Of all the wealthy men in Rome, whether like Lucullus or Sulla they had
brought their riches back from foreign conquests, or extracted it from
the people of the overseas provinces as governors, or made it in
business, the wealthiest was Marcus Licinius Crassus. His riches became
a standard by which other men's were measured. Crassus belonged to an
old but comparatively poor family which suffered much in the wars of
Marius and Sulla. He himself as a very young man was, like Pompeius, one
of Sulla's lieutenants. Like Pompeius again he had founded his fortune
at the time of Sulla's proscriptions. But the extraordinary and constant
increase in his wealth was due to his own unresting energy and extreme
ingenuity, helped by the fact that he was not in the least scrupulous.
The houses in which the ordinary Roman lived were chiefly built of wood:
only very rich men had stone or marble houses at this time. The streets
were extremely narrow, and many of them very steep and crooked, and the
dwellings, whether single houses or great tenements, were crowded
closely together. As the buildings grew old they were apt to fall down,
especially the high flats, which became top-heavy. Serious fires were
also very common. Crassus observed this. He therefore collected a great
body of slaves, skilled as carpenters and masons. He also equipped
others as a fire brigade. When a fire broke out anywhere he would make
an offer to the owner to buy the house very cheaply. Were his offer
accepted he would put out the conflagration and rebuild. Were it refused
he would let it burn. At the same time he bought up at cheap rates
houses in bad repair and likely to collapse, which he therefore got at
low prices. In this way he became owner of a great part of Rome, and, as
more and more people were constantly crowding into the city to live, and
the supply of houses was less than the demand for them, he could and did
charge high rents. People who refused to live in his houses could find
nowhere else to go.
This was one of the means by which Crassus acquired his riches. But he
was incessantly alert and active to spy out opportunities in this
direction or in that for making money. His energy never relaxed: he was
always busy. He never fell into idle ways or the kind of stupid
amusement in which so many Romans, young and old, frittered away most of
their time. At a time when he owned half the houses in Rome, and so many
members of the Senate were in debt to him that they dared not vote
against his wishes, he built for himself only one house, and that of
moderate size. He enjoyed money-making as men enjoy any pursuit of which
they are master. After a time, however, he grew so rich that a new
ambition seized him. He began to thirst after direct political
power--not merely the indirect power which his money gave him. Crassus
was no fool. In financial affairs of all kinds he had courage, resource,
ingenuity, determination, and persistence, with that touch of
imagination which belongs to any kind of genius. It was not only by
accident that everything he touched turned to gold. But his imagination
was of a narrowly limited kind. He understood all the lower motives that
move men but none of the higher ones, for he understood only what he
found within himself, and within himself there was no room for the power
of any kind of idea.
With most Romans of his time religion had become a dead thing. They kept
the sacred images in their houses and performed all the official and
recognized ceremonies. But this was matter of custom and manners, like
the rules of dress. There was no reality or feeling in it. The reality
of Roman religion had been men's devotion to their country and the
belief in the city as a great thing whose life went on after their own
ended. In its service they had been prepared to spend themselves, for it
to die. This kind of devotion had been profoundly shaken. The average
Roman of Crassus's time believed in nothing but his own pleasure, and in
power and glory for himself.
In this Crassus was exactly like them. He was the richest man in Rome,
but riches after a time ceased to satisfy him. They did not give him
popularity. This it is true was partly his own fault, for Crassus, like
many very wealthy men, combined reckless occasional expenditure with
steady meanness. He gave the most gorgeous shows; but he hardly ever let
off a debtor. His hardness in collecting small sums was a byword. He
would spend thousands one day and haggle about a shilling the next. Of
course it was this careful looking after the pence that had made and
kept Crassus so rich; but it did not make him beloved. Nor, though he
was a very capable soldier, could he compete in this respect with
Pompeius, who always seemed to manage to get the showy things to do
while other people only got the hard work. When Crassus boasted of his
exploits in the campaign against Spartacus, people shrugged their
shoulders. Yet the Slave War had been a most serious danger, the more so
that it broke out at a moment when difficulties were dark on every side.
