Marcus Licinius Crassus: Encyclopedia - Marcus Licinius Crassus

Marcus Licinius Crassus

Marcus Licinius Crassus Dives (Latin: M·LICINIVS·P·F·P·N·CRASSVS·DIVES¹) (ca. 115 BC–53 BC) was a Roman general and politician who suppressed the slave revolt led by Spartacus and entered into a secret pact, known as the First Triumvirate, with Pompey the Great and Julius Caesar. He was known as one of the richest men of the era (Dives is Latin for "rich") and was killed after a defeat at Carrhae.

Of the three informal triumvirs who helped bring an end to the Roman Republic, somehow Crassus, unlike Pompey and Caesar, stays in the shadows. This may be due to the fact that Crassus was the money-man and behind-the-scenes person, not the adored general or the genius. Perhaps Crassus is less visible because the sheer glamour of his two greatest contemporaries surpassed him in his own lifetime, as it has ever since. Crassus always maneuvered for power, money and glory; though he never had as much of any of them as he desired.

Marcus Licinius Crassus - Early Life

Marcus Licinius Crassus was the son of a former consul and censor, Publius Licinius Crassus Dives. He came from a respectable, well-established plebeian family. His father fought in the Social War under Lucius Julius Caesar III, grandfather of Mark Antony. Though his father had celebrated a triumph, Crassus grew up in a small house that was not only home to himself and his parents, but also to his two elder brothers and their families.

Although originally a supporter of Gaius Marius and his Populares party, Crassus's father fought against Marius and Lucius Cornelius Cinna and defended Rome in 87 BC in the turbulent struggles between Marius's Populares and Lucius Cornelius Sulla's Optimates. The elder Crassus, along with his eldest son, Publius, were killed after the Marians captured Rome. Crassus and his remaining brother, Marcus, escaped with a few followers to Hispania, where he had lived during his father's governorship as propraetor. Plutarch says Crassus, now in his late twenties, went into hiding in a large cave along the seashore, near lands belonging to one of his father’s friends, Vibius Paciacus. Vibius watched over the young men and ensured their safety during their time in Hispania.

Crassus hid in his cave for eight months until he learned that Cinna was dead and Sulla’s power on the rise. He raised a personal guard of 2,500 men, left Hispania, and eventually joined Sulla in the east. When Sulla landed in Italy, he sent Crassus to raise an army among the Marsi. Crassus raised the necessary troops and thereafter showed an active spirit in all of Sulla's campaigns.

Crassus served with Pompey the Great during Sulla's major campaigns in 83 BC-82 BC. Crassus was vital to Sulla's final victory of the Social War in the momentous Battle of the Colline Gate in 82, in which he commanded the right wing of Sulla's army. Now that Sulla was essentially master of Rome, the spoils soon became available to his protégés. In the proscriptions that followed, in which informers were paid handsome bounties to denounce traitors, whose lives and properties were then forfeited, Crassus began restoring the family fortunes, buying up the property of the condemned, cheaply. Without consulting Sulla, he is said to have added a man's name to the proscription lists in Bruttium solely because he wanted his property.

A well-established tale in his own time told how Crassus would show up at the site of a burning building, bargain for the property at incredibly low prices, then have his own personal fire brigade of 500 men promptly put out the blaze. If the owner would not sell, Crassus and his slaves stood there and watched the house burn. After purchasing the property, Crassus would refurnish it, and sell off as several times greater than what he had paid. His fortune quickly grew to immeasurable sizes. Soon, he came to own most of the city of Rome. This later lead to his "nickname" of Dives, Latin for the richest.

Crassus grew to view the young general Pompey as his greatest rival, but knew he could not match Pompey's military achievements. So, he set about winning popularity by acting as an advocate in lawsuits where other advocates refused to act and lending money without charging interest, provided the loan was paid back on time. While Crassus was increasing his fortune, Pompey's military standing bloomed, much to the moneyman's disgust. "On one occasion when someone said: 'Pompey the Great is coming,' Crassus merely laughed and asked, 'As great as what?' Giving up, therefore, all attempts to equal Pompey in military matters, Crassus devoted himself to politics." Plutarch, Life, 7 (p. 120).

