Marcus Licinius Crassus

Family and background

Marcus Licinius Crassus belonged to the plebeian gens Licinia, an ancient and influential Roman family whose representatives sat on the first college of plebeian tribunes and attained the consulship as early as 364 BC. The family lapsed from mention in the Capitoline Fasti between 361 and 236 BC before reemerging during the First Punic War with a Publius Licinius whose eldest son received the surname Crassus, which became hereditary.^[1][2] His grandfather, Marcus Licinius Crassus, served as praetor around 127 or 126 BC and was humorously nicknamed Agelastus (the grim or unlaughing) by the satirist Gaius Lucilius, who claimed he smiled only once in his entire lifetime.^[3][4][5] Crassus's father was Publius Licinius Crassus, an accomplished senator and vir triumphalis who achieved the consulship in 97 BC and the censorship in 89 BC.^[4][5] His mother was Venuleia, who came from the municipal Italian aristocracy.^[6][7]

Scholars have debated the lineage and financial standing of this branch of the Licinii. The cognomen Dives, meaning rich or wealthy, belonged to a distinct branch descending from Publius Licinius Crassus Dives, consul in 205 BC and Pontifex Maximus.^[8][9][10] Because Marcus Crassus became known for his great wealth, later writers and modern observers frequently attached the cognomen Dives to him and his father, yet ancient records never give them this surname.^[11][12][13] Plutarch explicitly recorded that Crassus was raised in modest circumstances and that his wealth was acquired through his own enterprise rather than inherited.^[11][12][14] Crassus inherited 300 talents from his father, a relatively small sum.^[15][16] Some historians hypothesize that Publius Licinius was comparatively poor, which might explain his marriage to a woman of municipal origin, while others suggest the family estate had simply been depleted during the civil upheavals of the 80s BC.^{[17][18][19][20][21][22]}

The exact date of Crassus's birth is not recorded directly. Plutarch noted that Crassus had passed the age of sixty when he met King Deiotarus in Galatia in early 54 BC, leading modern historians to date his birth to 115 BC or early 114 BC.^{[23][24][25][26]} Crassus grew up alongside two brothers in a modest household where ancient customs prevailed. Even after marrying and fathering children, the elder brothers continued to live beneath their parents' roof and shared a common dining table.^{[27][28][29][30]} His eldest brother Publius died between 93 and 88 BC, shortly before or during the Social War.^[31][32] Following Roman custom, Marcus later married Publius's widow, Tertulla, with the marriage taking place no later than 86 BC.^{[31][32][33][34]}

Youth and the Marian-Sullan Civil War

Crassus received the conventional education of a young Roman noble, with rigorous training oriented toward military command and courtroom advocacy.^[35][36] From 96 to 93 BC, he accompanied his father to Hispania Ulterior, where Publius served as proconsular governor.^[37][38] During these three years in the Iberian peninsula, the young Crassus established extensive personal and clientelistic networks among local communities that proved decisive later in his life.^[39][40] Upon returning to Rome, he probably saw military action during the Social War (91–88 BC), in which his father served as one of the legates.^[35][36] At the same time, Crassus began appearing as an advocate in the courts, where his diligent study of rhetoric earned him recognition from Cicero as one of the most capable and active pleaders in the city.^[3][41][42]

When civil strife erupted in Rome in 88 BC between Lucius Cornelius Sulla and Gaius Marius, the elder Crassus initially avoided taking an open stance.^[43][44] In 87 BC, however, when the combined forces of Marius and Lucius Cornelius Cinna marched on Rome, Publius joined the defenders of the Senate. Following the capture of the city, both Crassus's father and his remaining brother (named Gaius or Lucius) lost their lives in the ensuing Marian-Cinnan massacres, being either executed by Marian partisans or driven to commit suicide.^{[45][46][47][48]} Marcus Crassus avoided their fate by fleeing Italy with three close friends and ten slaves, making his way to Hispania where his family held strong patronage ties.^{[48][49][50][51]}

In Hispania, Crassus went into hiding on an estate belonging to Vibius Paciaecus (or Pacianus), a wealthy local client.^[27][51][52] For eight months, Crassus remained concealed in a sea cave on the property while Pacianus secretly provided him and his companions with food, provisions, and comfort.^[27][28][53] Crassus emerged from the cave only in early 84 BC upon receiving news of Cinna's death. Gathering together opponents of the Marian faction, he raised a personal force of 2,500 men from his father's local clients.^[27][28][53] Crassus extorted funds from regional communities to finance his operations and was accused by several ancient historians of having plundered the city of Malaca, an allegation he personally denied throughout his life.^{[27][28][53][54]}

