Battle of the Abas

Pompey had placed his cavalry in a thin screen ahead of his hidden infantry, and when the Albanians charged out of the woods the Roman horsemen turned and pretended to flee, in order to draw the enemy in. The Albanians pursued, the Roman cavalry passed through the concealed lines of infantry, which then suddenly rose. The Albanians charged Pompey's infantry, the Romans purposively extended their line before them, bending it inwards like a bow. The enemy, drawn in ever further, soon found itself almost completely encircled.^[6] The retreating cavalry, having passed behind the infantry, then split into two and wheeled about, one going left the other right, and rode along the edges of the battlefield before turning in again and smashing into the enemy rear from behind. A large part of the Albanian force was thus assailed on all sides and caught by Pompey in a perfect encirclement almost as complete, and achieved in a similar way, as that effected by Hannibal at the Battle of Cannae. The manoeuvre complete, it simply remained, as Dio says, to "cut down those caught inside the circle", and this the Romans proceeded to do.^[7]

Plutarch writes that this attack of the Albanians was led by a brother of Oroeses named Cosis who, when the fighting was thus raging at close quarters, "rushed upon Pompey himself and smote him with a javelin on the fold of his breastplate."^[5] Pompey however, duly engaging in personal combat with the royal brother, soon gained the victory by running Cosis through with his sword and leaving him dead on the field.^[5]

Those Albanians who had managed to escape the encirclement, or who had not charged full ahead, now sought to melt back into the surrounding trees and flee, presumably including in their number Oroeses himself, who survived. But Pompey sent men to strategically fire parts of the forest and many fleeing Albanian warriors were forced back out into the open to be slaughtered, the flames catching others. ^[7][8] After the fires had raged for some time, most of the surviving Albanians emerged to surrender.

Both Plutarch and Appian record rumours that a number of Amazons were among the captured at the end of this battle, having crossed down from the mountains to fight with the men of Albania. The women taken prisoner were seen to bear wounds suffered in the fighting alongside the men.^[8] Plutarch says no woman was found among the dead, but that many Amazonian shields and buskins were seized among the booty.^[5]

Having gained the decisive victory he sought, and with the Albanians suing for peace, Pompey subdued the country and^[9] left triumphant. Oroeses seems to have been allowed to retain his throne and, suitably chastened, was granted peace. Plutarch records that he at first set out directly each toward the Caspian Sea, "but was turned back by a multitude of deadly reptiles when he was only three days march distant, and withdrew into Lesser Armenia."^[10]

A similar trick as that utilised here by Pompey to conceal a force of infantry behind a screen of cavalry would later be used against him by Julius Caesar at the Battle of Pharsalus, at which Pompey would be defeated.