Crassus followed the normal cursus honorum in the next ten years, building his clientele: "...by taking pains, by helping people in the law courts or with loans, or in the canvassing and questioning which has to be done and undergone by candidates for office, he acquired an influence and a reputation equal to that which Pompey had won by all his great military expeditions." (Plutarch). Whereas Pompey was somewhat arrogant and high-handed in the way he treated his clients, Crassus worked hard both at being accessible and helpful to his increasing number of clients, including the humblest. As Plutarch notes, this meant that Pompey, when actually in Rome, frequently found Crassus more influential in day-to-day political life than he was.

Marcus Licinius Crassus - The Revolt of Spartacus

Crassus had worked his way up to serving as praetor when the revolt of Spartacus and other ex-gladiators flamed into a general slave insurrection, an event that gave Crassus his greatest success in a career which longed for - but did not achieve - military glory. Rome had initially sent a praetor, Titus Glaber, against the growing hordes of gladiators, escaped slaves and camp followers holed up with Spartacus near Mt. Vesuvius. To Rome's dismay and surprise, Spartacus's despised slave army quickly routed the soldiers and went on to defeat two legionary cohorts. By 72 BC, almost 70,000 slaves had joined the rebellion. Spartacus's forces then separately defeated the legions of the two reigning consuls near Picenum and also the legions of Gaius Cassius at Mutina in northern Italy. Historians estimate that Spartacus now had over 100,000 men, women, and children with him. Having failed to escape across the Alps, Spartacus’s army had returned to southern Italy.

Pompey was in Hispania, fighting the great Marian general, Sertorius, and was unavailable. In the autumn of 72, the Senate gave Crassus consular imperium to head the war against Spartacus. He personally raised and funded six new legions, and was given the remnants of the four consular legions. In a battle with the slave hordes, two of Crassus's legions were initially defeated. Crassus used the feared and rarely used tactic of decimation to punish the weakest troops. All the soldiers drew lots and a tenth of the cohort (those with the marked lots) were beaten to death by fellow legionaries. This maneuver motivated the legion and Crassus then defeated Spartacus in battle. The slave leader began a retreat to Rhegium in hopes of transporting his army to Sicily but the pirates he had paid for the transport had abandoned him. Crassus quickly ordered a giant wall build across the "toe" of Italy, the likes of which had never been seen, leaving Spartacus trapped.

To bring a swift end to the campaign, the Senate called back Pompey and his legions from Hispania. In response, Crassus quickly attacked Spartacus's army when they tried to escape to Brundisium, and delivered a killing blow. Spartacus’s army was largely destroyed and his body was never found in the mounds of the dead. Clean-up operations proceeded, and Crassus hunted down and destroyed the rebel remnants. He then took another effective and brutal step: he wanted to set an example never to be forgotten as a warning against future slave revolts. All 6,000 rebels were crucified naked at short intervals along the Appian Way from Capua to Rome and then left to rot.

Pompey, who arrived with his extra legions at the tail end of the Spartacan campaign, managed to capture 5,000 survivors of Crassus's battles fleeing north of Rome. He tried to take credit for concluding the campaign, which infuriated Crassus. Crassus was apparently somewhat sensitive about his achievement; but putting down a large army of slaves was not viewed in the same light as Pompey's achievements in putting down a foreign enemy. Crassus was only eligible for an ovation, a minor triumph, although Pompey demanded and received a full triumph for his achievements against the Spaniards.

Crassus became friends with one of his young military tribunes, Julius Caesar, during the year-long campaign. He had shown that he was an effective military leader capable of remarkable ruthlessness - the decimation of his own soldiers and the salutary example of what happened to captives falling into his hands.

