PACKING HOUSE : see ABATTOIR and SLAUGHTER HOUSE. PACORUS, a Parthian name, borne by two Parthian princes. I . PACORUS, son of Orodes I., was, after the battle of Carrhae, sent by his father into Syria at the head of an army in 52 B.C.
The prince was still very young, and the real leader was Osaces.
He was defeated and killed by C. Cassius, and soon after Pacorus was recalled by his father, because one of the satraps had rebelled and proclaimed him king (Dio Cass. xl. 28 sqq.; Justin xlii. 4; cf. Cicero, ad Fans. xv. 1; ad Att. vi. I. 14). Father and son were reconciled, but the war against the Romans was always deferred. In the autumn of 45 Pacorus and the Arabic chieftain Alchau donius came to the help of Q. Caecilius Bassus, who had rebelled against Caesar in Syria; but Pacorus soon returned, as his troops were unable to operate in the winter (Cic. ad Att. xiv. 9. 3 ; Dio Cass. xlvii. 27). At last in 4o B.C. the Roman fugitive Titus
Labienus induced Orodes to send a great army under the com mand of Pacorus against the Roman provinces. Pacorus con quered the whole of Syria and Phoenicia with the exception of Tyre, and invaded Palestine, where he plundered Jerusalem, deposed Hyrcanus, and made his nephew Antigonus king. Mean while Labienus occupied Cilicia and the southern parts of Asia Minor down to the Carian coast (Dio Cass. xlviii. 26; Strabo xiv. 66o). But in 39 P. Ventidius Bassus, the general of Mark Antony, drove him back into Cilicia, where he was killed, defeated the Parthians in Syria (Dio Cass. xlviii. 39 sqq.) and at last beat Pacorus at Gindarus (in northern Syria), on the 9th of June, 38, the anniversary of the battle of Carrhae. Pacorus himself was slain in the battle, which effectually stopped the Parthian con quests west of the Euphrates.