More than once in the last few years Rome had suffered severely from a
shortage in the supply of wheat that meant actual famine for the poorer
people. In Italy the fields which used to grow corn had been
increasingly planted with vine and olive--more profitable crops. The
corn grown in the countryside was not much more than sufficient for the
needs of the people living there. Rome depended in the main on supplies
from across the seas. Although the Sicilian towns were legally bound to
send a certain proportion of their crop to Rome they did not always do
so, and the Government was extremely slack in keeping them up to the
mark. A serious famine occurred in the year of Mithridates' invasion of
Bithynia, which looked dangerous enough. At the same time came the news
that the commander who had been sent out against the pirates who were
devastating the Cilician coast had been seriously defeated by them and,
worst of all, that a great rising of the slaves had broken out
throughout Italy (73).
This Slave War proved more serious even than at first appeared. The
slaves had not merely risen in great bodies: they had found a leader who
proved a real military genius in Spartacus. Spartacus was a Thracian,
and like most of his fellow slaves had been a prisoner of war.
These slaves were not the ordinary household slaves, many of whom were
treated kindly enough, or those employed in crafts and industries. They
were for the most part men kept in compounds under training for the
games. All over Italy there were training schools, belonging to rich
men, where picked slaves, chosen among prisoners of war because they
were tall, strong, and handsome, were kept and taught to fight as
gladiators. The conditions of these schools were very bad and the
unfortunate men in them had nothing better before them than the chance
of death in the arena. The taste of the Roman people was growing brutal;
the part of the shows given them by successful generals or politicians
who wanted popularity that they liked the best were the gladiatorial
fights: fights between men armed in different ways that went on till one
or other of the combatants was killed. A favourite combat was that
between a man armed with a trident and another provided with a net.
Sometimes these fights took place between bodies of men. Like the
Spanish bull fights, these shows excited the people of Rome beyond
anything. Good swordsmen fetched high prices and won fame for their
owners.
These unhappy men were for the most part prisoners of war; many of them
had been chiefs and leaders in their own country, and were men not only
of strength and courage but of intelligence. In the big training school
at Capua there was such a man among the slaves: Spartacus, a Thracian
chief. His mind rebelled against the hopelessness of his lot and he
stirred up his fellows. Eighty of them broke out from captivity and made
their escape to the slopes of Vesuvius. There they built a strong camp,
and, as the news spread of what they had done, slaves from all over
Italy joined them: some breaking out of the schools and prisons as
they had done, others running away from their masters and places of
employment. A small force was sent against them. They drove it back
in disorder and captured its weapons. This success encouraged further
risings. Spartacus was soon at the head of a considerable force. In the
next year (72) he defeated a consular army. His own numbers rose to over
40,000. The war was fought with horrible cruelty and bitterness on both
sides. Neither gave nor expected any mercy. All captured slaves were put
to death. Spartacus compelled three hundred Roman prisoners to fight as
gladiators at the funeral games held for a fallen slave captain. Farms
and country houses were plundered and burned.
[Illustration: A THRACIAN GLADIATOR]
The growing success of the slaves filled people with terror: they
dreaded a general massacre of the rich. Yet it seemed impossible to
crush them. Spartacus showed rare qualities as a general and organizer;
and after he had defeated both consuls, in the following year, and began
to move northwards, there was something like a panic in Rome. No one was
willing to undertake command against him. At last Crassus came forward.
Here, he thought, was his chance to win glory equal to that which
Pompeius was gaining in Spain. His quick eye saw that the Roman armies
were falling to pieces through bad discipline: his first task was to
restore the strictness of military law.
In the beginning Spartacus seemed too strong and skilful for him, but
Crassus knew that in the end jealousies were sure to break out in his
ranks, since the slaves were men of different nationalities, only held
together by the will and skill of their commander. At last, after long
months in which success seemed hopeless, so hopeless that the Senate
recalled Pompeius from Spain to Crassus's infinite rage, he compelled
Spartacus to fight a battle. He was killed and with him 12,000 of his
followers. They fought heroically, their wounds were all in front.
