Cicero - Anthony Everitt [43]
Sulla, duly grateful and impressed, promoted Pompey and married him to his stepdaughter. But he soon grew alarmed by his young general’s growing prestige and their relationship cooled. In fact, success failed to go to the young man’s head. He enjoyed recognition and liked to be busy, but he had no intention of following in his patron’s footsteps and taking over the state.
The second of Sulla’s former lieutenants to distinguish himself was Marcus Licinius Crassus, a distant relative of the old orator under whom Cicero had trained in his student days. Probably about forty, Crassus was able, affable and unscrupulous. His father and brother had been killed by populares when Marius was in power and Crassus had escaped to Spain, where his family had connections. He spent eight months hiding in a cave (friends supplied him with food and a couple of attractive slave girls to while away the time) and came out only on Sulla’s return to Rome. However, despite his experiences he developed no particular political convictions and was happy to support populares in the future whenever it suited him.
Crassus made his fortune from the proscription, buying up on the cheap the property of those who had been killed. Like Chrysogonus, he was rumored to have inserted an innocent man into the list in order to get hold of his money. He noticed that jerry-built apartment blocks had a tendency to collapse or catch fire and, whenever this happened, he purchased adjacent buildings at knockdown prices—sometimes even while fires were still blazing. He trained teams of slaves as architects and builders and became one of the wealthiest property developers in Rome. He owned silver mines and landed estates and would say that no one could claim to be rich unless he could afford to pay an army’s wages.
Crassus lived modestly but his house was open to everyone; guests at his dinner parties were usually ordinary people rather than members of the great families. He lent freely to all and sundry, although he was pitiless when it came to repayment. In the street he was polite and unaffected and was good at flattering people and getting them on his side. He liked to be well-liked and generally was.
Crassus was given the command against Spartacus. The former slave had turned out to be a first-rate general and posed a growing threat. He was in negotiation with the Republic’s great opponent in the eastern provinces, Mithridates, King of Pontus, and it was feared he might even march on Rome. But Crassus too was an effective campaigner and in 71 he defeated the slave army in a decisive and bloody battle, during which Spartacus and more than twelve thousand of his companions lost their lives. Crassus crucified six thousand of the survivors in rows along the Appian Way all the way from Capua, where the revolt had started, to the walls of Rome. He won his victory in the nick of time. Pompey had been recalled from Spain to help dispose of the slaves and arrived with his army just as the battle was coming to an end. There was nothing more to do than help mop up the fugitives, but much to Crassus’s irritation, his rival managed to gain a good deal of the credit for a success in which he had played only a minor role.
In fact, the one thing that most upset Crassus throughout his life was Pompey’s predominance. Once when someone said, “Pompey the Great is coming,” he laughed and asked, “AS great as what?” AS a rule Crassus did not bear grudges. This was not because he had a good heart but because other people rarely engaged his emotions. He had little difficulty in dropping friends or making up quarrels as occasion served. Cicero, whose view of friendship was different, had a very low opinion of him.
The two generals deserved the state’s gratitude for their military accomplishments, but the Senate regarded them as serious threats to the status quo. Yet despite the fact that Pompey was underage, had not yet become a