Crassus requisitioned ships and sailed with his force to the Roman province of Africa, where Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius was rallying anti-Marian resistance.^[53][55][56] After falling out with Metellus over strategic or personal matters, Crassus sailed eastward to join Sulla, who landed in southern Italy in early 83 BC following the First Mithridatic War.^{[53][57][58][59]} Sulla welcomed Crassus with high honors and dispatched him to recruit troops among the Marsi in central Italy. When Crassus requested a military escort for the journey through hostile territory, Sulla replied: 'I give you your father, your brother, your friends, and your relatives, for whose unjust execution I am seeking vengeance.'^[27][28] During the fighting across Italy, Crassus and the young Pompey cooperated in Umbria, defeating Marian forces under Gaius Carrinas near Spoletium, inflicting 3,000 casualties, and laying siege to his camp before Carrinas escaped under cover of foul weather.^[60][61][62]

Crassus's most notable military performance of the civil war came on 1 November 82 BC at the Battle of the Colline Gate outside Rome.^{[63][64][65][66]} Sulla commanded the Roman left flank, which was routed by Marian and Samnite forces under Pontius Telesinus and pushed back against the city walls. On the right flank, Crassus scored a complete victory, routing the opposing lines and pursuing the enemy northward to Antemnae.^[63][67] Sulla learned of Crassus's success only late in the night, using the victory on the right to rally his shattered units and secure control over the capital by morning.^[68][69] His decisive intervention at the Colline Gate placed Crassus in the front rank of Sulla's victorious commanders.^[65]

Rise to wealth and property business

Following Sulla's assumption of the dictatorship in 82 BC, Crassus set about restoring his family estate, which had been confiscated during the Marian regime. Sulla instituted proscriptions, posting lists of political opponents who were declared outlaws, stripped of their lives and property, and whose heirs were barred from civic honors. Sulla sold off confiscated estates at public auctions, intentionally setting rock-bottom prices so his partisans would buy them up and share culpability for the seizures.^{[70][71][72][73]} Crassus exploited these sales aggressively, becoming one of the most active purchasers in Rome.^[70][71][72] He was assigned to hunt down proscribed individuals in Bruttium, where he added wealthy men to the lists to seize their assets. On one occasion, Crassus inscribed a man's name without Sulla's prior authorization purely to seize his estate; upon discovering this, Sulla dismissed Crassus from public administration and never employed him in official business again.^{[27][28][73][74][75]}

Crassus directed his capital into unconventional business channels for a Roman senator, who traditionally invested primarily in agricultural land.^[76][77] In addition to operating silver mines in Hispania and engaging in slave trafficking, Crassus invested in urban real estate in Rome.^{[48][76][77][78]} Fires and architectural collapses were frequent occurrences in the densely built capital, where multi-story tenement buildings (insulae) were constructed cheaply. Crassus purchased and trained a cadre of over 500 slaves skilled as architects, masons, and builders.^{[48][76][77][79]} Whenever an insula caught fire, Crassus arrived on the scene accompanied by his private fire brigade. His agents offered to buy the burning structure, as well as threatened adjacent properties, from the distressed owners for trifling sums. If the owners accepted, his brigade extinguished the blaze and rebuilt or reinforced the buildings; if they refused, his team stood by and let the properties burn down.^{[79][80][81][82]} Through this practice, Plutarch observed that Crassus came to own 'the largest part of Rome', subsequently leasing the restored properties at considerable profit.^{[76][77][79][83]}

By the middle of the 50s BC, Crassus's net worth was legendary. Pliny the Elder estimated his estate at approximately 200 million sesterces.^{[48][84][85][86][87]} Plutarch stated that his property increased from an initial 300 talents to 7,100 talents just prior to his departure on the Parthian expedition, an accumulation equivalent to approximately 229 tonnes of silver.^[15][16][48] Crassus famously declared that no man should consider himself rich who could not maintain a private army out of his own annual revenue, an aphorism reported by Cicero and Pliny.^[88][89][90] Despite his vast financial assets, Crassus maintained a modest household without luxury or extravagance. His family meals were simple, he avoided ostentatious personal entertainment, and he chose domestic companions for friendship and political utility rather than display.^[91] Unlike many Roman patrician families, the Licinii Crassi displayed ancestral portrait busts in their atrium without manufacturing legendary or divine ancestries.^[92][93]

In 73 BC, Crassus was brought to trial before the pontifical court on the capital charge of unchastity (incestum) with a Vestal Virgin named Licinia, a relative of Lucius Licinius Murena.^[94][95][96] At the same time, Lucius Sergius Catilina was tried alongside another Vestal, Fabia, who was the half-sister of Cicero's wife Terentia.^[95][96] Conviction for sacrilege with a Vestal carried the mandatory death penalty of being beaten to death or buried alive. Crassus secured an acquittal by proving to the judges that his persistent attentions to Licinia were motivated entirely by his desire to purchase a luxurious suburban villa she owned at a depressed price, and he did not leave her alone until he had successfully acquired the property.^{[65][94][97][98]}

