Marcus Licinius Crassus (; 115–53 BC) was a Roman general and statesman who played a key role in the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. Often called "the richest man in Rome",Wallechinsky, David & Wallace, Irving. "Richest People in History Ancient Roman Crassus". Trivia-Library. The People's Almanac. 1975–1981. Web. 23 December 2009."Often named as the richest man ever, a more accurate conversion of sesterce would put his modern figure between $200 million and $20 billion." Peter L. Bernstein, The 20 Richest People Of All Time Crassus began his public career as a military commander under Lucius Cornelius Sulla during his civil war. Following Sulla's assumption of the dictatorship, Crassus amassed an enormous fortune through property speculation. He rose to political prominence following his victory over the slave revolt led by Spartacus, sharing the consulship with his rival Pompey the Great.
A political and financial patron of Julius Caesar, Crassus joined Caesar and Pompey in the unofficial political alliance known as the First Triumvirate. Together, the three men dominated the Roman political system, but the alliance did not last due to their respective ambitions, egos and jealousies. While Caesar and Crassus were lifelong allies, Crassus and Pompey disliked each other and Pompey grew increasingly envious of Caesar's spectacular successes in the Gallic Wars. The alliance was restabilized at the Luca Conference in 56 BC, after which Crassus and Pompey again served jointly as consuls.
Following his second consulship, Crassus was appointed as the governor of Roman Syria, which he used as the launchpad for a military campaign against the Parthian Empire. The campaign was a disastrous failure, ending in his defeat and death after the Battle of Carrhae. Crassus' death permanently unraveled the alliance between Caesar and Pompey, since his political influence and wealth had maintained a balance between the two great leaders. Within four years of Crassus' death, Caesar crossed the Rubicon and began a civil war against Pompey and the optimates.Plutarch, Parallel Lives, Life of Crassus, 2.3–4
Family and background Marcus Licinius Crassus was a member of the gens Licinia, an old and highly respected plebeian family. He was the second of three sons born to the eminent senator and vir triumphalis Publius Licinius Crassus (consul 95 BC, censor 89 BC). This line was not descended from the wealthy Crassi Divites, although often assumed to be. The eldest brother, Publius (born ), died shortly before the Italic War, and Crassus' father and younger brother were either slain or took their own lives in Rome, in winter 87–86 BC, when being hunted down by the supporters of Gaius Marius, following their victory in the Bellum Octavianum.Plutarch, Parallel Lives, Life of Crassus, 4.1; also Cic. Scaur. fragment at Ascon.27G=23C, with Asconius' comment on the passageAppian, Bellum Civile, p. 394 Crassus had the unusual distinction of marrying his wife Tertulla after she had been widowed by his brother.
There were three main branches of the house of the Licinii Crassi in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC,deducible from their common gentilicium and cognomen, while Cic. Scaur. fragment at Ascon.27G=23C explicitly states that the homonymous consulars who both took their own lives, P. Crassus Dives Mucianus (consul in 131 BC) and P. Crassus (consul in 97 BC), belonged to the same stirpes and many mistakes in identifications and lines have arisen owing to the uniformity of Roman nomenclature, erroneous modern suppositions and the unevenness of information across the generations. In addition, the Dives cognomen of the Crassi Divites means rich or wealthy, and since Marcus Crassus, the subject here, was renowned for his enormous wealth, this has contributed to hasty assumptions that his family belonged to the Divites. But no ancient source accords Crassus or his father the Dives cognomen; Plutarch says his great wealth was acquired rather than inherited, and that he was raised in modest circumstances.Plutarch, Parallel Lives, Life of Crassus, 1.1; 2.2
Crassus' grandfather of the same name, Marcus Licinius Crassus (praetor c. 126 BC), was facetiously given the Greek nickname Agelastus (the unlaughing or grim) by his contemporary Gaius Lucilius, the inventor of Roman satire, who asserted that he smiled once in his whole life. This grandfather was son of Publius Licinius Crassus. The latter's brother, Gaius Licinius Crassus (consul 168 BC), produced the third line of Licinii Crassi of the period, the most famous of whom was Lucius Licinius Crassus, the greatest Roman orator before Cicero and the latter's childhood hero and model. Marcus Crassus was also a talented orator and one of the most energetic and active advocates of his time.
Youth and the First Civil War After the Marian purges and Marius' subsequent death, the surviving consul Lucius Cornelius Cinna (father-in-law of Julius Caesar) imposed proscriptions on those surviving Roman senators and equestrians who had supported Lucius Cornelius Sulla in his 88 BC march on Rome and overthrow of the traditional Roman political arrangements.