Pompeius as he crossed the Alps met only the bands of desperate
fugitives fleeing from the conqueror. He put them to the sword and
afterwards, to the disgust of Crassus, claimed a share in the victory.
'Though Crassus's men defeated the gladiators in battle, I plucked the
war up by the roots', he told the Senate.
Next year (70) Crassus and Pompeius were elected consuls together. This
did not make them friends. Crassus disliked Pompeius and was exceedingly
jealous of his great position and influence. He did not see why he
should not be recognized as as big a man as Pompeius. Pompeius was cold,
lazy, self-satisfied; good fortune rained its golden shower upon him and
he stood and gathered it up in his hands. Crassus, tingling with energy,
alert in every nerve, was exasperated when he thought of Pompeius.
But he was intelligent enough soon to realize that he would not rise to
the position and power in the State he wanted by his own unaided
efforts. Nor had he to look far to find the person who could give him
what he had not himself got. Pompeius's success filled him with anger
and bitter envy because he disliked Pompeius. His self-satisfied and
slow temper annoyed him. For the powers of Julius Caesar, on the other
hand, Crassus felt nothing but lively admiration, wonder, and even
devotion. He realized his extraordinary qualities at a time when Caesar
was unpopular and unsuccessful. Moreover, he was conquered immediately
by Caesar's personal charm, and never ceased to feel it. Caesar was
loaded with debt: his want of money was his main personal difficulty.
His main political difficulty was the fact that the Democratic or
Popular party had become stamped, at the time of Marius and Cinna, as
the party of revolution and disorder. To Caesar, therefore, Crassus was
invaluable: a firm bond was sealed between them.
Some years later Caesar actually succeeded in reconciling Crassus to
Pompeius by persuading them that as long as they levelled their
artillery against one another they raised people like Cicero and Cato
the Younger to importance. These men would be nothing and could do
nothing if Crassus, Pompeius, and himself were friends and acted
together. He soon proved to be right. The Triumvirate were irresistible.
First Caesar was consul (59): then, four years later (55), Crassus and
Pompeius.
Crassus's thirst for glory made him eager to have, in the year after his
consulship, a great and important provincial command. To his delight,
while Pompeius took Spain and Caesar remained in Gaul, he was given
Syria. Although he was by now sixty the most fantastic visions of
triumph and conquest immediately floated before his eyes: he saw himself
performing feats in the East which should altogether outshine those of
Lucullus and Pompeius. There was no war going on in that part of the
world, but Crassus at once made up his mind that there should be war
since it was the straight path to honour and renown. He would attack
Parthia and conquer a new and rich country for Rome. This he planned
regardless of the fact that the Parthians were actually allies of Rome.
The ideas sown by Lucullus were bearing fruit.
Crassus was elderly. It was long since he had directed a campaign, and
campaigning in the East was new to him. Neither he nor his son Publius,
who after serving with Caesar in Gaul came with him as his aide-de-camp,
or any other member of his staff, knew anything of the geography of
Parthia. After gaining quick successes in Mesopotamia he returned to
Syria for the winter instead of going forward and making, as he could
have done, allies in the cities of Babylon and Seleucia, cities always
at enmity with the Parthians. As it was, while he was busy inquiring
into the revenues of the cities of Syria and weighing the treasures in
the temples, the Parthians, warned of his intentions, were making
preparations against him. Accounts of the scale of these preparations
were brought in which alarmed the Roman soldiers. They had imagined that
the Parthians, a most warlike people, were tame folk such as Lucullus
had found the Armenians and Cappadocians. A series of terrific
thunderstorms seemed to them to herald disaster.
[Illustration: ORODES THE PARTHIAN]
Crassus, however, paid no heed to the murmurs of his officers and men.