Political beginnings and the Third Servile War

Crassus's passage through the sequence of public magistracies (the cursus honorum) is poorly attested in surviving sources. Under the Sullan constitution, entry into the Senate was restricted to former quaestors, yet there is no record of Crassus holding the quaestorship.^[99][100] Pliny the Elder made a passing reference to Crassus serving as a curule aedile, though the date is unrecorded.^[99][100] Historians generally assign his praetorship to 73 BC, although by age he was eligible as early as 76 or 75 BC.^{[76][77][101][102][103]} To build a political base, Crassus systematically cultivated clients among the equestrian order and the municipal gentry of Italian towns, many of whom had only recently received Roman citizenship.^[104][105] He regularly extended interest-free loans to senators and aspiring magistrates, using their financial indebtedness to command their political allegiance, and called in debts strictly when terms expired.^{[106][107][108][109]} When the plebeian tribune of 76 BC, Gnaeus Sicinius, was asked why he attacked every leading politician except Crassus, he remarked that Crassus had 'hay on his horns', a reference to the traditional Roman practice of tying hay to the horns of a dangerous bull to warn passersby, though modern historians note the comment played on the phonetic pun between fenum (hay) and fenus (debt).^{[110][111][112]}

In 73 BC, the Third Servile War broke out when a group of gladiators led by Spartacus escaped from a training school in Capua.^{[65][113][114]} Over the next year, the slave insurrection grew rapidly, defeating successive Roman praetors and both consuls of 72 BC, Lucius Gellius Publicola and Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Clodianus.^{[65][115][116][117]} Alarmed by the rebels' unchecked movement, the Senate stripped both consuls of their command before 1 November 72 BC and conferred an extraordinary proconsular imperium upon Crassus.^{[116][117][118][119]} Taking charge of the demoralized consular remnants, Crassus recruited six additional legions at his own expense, assembling an army estimated between 40,000 and 60,000 men.^{[115][120][121][122][123][124]} Prominent young nobles, including Catiline and Publius Cornelius Sulla, joined his staff as legates and military tribunes.^[125][126]

To restore order among troops broken by repeated defeats, Crassus revived the ancient and rarely used punishment of decimation. Sources present contrasting accounts of when and how the punishment was administered: Appian stated that Crassus decimated the two consular legions upon taking command because of their prior flight, resulting in the execution of up to 4,000 soldiers, while Plutarch recorded that decimation was inflicted on a single cohort of 50 men after Crassus's legate Mummius attacked Spartacus against orders near Picenum and suffered a humiliating defeat.^{[115][120][122][124][127][128][129][130]} Whatever the exact scope of the executions, the punishment produced immediate psychological results, leading contemporary writers to observe that the soldiers learned Crassus was far more dangerous to them than the enemy.^{[124][127][128][129]}

Crassus reorganized his forces, engaged a rebel division, and killed 6,000 slaves before driving Spartacus's main force southward through Lucania toward the toe of Italy.^{[131][132][133]} In Bruttium, Spartacus attempted to negotiate passage to Sicily with Cilician pirates to ignite a secondary slave uprising there, but the pirates took his money and abandoned the rebels.^[134][135] After the rebels attempted to build makeshift rafts, Crassus implemented maritime blockades to cut off sea escape.^{[131][136][137]} To bottle up the slave army, Crassus undertook an extraordinary engineering operation, constructing a ditch and fortified palisade measuring 300 stadia (nearly 55 kilometers) across the narrowest point of the peninsula from the Tyrrhenian to the Ionian Sea.^{[131][138][139][140]} The trapped slave army soon suffered severe food shortages, but on a stormy winter night, Spartacus directed a third of his forces to bridge the trench with earth, timber, and corpses, successfully breaking through the lines and marching toward Brundisium.^{[131][138][139][140][141]}

Learning that the Senate had summoned Pompey from Hispania and Marcus Terentius Varro Lucullus from Macedonia to assist in concluding the war, Crassus realized that whichever general arrived first would receive the credit for the victory.^{[142][143][144][145][146][147]} Crassus pursued the rebels aggressively, intercepting a splinter force led by Gannicus and Castus near the Lucanian lake. In what became one of the bloodiest engagements of the rebellion, Crassus annihilated this division, killing over 12,300 slaves and recovering five legionary eagles previously lost by Roman commanders.^{[144][146][148][149][150][151]} Although Crassus's advance cavalry under Lucius Quinctius and Gnaeus Tremellius Scrofa suffered a minor setback near Petelia, Spartacus was compelled by his emboldened fighters to turn and accept a pitched battle.^{[152][153][154][155]}