Marcus Licinius Crassus - Consulship and the First Triumvirate

Because of their work in the slave rebellion, the two men overcame their differences, ran for, and were elected to, the consulship, in 70 BC. Pompey was returned as Senior Consul, Crassus as Junior. They then set about dismantling some of the most significant reforms instituted by their one-time patron, Sulla. Although Sulla's administrative reforms were largely retained, the two men returned the powers formerly belonging to the Tribunes of the Plebs, including the venerated, and increasingly anarchic, power of the tribunician veto. Unfortunately, their rivalry continued through their term and little else could get done. In an attempt to gain favor with the people of Rome, and display his wealth, Crassus entertained the populace at 10,000 tables and distributed sufficient grain to last each family three months. In 65 BC Crassus served as censor, but again could get nothing done because of the opposition of his colleague.

Following his consular year, while Pompey went on to the great commands against the pirates and against Mithridates, which kept him almost entirely in the East from 67 BC to 61 BC, Crassus remained in Rome, increasing his influence and his fortune. Crassus was a solid patron of the Eques, the largely plebeian merchant-financiers who continually chafed against their second-class political position and rights. He was also sympathetic to the continual efforts of northern Italians to force the Senate to give them full Roman citizenship rights and intrigued to annex the incomparably wealthy kingdom of Egypt. Crassus also loaned money to up-and-coming young men, one of whom was Caesar. With so many clients who were bound to support his interests, Crassus sought in Rome the kind of day-to-day influence Pompey's military successes could not buy.

Although there were rumors that Crassus, like Caesar, was involved in the Catiline Conspiracy of 63 BC, Crassus was also instrumental in giving Cicero information to foil the conspiracy. Many believe that both Crassus and Caesar were involved in the early stages of Catiline's efforts but drew back when its lack of success became manifest and when Catiline started demanding the abolition of debt, a common revolutionary ploy that would have hit Crassus particularly hard. Crassus was known to change his political principles to suit his fortunes. It is known that, when Caesar left Rome in 62 BC to return to Hispania, so deeply in debt that his creditors threatened to arrest him, Crassus stood surety for part of the debt. Caesar was able to recoup his fortunes in Hispania to some extent, but continued friendly relations with Crassus for his help at a critical moment in his career.

Crassus, who took his patron's duties toward clients seriously, became involved in 62 BC with efforts by the Roman tax gatherers to rescind their Asian contracts. Rome had no bureaucracy to handle taxation in the Republic; contracts to gather taxes were bought by bankers and merchants who then promised a certain return to the state (retaining anything additional as their own profit). Unfortunately, the Equestrians had overestimated the available income in the war-torn Eastern provinces. They were now trying to renegotiate their contracts with Rome. Crassus supported the effort, which was quashed by Cato the Younger and others in the Senate. At the same time, Pompey, having returned in glory from his successful Eastern campaigns and reorganization of provinces, found himself equally spurned in his efforts to obtain free public lands to reward his soldiers, which the Senate delayed.

The third ingredient in what would eventually be dubbed the First Triumvirate was Julius Caesar, returned from Hispania and determined to become Consul for 59 BC. A former supporter of Pompey, Caesar yet managed to straddle both Pompey's and Crassus's camps. A deal was struck, which almost all historians credit to the younger Caesar, by which both Pompey and Crassus would use their money and popularity to support Caesar in his bid for the consulship, and in return Caesar would use the powers of the consul to propose legislation giving them what they wanted.

As consul, Caesar forced through legislation remitting one third of the sum owed by the Asian tax collectors for their contracts, thus satisfying Crassus, as well as the first of two land-grant reforms for Pompey's veterans. The Triumvirate was largely a secret from the Senate. It was not until, in the face of Senatorial opposition, both Pompey and Crassus appeared with Caesar in the Forum to argue for the land-reform bill that their alliance became common knowledge. Cato later said that their alliance was the greatest deathblow to the Republic.

After the completion of Caesar's spectacularly controversial consulate, he departed to govern Cisalpine Gaul and Transalpine Gaul and began his legendary conquests. Pompey and Crassus returned to their political maneuverings against each other. Crassus was the unseen patron of the trouble-making tribune, Publius Clodius while Pompey supported the anti-Clodians under the control of Clodius' enemy, Titus Annius Milo.