He had no lack of courage or energy, and did not at all realize his
danger. Moreover, he was deceived by spies into a false security. Thus
he marched too far into a country about which he knew nothing. Suddenly
his scouts brought in news that a great army was advancing. Very soon
the Romans were upon this army. They found that its advance guard was
composed of a kind of warrior never met by the Romans--bowmen on
horseback, and bowmen of most deadly skill, whose arrows could pierce a
steel cuirass, whose aim was sure and whose rapid movements made it
almost impossible to stay them. Indeed, within a very short space of
time the Roman army was hemmed in and surrounded. Crassus showed great
intrepidity, but his men could not withstand the superior numbers and
dreadful skill of the Parthians. With great difficulty he succeeded in
extricating a portion of his men; but the day closed in defeat and the
survivors were in the darkest spirits.
Next morning the enemy advanced again with loud shouts and songs of
victory and a fearsome noise of drums. And in the front of their line
was a man carrying on a high spear the head of young Publius Crassus,
the son of the Roman commander. This sight sent a thrill of horror
through the army. Crassus alone showed greatness of mind. Plutarch gives
the following account of his behaviour:
_Carrhae_
Crassus was in this condition. He had ordered his son to charge
the Parthians, and as a messenger had come with the news that
there was a great rout, and that the enemy were being hotly
pursued, and as, besides this, he saw that the force opposed to
him was not pressing so hard (for in truth the larger part had
moved off to meet Publius), he regained courage somewhat, and,
concentrating his force, posted it in a strong position on some
slopes, in the expectation that his son would soon come back from
the pursuit. It proved, however, that the first messengers sent to
him by Publius when he realized his danger had been intercepted by
the barbarians and slain, while others, getting through with
difficulty, reported that Publius was lost if he was not supported
strongly and at once. Then Crassus became the prey of contrary
impulses and no longer able to take a reasoned view of anything,
being distracted between the desire to help his son and the fear
of risking the safety of his force as a whole. At length he
determined to advance.
Meantime the enemy were hurrying to the attack, more terrible than
ever, with yells and shouts of triumph, and the kettledrums
thundered again round the Roman ranks, as they stood expecting
another battle to begin. Some of the Parthians, who were carrying
the head of Publius stuck on the end of a spear, rode close up and
displayed it, insolently asking about his parents and family, for
it was monstrous, they said, that a noble youth of such brilliant
courage should be the son of a coward like Crassus. This sight,
more than all else, crushed and broke the spirit of the Romans,
for they were not strengthened, as they should have been, by a
resolution to defend themselves, but were seized, one and all,
with fright and panic.
Yet it is said that Crassus never showed himself so great as in
this disaster. Passing along the ranks, he shouted, 'This grief
touches me, and none besides, but by your success alone can the
honour and glory of Rome be preserved inviolate and unconquered.
If you pity me for the loss of a gallant son, prove it by your
fury against the enemy. Take from them their triumph, punish their
ferocity, do not be cast down by our loss. Great aims are never
realized without some suffering. Lucullus did not overthrow
Tigranes without bloodshed, nor Scipio Antiochus; our ancestors
lost a thousand ships off the coast of Sicily, and in Italy many
dictators and generals; but never did these defeats prevent them
from crushing the conquerors. It is not by good luck, but by
endurance and courage in the face of peril, that Rome has risen to
its height of power.'
Plutarch, xxxix. 26.
Faulty generalship had brought the Roman army into a position whence no
courage could save it. In the second day's battle a terrible defeat was
sustained: no less than thirty thousand Romans perished in the disaster
of Carrhae (53). Crassus himself was killed in a parley afterwards.
It is said that a few days after the battle, before the news of it had
reached him, the Parthian king was witnessing a performance of the
Bacchae of Euripides in which there is a scene where one of the dancers
comes in bearing a bleeding head. The actor who took this part carried
the head of Crassus, which he cast, amid shouts of joy, at the king's
feet.
Such was the tragic end of the millionaire Crassus. The news of his
death and defeat came to Rome but caused no excitement there. The city
was more interested in the street brawls of Clodius and Milo. The
politicians were watching the growing conflict between Caesar and
Pompeius. Crassus had dropped out of the Triumvirate. The stage was
cleared for the great duel.