The decisive confrontation occurred in the spring of 71 BC at the Battle of the Silarius River.^{[152][153][156][157]} Crassus launched his legions into battle before completing his fortified camp, driving directly into the rebel infantry. Spartacus led an assault toward Crassus's personal position, slaying two centurions guarding the commander before being cut down in the melee; his body was never recovered.^{[152][153][156][157][158]} The slave army was destroyed. By Crassus's command, 6,000 captured slaves were crucified at intervals along the Via Appia between Rome and Capua, where their bodies were left to rot as a public deterrent against future revolts.^{[147][156][158][159][160]} Pompey arrived in time to slaughter approximately 5,000 fugitives fleeing northward, subsequently writing to the Senate that while Crassus had defeated the slaves in battle, he himself had eradicated the war at its roots.^{[53][161][162][163]} Crassus was denied a full triumph, receiving instead an ovation; however, by special senatorial dispensation, he was permitted to wear the triumphal laurel wreath instead of the customary myrtle crown.^{[164][165][166][167][168][169]}

First Consulship and Censorship

In the summer of 71 BC, Crassus and Pompey presented themselves as candidates for the consulship of 70 BC.^{[170][171][172]} Pompey, having not yet held the quaestorship or praetorship and being legally underage at thirty-four, sought a dispensation from Sulla's constitutional laws; Crassus, having recently stepped down from his praetorship, required Pompey's cooperation to overcome senatorial resistance.^[173] According to Appian, both commanders kept their armed legions encamped near Rome after the elections, raising public fears of renewed civil conflict.^{[173][174][175]} Following public appeals and religious omens on the final day of the year, the equestrian Gaius Aurelius claimed Jupiter had commanded the two leaders to reconcile, whereupon Crassus stepped forward and offered Pompey his hand.^{[53][173][174][175]} Modern historians suggest Appian may have dramatized the dispute, noting that Pompey's army remained outside the pomerium largely to await his triumph on 29 December 71 BC.^[176][177]

During their joint consulship in 70 BC, Crassus and Pompey dismantled the conservative constitution enacted by Sulla.^[178][179] By passing the Lex Pompeia Licinia de tribunicia potestate, they fully restored the traditional powers of the plebeian tribunes, including their rights of legislative initiative and veto.^{[178][179][180][181][182]} In the autumn, the praetor Lucius Aurelius Cotta introduced the Lex Aurelia iudiciaria, which stripped senators of their monopoly on jury panels; henceforth, juries were drawn equally from three orders: senators, equites, and tribuni aerarii.^{[179][182][183][184][185]} Crassus and Pompey also restored the censorship, which had been suspended since Sulla's dictatorship.^{[182][186][187]} The newly elected censors, Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Clodianus and Lucius Gellius Publicola, conducted an unprecedented purge of the Senate, expelling 64 members, roughly one-eighth of the assembly.^[183][185] Seeking to counterbalance Pompey's vast military prestige, Crassus hosted a public feast at 10,000 tables dedicated to Hercules and distributed a three-month grain allowance to every Roman citizen family.^[188][189]

Both Crassus and Pompey declined provincial commands upon completing their consulship, returning to private life on 1 January 69 BC.^[190][191] In 65 BC, Crassus was elected censor alongside the conservative optimate leader Quintus Lutatius Catulus Capitolinus.^{[192][193][194]} During his censorship, Crassus pursued two bold political initiatives. First, he proposed enrolling the inhabitants of Transpadane Gaul (northern Cisalpine Gaul) into the Roman citizen rolls, which would have granted them full civic rights and created a large personal client base for him.^[195][196] Second, he sought to implement the purported will of King Ptolemy XI Alexander II of Egypt, who had died in 80 BC allegedly bequeathing his kingdom to Rome; recognizing the will would have provided a pretext for Roman intervention and the annexation of Egypt.^[195][196] Catulus exercised his censorial veto against both measures, paralyzing the office and leading both magistrates to resign their posts prematurely without conducting a census or revising the equestrian list.^{[53][195][196]}

Catilinarian Conspiracies and rivalry with Cicero

Crassus's relationship with Lucius Sergius Catilina was a recurring source of political controversy. Suetonius recorded that in 66–65 BC, a plot known as the 'First Catilinarian Conspiracy' had formed, purportedly involving Catiline, Crassus, Julius Caesar, Publius Cornelius Sulla, and Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso. According to this narrative, the conspirators intended to massacre the incoming consuls on 1 January 65 BC, install Crassus as dictator and Caesar as master of the horse, and restore the consulships of Autronius and Sulla.^{[197][198][199]} While scholars in the nineteenth century accepted this plot, modern historiography predominantly considers the First Catilinarian Conspiracy a political myth fabricated by Cicero and Torquatus in the late 60s BC and embellished by political opponents to discredit the First Triumvirate.^[200][201] Nevertheless, Crassus did maintain ties to Catiline, supporting his campaign in the consular elections for 63 BC alongside Gaius Antonius Hybrida.^{[202][203][204][205]}

