paint anew and I tried to match the colors. It creates some diversity at least.




Some shields got lost over the years, so I had to cast some new ones:

[Santi Pérez]

It's a promising project, dombom. I like very much the figures you have already ready. I will follow with great interest. Go on with it!

Santi.

[Rich W]

Looking forward to the next instalment already!

[Minuteman]

Looks interesting, and the Italeri legionaries with their raised shields are ideal for the doomed Roman infantry being showered with arrows. Will look forward to seeing more.

[Peter]

Good to see that this set of Italeri can be usefull to. Looking forward to the progress of this project!

[Bessiere]

Looks interesting, and the Italeri legionaries with their raised shields are ideal for the doomed Roman infantry being showered with arrows. Will look forward to seeing more.

Those Parthian archers gave the Romans a nice shower alright. Nice looking figures Dombom, this should be an interesting project.
Cheers,
Bessiere

[dombom]

I wonder if I should rework some parts of the old parthian figures. I would suggest that the cathapracts are mostly nobel men or men of some wealth. The older figures are painted a bit plain, without much of ornaments etc.
I could make them a bit more colorful, at least the arrow quiver to represent some wealth.
I painted three horses in a more colorful style. What do you think or suggest?



Old figures for comparison.
The quivers are simply brown:

[dombom]

And with the riders:



They do look more interesting I think, with the additional colors:

[MABO]

They look really good, to me. Btw. I have read the triologie from Robert Harris about Cicero, which I can only recommend. In there the battle is also part of the story.

[dombom]

Sounds like a book to read for me. I'm quite a fan of historical books anyway

[dombom]

I could not stand it any longer and just had to give a color update to the old figures.
I think the new version of them does look more interesting than before and also states the riders wealth more.

[MABO]

Very good Cataphracts indeed!

[PhilC]

Impressive! With some more painting on the quivers, they really pop up. A good thing to do, but I find it difficult to find accurate examples of quivers to copy. Yours are very convincing, the yellow one with flowers in particular - it recalls me that the Parthians were Achaemenid's successors.

[Beano Boy]

Splendid topic. Lovely painting. BB

[Minuteman]

Fine painting, and I particularly like the bow cases; a touch of colour against all that metal armour.

[Kekso]

I like these Parthian Cataphracts very much

[Peter]

Excellent painted heavy cavalry!

[dombom]

It has been some time since the last update as usual. But I did some minor changes and some new figures and I'm starting to find some positions on the later diorama for them.
I did alter the poses of the new painted figures a bit, to achieve some more variety.
It slowly does start to look like a real battle with man vs man duells and wounded soldiers.

[dombom]

You are right. I tried to find some Parthian heraldry for reference, but I couldn't find much (besides a winged lion). So I did paint some with that said lion, some with flowers, moon, sun and random patterns.
Let's say I had some degree of freedom here, due to a lack of historical sources.

[Peter]

A lot of action in these last pictures! Like it!