The Triumvirate was beginning to unravel until Caesar, having met with Crassus at Ravenna in 56 BC, held a meeting with both men at Lucca in which the triumvirate agenda was renewed. It was the reverse of the roles of 60 BC this time: Pompey and Crassus, in spite of their mutual dislike, agreed to run for the consulship again in 55 BC, after which they would pass laws extending Caesar's term in Gaul for another five years, and grant themselves profitable military provinces in their post-consular year. It was agreed that Pompey would receive the provinces of Hispania for five years, while Crassus (who continued to long for military success on a par with his colleagues) would receive his proconsular command in Syria. He would thus be in a position to lead a great Roman campaign against its major remaining enemy in the East, Parthia. Both men won, although at a cost of bribery, corruption and street violence seldom equaled since the Sullan-Marian controversies of thirty years before.

Marcus Licinius Crassus - Disaster in Parthia

In an attempt to counter Caesar’s and Pompey’s growing fame and power, Crassus had intended to use Syria as a base for operations against the Parthian Empire, something which aroused considerable opposition since Parthia had never done the Romans any harm. When Crassus crossed the Euphrates into Mesopotamia, many cities with Greek populations came over to his side. He garrisoned them and then withdrew back to Syria for the winter. There he waited for his son, who had been serving with Julius Caesar in Gaul, to join him.

The Parthians attacked the garrisons Crassus had installed the previous year. Although his men were dismayed, Crassus left his winter quarters for Mesopotamia in 53 BC, encouraged by the support of Artavasdes II of Armenia, who brought over 6,000 horsemen and 30,000 foot soldiers into Crassus’ army. Artavasdes tried to persuade Crassus to invade Parthia from Armenia, where he could provision the army, but Crassus insisted on going through Mesopotamia. Crassus' own army consisted of seven legions (roughly 35,000 infantry), plus nearly 4,000 cavalry and about the same number of lightly armed troops.

Crassus marched into the desert, where he received pleas from Artavasdes for him to come and help fight off the Parthians besieging Armenia, or at least keep to mountainous areas where the Parthian cavalry would be useless. Crassus took no notice of his warnings and continued on his path.

Soon, some of Crassus' scouts returned that they had been attacked and the enemy were on their way. Crassus continued his march, with himself commanding the center, his right wing commanded by his son, Publius, and the left by Cassius. When they came to a stream, and although Crassus was advised to let the men rest and make camp for the night, he was persuaded by his son to continue at a rapid pace.

On the march, the Romans had been drawn up in a hollow square formation with each cohort allotted cavalry as protection. When they met the enemy at the Battle of Carrhae they were soon surrounded and the Parthians started shooting them with their arrows, which smashed the Roman armor and pierced lesser coverings.

On his father's orders, Publius Crassus attacked the Parthians with a detachment of 1,300 cavalry, 500 archers, and eight cohorts of infantry. When the Parthians withdrew, the younger Crassus followed them for a long way, but then the detachment was surrounded and subjected to the devastating archery attacks of the Parthians. Realising there was no escape for his men, Publius Crassus and some of the other leading Romans with him committed suicide rather than fight on hopelessly. Of the forces with him, only 500 survived. The Parthians cut off Publius' head and took it back with them to taunt his father.

Crassus sent a band of 300 horsemen to the town of Carrhae, and told the Roman garrison there that there had been a battle between Crassus and the Parthians, before galloping off to Zeugma. The commander of the garrison marched out to meet the Crassus' Roman force and brought them back to the city.

Surena, the Parthian general, sent a party to Carrhae to offer the Romans a truce and safe conduct out of Mesopotamia, provided Crassus and Cassius were handed over to him. Crassus and the Romans tried to escape from the city by night, but their guide betrayed them to the Parthians. Cassius distrusted the guide because of the circuitous route he was following and went back to the city, and managed to get away with 500 horsemen.

When Surena found Crassus and his men the next day, he again offered a truce, saying the king had ordered it. Surena supplied Crassus with a horse, but as Surena's men tried to make the horse go faster, a scuffle developed between the Parthians and the Romans, who were unwilling for Crassus to go unaccompanied. Crassus was killed in the fighting. Surena ordered the rest of the Romans to surrender, and some did. The others who tried to get away by night were hunted down and killed the next day. Altogether, the Romans suffered over 20,000 killed and 10,000 captured in the campaign.