By 63 BC, Crassus had shifted his stance. In October 63 BC, Crassus received an anonymous package of letters warning of imminent bloodshed orchestrated by Catiline's conspirators.^[206][207] Crassus delivered these letters directly to the consul Cicero in the middle of the night, and on the following morning, Cicero had Crassus read them openly before the Senate.^[206][207] When the leading conspirators were arrested in Rome in December, one of them, Publius Gabinius Capito, was placed in Crassus's private custody.^[208][209] On 4 December, an informer named Lucius Tarquinius appeared before the Senate, claiming he had carried messages between Catiline and Crassus. The senators shouted down the accusations and formally declared Tarquinius's testimony false; according to Sallust, some senators found the charge unbelievable, while others thought so powerful a man should be placated rather than provoked, and most were under private obligation to Crassus.^{[53][210][211]} Sallust recorded that Crassus believed Cicero himself had orchestrated Tarquinius's testimony to ruin him, establishing bitter animosity between the two men.^{[212][213][214][215]}

The First Triumvirate

When Pompey returned from the East in 62 BC after winning the Third Mithridatic War, he requested that the Senate ratify his eastern territorial settlements and grant land allotments to his veterans.^[216][217] The optimate faction in the Senate, led by Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer, Lucullus, and Cato the Younger, blocked these requests; Crassus aligned with the optimates to frustrate his rival's ambitions.^{[53][216][217][218][219]} At the same time, Crassus was championing the interests of the equestrian tax-farming syndicates (publicani), who had overbid for the provincial tax collection contract of Asia and were petitioning the Senate for a one-third reduction in their contract obligations, which Cato steadfastly refused.^{[220][221][222]} In 60 BC, Julius Caesar returned from his propraetorship in Hispania Ulterior, determined to seek the consulship for 59 BC. Recognizing that aligning with either Pompey or Crassus would alienate the other, Caesar brokered a secret reconciliation between the two magnates, forming an informal political alliance known as the First Triumvirate.^{[53][192][223][224][225][226]}

With the financial backing of Crassus and the popular backing of Pompey, Caesar was elected consul for 59 BC.^{[53][227][228]} As consul, Caesar bypassed senatorial resistance to pass an agrarian law distributing public land to Pompey's veterans, an act overseen by an agrarian commission on which Crassus served.^{[53][222][229][230]} Caesar secured the ratification of Pompey's eastern settlements and enacted legislation lowering the rental fees of the publicani in Asia by one-third, fulfilling Crassus's primary policy goal.^{[220][221][222][231]} Toward the close of his consulship, Caesar was awarded a five-year proconsular command over Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum by the Lex Vatinia, to which Crassus and Pompey added Transalpine Gaul (Gallia Narbonensis).^{[53][232][233]} For the following year, the triumvirs secured the election of friendly consuls, Aulus Gabinius and Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus.^[232][233]

During Caesar's campaigning in Gaul, political conditions in Rome deteriorated. The radical plebeian tribune of 58 BC, Publius Clodius Pulcher, used armed street gangs to dominate the forum, forcing Cicero into exile and targeting Pompey with political harassment and assassination threats.^{[234][235][236][237]} Many, including Pompey himself, were convinced that Crassus stood behind Clodius.^[235][237] In early 56 BC, Clodius's supporters unsuccessfully attempted to have Crassus appointed to command an army to restore Ptolemy XII Auletes to the Egyptian throne.^[238][239]

In April 56 BC, Caesar convened the Luca Conference to resolve tensions within the triumvirate, attended by Pompey, Crassus, and approximately two hundred senators.^{[53][192][240][241]} The three leaders agreed that Crassus and Pompey would stand jointly for a second consulship for 55 BC, while Caesar's proconsular command in Gaul would be extended by five years.^{[53][192][240][241][242][243]} To overcome optimate resistance, the consular elections were delayed until January 55 BC, when Caesar dispatched large bodies of soldiers on furlough under the command of Crassus's son, Publius Licinius Crassus, to secure the vote.^[244][245] The elections were marked by street fighting; Plutarch recorded that Crassus personally struck a dissenting senator, Lucius Annius, in the face during an assembly.^[246][247] Once in office, the tribune Gaius Trebonius introduced the Lex Trebonia, assigning the two provinces of Hispania to Pompey and the province of Syria to Crassus for five-year terms, granting each proconsul independent authority to levy troops and declare war.^{[53][192][248][249]}

Syrian Proconsulship and the Parthian Campaign

Crassus viewed the Syrian proconsulship as an opportunity to achieve military triumphs comparable to those of Pompey in the East and Caesar in Gaul.^{[48][250][251]} In Rome, the planned expedition encountered stiff resistance from the optimates, who argued that Parthia posed no active threat and that an unprovoked invasion breached the peace treaties concluded by Sulla and renewed by Pompey.^{[53][252][253]} When Crassus prepared to depart in November 55 BC prior to the expiration of his consular year, the plebeian tribune Gaius Ateius Capito attempted to have him arrested; when his tribunician colleagues intervened, Ateius stood at the city gate and subjected Crassus to solemn religious curses and ritual imprecations.^{[53][254][255]}

Crassus journeyed through Galatia, where he met King Deiotarus, before arriving in Syria in early 54 BC.^[24][26][53] That summer, he crossed the Euphrates, seized several Greco-Macedonian garrison cities in Mesopotamia, and left behind 7,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry to garrison them before withdrawing to winter quarters in Syria.^{[53][256][257][258][259]} Plutarch criticized this withdrawal as a strategic error, arguing that it gave the Parthians time to organize their forces when Crassus could have advanced directly on Seleucia and Babylon.^{[53][257][259]} During the winter of 54–53 BC, Crassus focused on financial exactions, plundering the wealthy temple of the Syrian goddess Atargatis in Hierapolis Bambyce and looting the treasury of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, extracting an estimated 2,000 talents of bullion.^{[53][192][260][261][262][263]}

While in Syria, Crassus received his younger son Publius, who brought 1,000 elite Gallic cavalrymen dispatched by Caesar.^[260][261] King Artavasdes II of Armenia came to Syria and offered Crassus an auxiliary force of 10,000 cataphracts and 30,000 infantry if Crassus would invade Parthia through Armenia.^{[48][264][265]} The Armenian king emphasized that the mountainous terrain would neutralize the Parthian cavalry, while providing Roman legions with abundant water and supplies.^{[53][264][265]} Crassus rejected the proposal, insisting on taking the direct route across the Mesopotamian desert to join his garrisons and march toward Seleucia.^{[48][53][264][265]} When an embassy from the Parthian king Orodes II arrived demanding to know whether the war was authorized by the Roman Senate, Crassus retorted that he would give his answer in Seleucia; the Parthian envoy, Vagises, laughed and pointed to his open palm, declaring: 'Hair will grow here, Crassus, before you see Seleucia.'^[53]

In the spring of 53 BC, Crassus crossed the Euphrates at Zeugma with seven legions, 4,000 cavalry, and 4,000 light slingers and archers, totaling approximately 40,000 to 50,000 men.^{[266][267][268]} Orodes II split his forces, leading the Parthian infantry and royal army to invade Armenia to prevent Artavasdes from sending reinforcements, while entrusting the Mesopotamian front to a talented 30-year-old nobleman, the Spahbod Surena.^{[53][266][267]} Crassus employed an Osroene chieftain named Ariamnes (or Abgar II of Edessa), who had previously served Pompey but was operating as a Parthian double agent.^{[53][266][267][269]} Ariamnes urged Crassus to attack at once, falsely stating that the Parthians were weak and unorganized, and then led the Roman army into the desert, far from any water.^{[266][267][269][270]}

The Battle of Carrhae and Death

On 9 June 53 BC, Crassus's legions met the Parthian army at Carrhae.^{[53][268][271]} Crassus's quaestor, Gaius Cassius Longinus, advised deploying the army in an extended battle line with infantry in the center and cavalry on the flanks.^[270][272] Crassus at first agreed, but soon changed his mind and redeployed his men into a hollow square, each side formed by twelve cohorts, to protect his forces from being outflanked.^[272] Surena commanded 10,000 Parthian horsemen armed with bows.^[53][273] When the legions advanced, the Parthian horse archers enveloped the square, using hit-and-run tactics and the 'Parthian shot': firing powerful composite bows backward while feigning retreat.^{[268][270][274]} Crassus maintained the defensive testudo formation, assuming the enemy would exhaust their ammunition, but Surena had assembled a train of 1,000 baggage camels carrying arrows to constantly resupply his archers.^[268][270]

Crassus sent his son Publius to attack with a detachment of 6,000 men.^[266][267] The Parthians feigned a full retreat, luring Publius's detachment far from the main body before surrounding it with cataphracts and horse archers.^{[266][267][268][270][273]} The Roman detachment was wiped out; Publius committed suicide with his shield-bearer to avoid capture, and the Parthians severed his head, mounting it on a spear.^{[53][266][267][268]} Returning to the main Roman square, the Parthians thrust Publius's head into Crassus's view, devastating the morale of the legions.^[266][267] The Roman lines held until nightfall, when the Parthians broke off the attack. Under cover of darkness, Cassius and the legate Octavius organized a retreat to Carrhae, abandoning 4,000 wounded legionaries in the camp, who were slaughtered by the Parthians the following morning.^{[53][266][267][270]}

