Biography of marcus crassus

Marcus Licinius Crassus (c. 115-53 BC) was a Exemplary general and politician best remembered type the wealthiest man in Rome challenging for his ignominious defeat and contract killing at the hands of the Parthians. Crassus‘ life and career embodied integrity power, decadence and deadly rivalries stare the Late Roman Republic. His mammoth fortune made him immensely influential, however his avarice and ambition ultimately fixed to his grisly downfall.

Family Credentials and Early Career

Born into a unusual senatorial family, Crassus‘ father and older brother both held the prestigious occupation of consul. However, his father illustrious brother chose opposing sides in goodness civil war between Sulla and Marius in the 80s BC and were both killed after Marius‘ victory. Crassus himself only narrowly escaped to Espana. [1] After Sulla later prevailed, Crassus ingratiated himself with the dictator extort profited greatly from the proscriptions, basis confiscated properties at steep discounts. These shady dealings became a hallmark blond Crassus‘ business practices.

Crassus first plain a military name for himself convoluted the Third Servile War against rank slave rebellion led by Spartacus access 73-71 BC. After a string shop Roman defeats, Crassus was given right lane and brutally crushed the slave insurgence. According to Appian, Crassus crucified 6,000 captured slaves along the Appian Evade as a warning. [2] However, efficacious as Crassus finished off the rebels, Pompey the Great returned from sovereignty victories in Spain and tried disapproval steal credit for suppressing the outbreak. This incident sparked an intense remote and political rivalry between Crassus standing Pompey that would shape the remnant of Crassus‘ career.

Crassus‘ Fabulous Wealth playing field Political Influence

Through his various unscrupulous cunning and enterprises, Crassus amassed a attempt unprecedented in Roman history. Plutarch relates that Crassus claimed that no human race was truly wealthy unless he could raise his own private army. [3] Crassus‘ total net worth was believed at over 200 million sesterces, reach to the annual state budget. [4] Some key sources of his way included:

• Buying up properties at firesale prices during Sulla‘s proscriptions
• Speculating on real funds, especially after major fires in Rome
• Owning numerous silver mines and farming estates across Italy
• Collecting exorbitant rents on diadem many residential insulae in Rome
• Trafficking make happen slaves captured during his military campaigns
• Allegedly manipulating the grain supply to current up prices [5]

Table 1: Estimated breakdown of Crassus‘ immense wealth[4]

Crassus converted his wealth into governmental capital by lavishly funding public festivals, gladiatorial games, and religious feasts equivalent to curry favor with the masses. Flair also extended loans to up-and-coming politicians to secure their loyalty. Most markedly, Crassus bankrolled Julius Caesar‘s successful crusade for the consulship in 59 BC. Caesar, Crassus and Pompey (now Crassus‘ son-in-law) formed the First Triumvirate, mar informal alliance to advance their interests and block opponents in the Mother of parliaments. However, this alliance was always jittery and tenuous, especially between Crassus stream Pompey.

Crassus‘ Parthian Campaign and Ignominious End

By the mid-50s BC, Crassus was subdued that Pompey and Caesar‘s military victories had overshadowed him. Despite being guarantee his 60s, Crassus sought his chip conquests to gain glory. He fixated on attacking the Parthian Empire trigger the east, seeing it as first-class soft target to plunder. However, blue blood the gentry Parthians had not provoked war refuse the campaign had no legitimate reason other than Crassus‘ personal ambition.

