It is mid-56 BCE. Our triumvirs meet in the Tuscan town of Luca to renew their alliance. Pompey and Crassus subsequently become joint-consuls for the second time in 55 BCE. They prolong Caesar's Gallic command for 5 more years. But this is the high-point - disasters beckon. Crassus, desirous of military glory comparable to his compatriots takes the province of Syria where he decides to make war against the Parthian Empire. Taking over 40,000 soldiers he meets a Parthian army less than half his size near the town of Carrhae. He perishes along with his son and over three-quarters of his men. Pompey's wife and Caesar's daughter, Julia dies in childbirth losing her son in the process. In mourning Caesar's enemies, in the form of a young Gallic commander, Vercingetorix and the irrepressible Cato sense an opening.   

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Sources 

Primary Sources

The Civil Wars - Appian (Penguins)

The Gallic Wars - Julius Caesar

 The Jugurthine Wars | The Catiline Conspiracy - Sallust (Penguin)

The Fall of the Roman Republic (Books 36-40) - Cassius Dio (Oxford Classics)

Lives of the Caesars (Julius Caesar) - Suetonius 

Lives of Cicero | Julius Caesar | Cato the Younger - Plutarch

Secondary Sources

Uncommon Wrath - Josiah Osgood

Before Augustus - Natale Barca 

Pompey the Great – Robin Seager

Caesar - Mattias Gelzer

Cato the Younger - Fred Drogula 

In the Name of Rome – Adrian Goldsworthy

The Fall of Egypt and the Rise of Rome – Guy de la Bedoyere

Fiction

Caesar's Women - Colleen McCullough   

TV Series

Rome – 2005-6 (HBO)

iHeart Podcasts: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1300-your-attention-please-326046416/

OmnyStudio: https://omny.fm/shows/your-attention-please

Email: yourattentionplease@alive905.com.au