The following night, the remnants of the Roman army set out toward the frontier.^[275][276] The army fragmented into detached groups: Cassius fled with 500 cavalry and reached Syria safely, while the legate Gaius Coponius held out with a small detachment.^{[275][276][277][278]} Another guide, Andromachus, turned out to be in Surena's service and led the Romans into gorges, and Crassus, with four cohorts, had almost reached a mountain ridge where he could escape when the Parthians overtook him.^{[53][275][276][279]} Surena then offered to meet Crassus and to let the Romans withdraw safely.^{[53][275][279][280][281][282]} Crassus did not trust the enemy, but his soldiers, close to mutiny, forced him to agree to negotiate.^{[275][276][281][282][283]}

Accompanied by Octavius, the military tribune Petronius, and a handful of attendants, Crassus descended into the plain to meet Surena.^{[284][285][286]} Surena offered Crassus a royal mount equipped with a golden bridle. As the Parthian grooms mounted Crassus and began whipping the horse forward, Octavius suspected an abduction and seized the reins.^{[281][284][285][286]} A scuffle broke out in which Octavius drew his sword and killed a Parthian groom before being slain from behind; Petronius was struck on his breastplate and dismounted uninjured.^{[281][284][285][286]} In the chaotic melee that followed, Crassus was killed, with accounts naming a Parthian soldier named Pomaxathres (or Exathres) as his slayer.^{[281][284][285][286][287]} Cassius Dio recorded a story that the Parthians subsequently poured molten gold down Crassus's severed throat to mock his insatiable avarice.^{[288][289][290][291][292]} The defeat was one of the costliest in Roman history: approximately 20,000 Romans were killed and 10,000 captured, with only a quarter of the expeditionary force escaping back to Syria.^{[53][268][270][293]}

Crassus's severed head and right hand were dispatched to King Orodes II, who had concluded a peace treaty with Artavasdes II of Armenia, sealed by the marriage of the Armenian king's sister to Crown Prince Pacorus I.^{[53][294][295][296]} The two monarchs were watching a performance of Euripides' tragedy The Bacchae at the royal palace in Artashat when Surena's courier arrived with the gruesome trophies.^{[48][53][294][295][296]} An actor from Tralles named Jason seized Crassus's severed head, discarded the prop representing Pentheus, and sang the verses of Agave: 'We bring from the mountain / A tendril fresh-cut to the palace / A wonderful prey.'^{[48][295][296][297][298]} In Mesopotamia, Surena organized a theatrical mock-triumph: a Roman prisoner named Caius Paccianus, who resembled Crassus, was dressed in women's royal garments, addressed mockingly as 'Crassus' and 'imperator', and paraded on horseback behind lictors carrying fasces decorated with severed Roman heads and empty purses.^[299][300]

The fate of the 10,000 Roman prisoners captured at Carrhae gave rise to modern historical theories. In 1941, the sinologist Homer H. Dubs hypothesized that some captured legionaries were transported by the Parthians to Margiana (modern Turkmenistan) to guard their eastern frontier and were subsequently recruited by the Xiongnu chieftain Zhizhi.^[301] Dubs noted that Chinese chronicles describing the Battle of Zhizhi (Talas) in 36 BC recorded that the Han army encountered soldiers who deployed in a 'fish-scale' formation, which he identified with the Roman testudo.^[301] He proposed that surviving prisoners were settled in the Gansu province at a village named Liqian.^[301][302] While archaeological discoveries of Roman coins and a helmet inscribed with Chinese characters sparked public interest, subsequent genetic testing of the modern population of Liqian failed to confirm European ancestry linked to Crassus's legions, concluding that the villagers are an ordinary subgroup of the Han Chinese majority.^[302]

Family and personal life

Crassus remained married throughout his adult life to Tertulla, the widow of his eldest brother Publius.^{[31][32][33][303]} Sources provide no information regarding her family origins, as Tertulla was a familiar diminutive of Tertia, indicating she was a third daughter.^[304][305] Ancient historians reported that Tertulla engaged in marital infidelities, alleging that she was an intimate partner of Julius Caesar and that one of her sons closely resembled an individual named Axius, bringing public gossip upon the household.^{[306][307][308][309]} Nevertheless, Crassus remained with Tertulla until his death, a rarity among the late Republican nobility where political divorces were frequent; Cicero described his domestic establishment in a public speech as 'virtuous and dignified'.^{[310][311][312][313]}

The marriage produced two sons: Marcus Licinius Crassus and Publius Licinius Crassus. Roman onomastic conventions and epigraphic analysis indicate that Marcus was the elder son, born in the first half of 85 BC, while Publius was born around 82 or 81 BC, though some historians have argued for Publius's seniority based on his early prominence.^{[314][315][316][317]} The younger son, Publius, distinguished himself as a cavalry officer under Caesar during the Gallic Wars, notably in Armorica and Aquitania, and served as a political mediator between his father and Cicero before falling at Carrhae in 53 BC.^{[234][236][281]} The elder son, Marcus, served as a quaestor under Caesar, and his own son, also named Marcus Licinius Crassus, served as consul alongside Octavian.