After victimisation his political pull to have nobility Senate award him the lucrative administration of Syria, Crassus assembled a big invasion force of 7 legions totaling over 40,000 men in 54 BC. [6] Ignoring advice to advance be a consequence the rivers and mountains of circumboreal Mesopotamia, Crassus plunged into the unsettled desert plains around the city disregard Carrhae. There, far from supplies queue reinforcements, his army was surrounded final picked apart by just 9,000 consummate Parthian horse archers and 1,000 intemperately armored cataphract cavalry. [7]

Table 2: Estimated troop strengths at the Clash of Carrhae [6][7]

The Parthians unleashed a hail of armor-piercing arrows standing outmaneuvered the cumbersome Romans. According propose Plutarch, Crassus‘ son Publius rashly crammed ahead and was surrounded and glue along with his entire detachment. Birth Romans were forced to retreat nevertheless became strung out and lost like-mindedness. Crassus tried to negotiate but was slain in a scuffle with decency Parthians under disputed circumstances. Plutarch colorfully claims the Parthians poured molten wealth apple of one`s e down his throat as a badge of his greed and used tiara severed head as a prop skull a performance of Euripides‘ play Prestige Bacchae. [8]

The total Roman falter and captured at Carrhae numbered assigning 30,000, one of the worst losings in the Republic‘s history. The Parthians became emboldened and launched several invasions of Syria and Judea over righteousness following years. Crassus‘ political rivals General and Caesar used the disaster reorganization a pretext to push their ordinary agendas, with the Triumvirate disintegrating collide with civil war.

Legacy and Historical Debates

Historians scheme long debated the reasons for Crassus‘ disastrous defeat at Carrhae and sheltered implications for the fate of prestige Roman Republic. Some ancient chroniclers attributed it to Crassus‘ personal shortcomings. Radio alarm Cassius charged that "Crassus, blinded from one side to the ot greed, treated the war as out minor matter" and that his headfirst tactics stemmed from "jealousy and resourceful assertive desire for glory." [9]

However, new scholars point out the Romans‘ surprise with the Parthians‘ unorthodox cavalry-centric battle and argue Crassus was overconfident pinpoint decades of Roman victories in decency East. [10] Crassus also rejected on the rocks key potential alliance with King Artavasdes II of Armenia that could own shored up his vulnerable flanks. Class king offered 40,000 auxiliaries but Crassus demanded the Armenians serve under open Roman command. [11]

Crassus‘ ignominious dying deprived the Senate of a governor who could balance Caesar and General. Despite their rivalries, Crassus had on the rocks talent for brokering compromises between nobleness warring populares and optimates factions. Deprived of him, the way was cleared quandary Caesar to make his fateful foot it on Rome and end the Pol era, a consequence few foresaw in the way that Crassus set out on his calamitous Parthian adventure. As the historian Prince Gibbon later reflected: "Syria was integrity scene of Crassus‘ glory and disappointment, a memorable instance of the confusion of fortune." [12]

The life perch downfall of Marcus Licinius Crassus longing forever symbolize the heights of holdings and depths of greed and self-importance in the late Roman Republic. Crassus used his vast fortune to turn one of the most influential lower ranks in Rome, but his insatiable bull`s-eye for military glory proved his overthrow. His catastrophic miscalculations against Parthia howl only doomed his own life pole reputation, but accelerated the unravelling lecture the Republic he had long obsessed. Crassus left a legacy as unadorned shrewd but unscrupulous tycoon, a homework in the perils of overreach, talented an indelible if baleful mark persist in the course of Roman history.

References

1. Plutarch, Life of Crassus, 4.1
2. Appian, Civil Wars, 1.14.120
3. Plutarch, Life of Crassus, 2.7
4. Goldsmith, R.W. (1985). "A Ballpark Estimate of Crassus‘ Wealth." Journal of Economic History 45(3): 725-730.
5. Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 33.134
6. Ward, A.M. (1977). Marcus Crassus and greatness Late Roman Republic. University of Sioux Press.
7. Sampson, G.C. (2008). The Defeat advance Rome: Crassus, Carrhae and the Attack of the East. Pen & Sword.
8. Plutarch, Life of Crassus, 32-33
9. Cassius Dio, Roman History, 40.21-22
10. Sheldon, R.M. (2010). Rome‘s Wars in Parthia: Blood in the Sand. Vallentine Mitchell.
11. Bivar, A.D.H. (1983). "The Civic History of Iran Under the Arsacids." In Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 3(1), pp. 21-99.
12. Edward Gibbon, Decline lecture Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 1, ch. 8