The historian Dio Cassius, writing in the late 2nd or early 3rd century AD, reported a story that after Crassus' death, Surena sent Crassus' body to the Parthian king Orodes II, who ordered molten gold poured down his throat as punishment for his greed. There is a macabre footnote to the death of Crassus. Surena took the head and hand and sent them to Hyrodes in Armenia; he and the army proceeded back to Seleucia in procession in which a Roman prisoner, wearing women's clothes, pretended to be Crassus led along on horseback in triumph. Worse indignity was to come. In Armenia, Hyrodes had made peace with Crassus's erstwhile ally, Artavasdes. The new allies feasted and held dramatic performances of Greek literature. According to some sources, this trophy was revealed to the king in a particularly dramatic fashion during a performance of the Bacchae of Euripides: it was used as a prop, standing in for Pentheus' head in the final scene.

Marcus Licinius Crassus - Legacy

Crassus' death is important for a number of reasons. While one of the most successful businessmen in Roman history, he still hungered for the military glory of his colleagues, Caesar and Pompey. Instead, he would be remembered as the man responsible for one of Rome's greatest military disasters. More significantly, his death severed the bonds between Pompey and Caesar, already strained by the death of Pompey's wife, and Caesar's daughter, Julia, in 54 BC. It is possible that civil war would have resulted if Crassus had lived, but his death certainly made it inevitable.

The legionary standards Crassus lost at the Battle of Carrhae were not returned to Rome until 20 BC, when Caesar Augustus received them from the Parthians. The defeated standards were placed in the temple of Mars, and Augustus, celebrating their return, was voted a triumphal chariot which was also kept in the temple. One of the few images remaining of Crassus's death is on the coins showing a kneeling Parthian returning his lost standards to Rome.

In the end, Crassus was remembered for his wealth and greed, although in his own lifetime Pompey was actually richer. Ironically, Cassius Dio, two centuries later passed along a legend about his end even then considered as fact:

"Crassus was among the fallen, either killed by one of his own men to prevent his being captured alive, or by the enemy when he had been severely wounded . . . there is a tradition which says that the Parthians in mockery poured molten gold into his mouth. For in spite of his great wealth, he was obsessed by money that he pitied as poor anyone unable to support an enrolled legion out of his own pocket." Dio, 40.27 (2).

Marcus Licinius Crassus - Chronology

• 115 BC - Crassus born
• 97 BC - Father is Consul of Rome
• 87 BC - Crassus flees to Hispania from Marian forces
• 84 BC - Joins Sulla against Marians
• 78 BC - Sulla dies
• 74 BC - Revolt of Spartacus
• 73 BC - Crassus is praetor
• 71 BC - Crassus defeats Spartacus
• 70 BC - Consulship of Crassus and Pompey
• 65 BC - Crassus is Censor
• 63 BC - Catiline Conspiracy
• 59 BC - First Triumvirate formed. Caesar is Consul
• 56 BC - Conference at Lucca
• 55 BC - Second consulship of Crassus and Pompey. In November, Crassus leaves for Syria
• 54 BC - Campaign against the Parthians
• 53 BC - Crassus dies shortly after his defeat at the Battle of Carrhae

Marcus Licinius Crassus - Derivatives

• The word "crassus" can be used as a slang word to denote the person left out in a group of three people; the third wheel, because Crassus was the least important member of the First Triumvirate. It's exact origin is unclear, but it has been commonly used among Latin students as a sort of inside joke.

Marcus Licinius Crassus - Notes

1- M·LICINIVS·P·F·P·N·CRASSVS·DIVES in English translates to "Marcus Licinius Crassus Dives (the richest), son of Publius, grandson of Publius"

Categories: 115 BC births | 53 BC deaths | Ancient Romans | Roman generals killed in action | Roman Republican consuls

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Marcus Licinius Crassus", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki