Editing Marcus Licinius Crassus (section)

==Rise to power and wealth==
[[File:Bust of an unknown citizen in the realist republican tradition (Louvre MR 510).jpg|thumb|right|upright|Marcus Licinius Crassus<ref>{{Citation |title=Tête de Marcus Licinius Crassus |url=https://collections.louvre.fr/ark:/53355/cl010252339 |access-date=2024-05-11}}</ref>]]
Marcus Licinius Crassus' next concern was to rebuild the fortunes of his family, which had been confiscated during the Marian-Cinnan [[proscription]]s. Sulla's proscriptions, in which the property of his victims was cheaply auctioned off, found one of the greatest acquirers of this type of property in Crassus: indeed, Sulla was especially supportive of this, because he wished to spread the blame as much as possible among those unscrupulous enough to do so.<ref>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</ref> Sulla's proscriptions ensured that his survivors would recoup their lost fortunes from the fortunes of wealthy adherents to [[Gaius Marius]] or [[Lucius Cornelius 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.<ref>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."</ref> 
Crassus' wealth is estimated by Pliny at approximately 200 million sesterces. Plutarch, in his ''Life of Crassus'', says the wealth of Crassus increased from less than 300 [[Talent (measurement)|talents]] at first, to 7,100 talents.<ref>{{cite book|last=Plutarch|translator-last=Perrin|translator-first=Bernadotte|title=Parallel Lives, "Life of Crassus", 2.2|series=Loeb Classical Library|volume=III|date=1916|url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Crassus*.html|isbn=9780674990722}}</ref> This represented 229 tonnes of silver, worth about US$167.4&nbsp;million at August 2023 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."<ref name="Plutarch 1916">{{cite book|last=Plutarch|translator-last=Perrin|translator-first=Bernadotte|title=Parallel Lives, "Life of Crassus", 2.3|series=Loeb Classical Library|volume=III|date=1916|url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Crassus*.html|isbn=9780674990722}}</ref>

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 [[proscription]]s 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,<ref name="Plutarch-2"/> 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.<ref name="The Great Fire of Rome:Life and Death in the Ancient City ">{{cite book|last = Walsh|first = Joseph|title = The Great Fire of Rome: Life and Death in the Ancient City}}</ref><ref name="Plutarch-2"/><ref>Marshall, B. A., ''Crassus: A Political Biography'' (Adolf M. Hakkert, Amsterdam, 1976)</ref><ref name="TrivLibCrassus"/>

Crassus befriended [[Licinia (1st-century BC vestal)|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."<ref>Plutarch, ''Parallel Lives'', ''Life of Crassus'', 1</ref>
[[File:05 02 IN 0733 Pompejus Magnus front 0.png|thumb|Bust of [[Pompey the Great]] at the [[Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek]], Denmark]]

Despite his great wealth, Crassus is said to have avoided excess and luxury at home. Family meals were simple, and entertaining was generous but not ostentatious; Crassus chose his companions during leisure hours on the basis of personal friendship as well as political utility.<ref>Plutarch, ''Crassus'' 3.1–2; for a perspective on the triumvir's positive characteristics, see T.J. Cadoux, "Marcus Crassus: A Revaluation," ''Greece & Rome'' 3 (1956) 153–161.</ref> Although the Crassi, as [[nobiles|noble plebeians]],<!--THIS IS THE RIGHT LINK; please read the article--> would have displayed ancestral images in their atrium,<ref>On the ''ius imaginum'', or right of ''nobiles'' to display ancestral images, see the article "Nobiles" in [[William Smith (lexicographer)|Smith's]] ''[[Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities]]'', Bill Thayer's edition at [[LacusCurtius]] [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Nobiles.html online]; also [[P.A. Brunt]], "''Nobilitas'' and ''novitas''," ''Journal of Roman Studies'' 72 (1982), pp. 12–13, and R.T. Ridley, "The Genesis of a Turning-Point: Gelzer's ''Nobilität''," ''Historia'' 35 (1986), pp. 499–502. The term ''ius imaginum'' is a modern coinage, and the notion that this display was constituted by a legal right was reexamined and refined by Harriet I. Flowers, ''Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture'' (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), especially pp. 53–59 [https://books.google.com/books?id=h2jiiNPcFoAC&dq=%22No+investigation+of+Roman+imagines+could+be+complete%22&pg=PA53 online.]</ref> they did not lay claim to a fictionalized [[genealogy]] that presumed divine or legendary ancestors, a practice not uncommon among the Roman nobility.<ref>[[T.P. Wiseman]], "Legendary Genealogies in Late-Republican Rome," ''Greece & Rome'' 21 (1974), p. 162, in reference to Publius's [[Roman consul|consular]] grandfather.</ref> 

After rebuilding his fortune, Crassus' next concern was his political career. As a wealthy man in Rome, an adherent of Sulla, and a man who hailed from a line of consuls and praetors, Crassus' political future was apparently assured. His problem was that, despite his military successes, he was eclipsed by his contemporary [[Pompey the Great]]. Crassus' rivalry with Pompey and his envy of Pompey's triumph would influence his subsequent career.<ref name="Plutarch 1916"/>