Cinna's proscription forced Crassus to flee to Hispania.Plutarch, Parallel Lives, Life of Crassus, 4.1 He stayed in Spain from 87 to 84 BC. Here, he recruited 2,500 men (an understrength legion) from his father's clients settled in the area. Crassus used his army to extort money from the local cities to pay for his campaigns, even being accused of sacking Malaca.Plutarch, Parallel Lives, Life of Crassus, 6.1 After Cinna's death in 84 BC, Crassus went to the Roman province of Africa and joined Metellus Pius, one of Sulla's closest allies, but did not stay there long because of disagreements with Metellus. He sailed his army to Greece and joined Sulla, "with whom he stood in a position of special honor."Plutarch, Parallel Lives, Life of Crassus, 6.2 During Sulla's civil war, Crassus and Pompey the Great fought a battle in the plain of Spoletium (Spoleto); killed about 3,000 of the men of Papirius Carbo, the leader of the Marian forces; and besieged Carrinas, a Marian commander.Appian, Bellum Civile, 1.90.1
During the decisive Battle of the Colline Gate, Crassus commanded the right flank of Sulla's army. After almost a day of fighting, the battle was going poorly for Sulla; his own center was being pushed back and was on the verge of collapse when he got word from Crassus that he had comprehensively crushed the enemy before him. Crassus wanted to know whether Sulla needed assistance, or whether his men could retire. Sulla told him to advance on the enemy's center, and used the news of Crassus' success to stiffen the resolve of his own troops. By the following morning, the battle was over, and the Sullan army emerged victorious, making Sulla the master of Rome. Sulla's victory, and Crassus' contribution to it, put Crassus in a key position. Sulla was as generous to his allies as he was cruel towards his enemies, and Crassus had been a very loyal ally.
Rise to power and wealth
Crassus needed to rebuild his family's wealth, which had been confiscated during the Marian-Cinnan purges. He did this by buying the seized property of the victims of Sulla's proscriptions at discounted auctions. Sulla encouraged Crassus and others to buy these assets because he wanted to spread the blame for the seizures among his supporters.Plutarch, Life of Crassus, 2 (trans. Long, George, 1892). "when Sulla took the city, and sold the property of those whom he put to death, considering it and calling it spoil, and wishing to attach the infamy of the deed to as many of the most powerful men as he could, Crassus was never tired of receiving or buying." accessed from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/14140/14140-h/14140-h.htm#LIFE_OF_CRASSUS on 2023-10-31 Sulla's proscriptions ensured that his supporters would recoup their lost fortunes from the fortunes of wealthy adherents to Marius or Cinna. Proscriptions meant that their political enemies lost their fortunes and their lives; that their female relatives (notably, widows and widowed daughters) were forbidden to marry, remarry or remain married; and that, in some cases, their families' hopes of rebuilding their fortunes and political significance were destroyed. Crassus is said to have made part of his money from proscriptions, notably the proscription of one man whose name was not initially on the list of those proscribed but was added by Crassus, who coveted the man's fortune.Plutarch, Life of Crassus, 6.6–7 (trans. Perrin, 1916). "It is said that, in Bruttium, he actually proscribed a man without Sulla's orders, merely to get his property; and that, for this reason, Sulla, who disapproved of his conduct, never employed him again on public business."
Crassus' wealth is estimated by Pliny the Elder at approximately 200 million sesterces. Plutarch, in his Life of Crassus, says the wealth of Crassus increased from less than 300 talents at first, to 7,100 talents. This represented 229 tonnes of silver, worth about US$430.3 million at July 2026 silver prices, accounted right before his Parthian expedition, most of which Plutarch declares Crassus got "by fire and war, making the public calamities his greatest source of revenue." Some of Crassus' wealth was acquired conventionally, through slave trafficking, production from silver mines and speculative real estate purchases. Crassus bought property that was confiscated in proscriptions and by notoriously purchasing burnt and collapsed buildings. Plutarch wrote that, observing how frequent such occurrences were, he bought slaves "who were architects and builders". When he had over 500 slaves, he bought houses that had burnt and the adjacent ones "because their owners would let go at a trifling price". He bought "the largest part of Rome" in this way, buying them on the cheap and rebuilding them with slave labor.
The first ever Roman fire brigade was created by Crassus. Fires were almost a daily occurrence in Rome, and Crassus took advantage of the fact that Rome had no fire department by creating his own brigade—500 men strong—which rushed to burning buildings at the first cry of alarm. Upon arriving at the scene, however, the firefighters did nothing while Crassus offered to buy the burning building from the distressed property owner, at a miserable price. If the owner agreed to sell the property, his men would put out the fire; if the owner refused, then they would simply let the structure burn to the ground. After buying many properties this way, he rebuilt them and often leased the properties to their original owners or new tenants.Marshall, B. A., Crassus: A Political Biography (Adolf M. Hakkert, Amsterdam, 1976)
Crassus befriended Licinia, a Vestal Virgin, whose valuable property he coveted. Plutarch says, "And yet, when he was further on in years, he was accused of criminal intimacy with Licinia, one of the vestal virgins, and Licinia was formally prosecuted by a certain Plotius. Now, Licinia was the owner of a pleasant villa in the suburbs, which Crassus wished to get at a low price, and it was for this reason that he was forever hovering about the woman and paying his court to her, until he fell under the abominable suspicion. And, in a way, it was his avarice that absolved him from the charge of corrupting the vestal, and he was acquitted by the judges. But he did not let Licinia go until he had acquired her property."Plutarch, Parallel Lives, Life of Crassus, 1