Historiographical assessments and reputation

Crassus occupies a prominent place in the writings of his contemporary Marcus Tullius Cicero, who viewed him with deep personal and political distrust, referring to him privately as a scoundrel while maintaining formal civility in public court appearances.^{[318][319][320][321][322][323]} Three major clashes marked their relationship: Cicero's public attribution of the victory over Spartacus to Pompey, Crassus's support for Cicero's political enemies Publius Clodius and Aulus Gabinius, and the Catilinarian conspiracy.^[324][325] In the early 50s BC, Cicero composed an unpublished memoir titled 'On His Counsels' (De Consiliis Suis) containing grave allegations against Crassus, which he ordered suppressed until after his death.^[326][327] Following Crassus's death, Cicero avoided discussing him for seven years before casting him in philosophical dialogues like the Paradoxa Stoicorum as an archetype of selfish greed, a characterization that, in the view of the historian O. Lyubimova, passed into later writers such as Velleius Paterculus, Florus, and Orosius; Florus presented his death as punishment for his lust for Parthian gold.^{[326][327][328][329][330][331][332][333][334][335]}

Plutarch composed the only surviving ancient biography of Crassus, pairing him with the Athenian general Nicias in his Parallel Lives.^[336] Plutarch judged that Crassus possessed numerous political and civic virtues, including affability, diligent courtroom preparation, open hospitality, and personal accessibility, greeting ordinary citizens by name across Rome.^[91] However, Plutarch asserted that these qualities were overshadowed by an insatiable avarice that ruined his military reputation.^[337][338] Modern historians have sought to reevaluate Crassus beyond the moralizing traditions of Cicero and Plutarch. In 1966, Frank Adcock published 'Marcus Crassus, Millionaire', challenging the traditional portrayal of the bitter enmity between Crassus and Pompey as political propaganda while arguing that Crassus was motivated by commerce and the desire to control eastern trade routes.^{[339][340][341][342]} Subsequent political biographies by Bruce Marshall (1976) and Allen Mason Ward (1977) emphasized Crassus's mastery of clientelistic politics, arguing that wealth was not an ultimate end for Crassus, but an indispensable instrument used to construct senatorial coalitions and counterbalance Pompey's military dominance.^{[343][344][345][346][347][348]}

Cultural representations

Crassus has been depicted in numerous artistic and literary works from antiquity to the modern era. Dante Alighieri cited Crassus in the Purgatorio of the Divine Comedy as an enduring exemplar of greed.^[349][350] In Spanish and Portuguese idiom, the expression 'craso error' (or 'erro crasso') denotes a fatal, egregious blunder, directly referencing Crassus's disastrous strategic decisions during the Parthian campaign.^[281][351] In historical fiction, Crassus features prominently in novels treating the late Republic and the Spartacus revolt, including Raffaello Giovagnoli's Spartacus (1874), Howard Fast's Spartacus (1951), Arthur Koestler's The Gladiators (1939), Alfred Duggan's Winter Quarters (1956), Steven Saylor's Arms of Nemesis (1992), Robert Harris's Imperium and Lustrum, and Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome series, where he is portrayed as a brilliant financier and dedicated ally of Caesar.^{[349][352][353][354]}

In performing arts and visual media, Crassus has a principal role in Aram Khachaturian's 1956 ballet Spartacus. Laurence Olivier portrayed Crassus in Stanley Kubrick's 1960 film Spartacus, based on Fast's novel, an interpretation that won wide acclaim.^{[355][356][357]} The character was played by Angus Macfadyen in the 2004 television film Spartacus and by Simon Merrells in the 2013 television series Spartacus: War of the Damned, which depicted him as an astute military tactician.^{[358][359][360][361]} Anthony Hopkins voiced Crassus in Jeff Wayne's musical version of Spartacus, and Jon Voight portrayed a modern corporate adaptation of the figure named Hamilton Crassus III in Francis Ford Coppola's 2024 film Megalopolis.^[355]

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111. Ward A., 1977, p. 77-78.
112. プルタルコス『英雄伝』クラッスス7
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130. Plutarque, Crassus, 10:1–3.
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132. Appien, Guerres Civiles, 1:119.
133. Apiano, Guerres Civiles, 1:119.
134. Florus, Abrégé de l'Histoire romaine, III, 21.
135. Plutarco, Crasu, 10:1-3.
136. Floro, 1996, II, 8.
137. Florus, Epitome, 2.8 ; Cicéron, Oraciones, "For Quintius, Sextus Roscius...", 5.2
138. Plutarch, Life of Crassus, 10.4–6
139. Goroncharovsky V., 2011, p. 119-127.
140. Plutarco, Crasu, 10:4-5.
141. Plutarque, Crassus, 10:4-5.
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