Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/894

Rh 376 CRASSUS. dream the niglit before, invited the consuls to be reconciled before they left office. Pompey re- mained cold and inflexible, but Ci-assus took the first step by offering his hand to his rival, in the midst of general acclamations. The reconciliation was hollow, for the jealousy of Crassus continued. He privily opposed the Gabinian rogation, which commissioned Pompey to clear the sea of pirates ; and Cicero's support of the Manilian law, which conferred the command against ^lithridates upon Pompey, rankled in the mind of Crassus. When Pompey returned victorious, Crassus, from timidity or disgust, retired for a time from Rome. In the year B. c. 65, Crassus was censor with Q. Catulus, the firm supporter of the senate ; but the censors, in consequence of their political dis- cordance, passed the period of their office without liolding a census or a muster of the equites. In the following year, Crassus failed in his wish to obtain the rich province of Eg}T)t. Crassus was suspected by some, probably with- out sufficient reason, of being privy to the first conspiracy of Catiline ; and again, in the year b. c. 63, L. Tarquinius, when he was arrested on his way to Catiline, affirmed that he was sent by Crassus with a message inviting Catiline to come with speed to the rescue of his friends at Rome ; but the senate denounced the testimony of L. Tar- quinius as a calumny, and Crassus himself attri- buted the charge to the subornation of Cicero. (Sail. B. C. 48.) The interests of Crassus were opposed to the success of the conspiracy; for it would have required a man of higher order to seize and retain the helm in the confusion that would have ensued. In the whole intercourse between Crassus and Cicero may be observed a real coldness, with oc- casional alternations of affected friendship. (Comp. Cic. ad Att. i. 14 and 16, ad Fain. xiv. 2, pro Sejd. 17, ad Fam. i. 9. § 6, v. 8.) In his intercourse with others, Crassus was equally un- steady in his likings and enmities. They were, in fact, not deeply-seated, and, without the practice of much hj'pocrisy, could be assumed or withdrawn as temporary expediency might suggest. It was from motives of self-interest, without actual community of feeling or purpose, that the so-called triumvirate was formed between Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus. Each hoped to gain the first place for himself by using the others for his purposes, though there can be no doubt that the confederacy was really most profitable to Caesar, and that, of the three, Crassus would have been the least able to rule alone. Caesar had already found Crassus a convenient friend ; for in b. c. 61, when Caesar was about to proceed to his province in Further Spain, Crassus became security for his debts to a large amount. It may, at first view, excite surprise that a person of so little independent greatness as Crassus should have occupied the position that he filled, and that men of wider capacity should have entered into a compact to share with him the honours and profits of the commonwealth. But the fact is to be accounted for by considering, that the character of Crassus represented in many points a large portion of the public. While the young, the daring and the ambitious, the needy, the revolutionary, and the democratic, adhered to Caesar, — while the aristocracy, the party of the old constitu- tion, those who affected the reputation of high CRASSUS. principle and steady virtue, looked with greater favour upon Pompey, — there was a considerable mass of plain, moderate, practical men, who saw much that they liked in Crassus. Independently of the actual influence which he acquired by the means we have explained, he had the sympathy of those who, without being noble, were jealous of the nobility, and were rich or were occupied in making mone3 They sympathised with him, because the love of gain was a strong trait in the Roman character, and they saw that his unequi- vocal success in his pursuit was a proof of at least one unquestionable talent — a talent of the most universal practical utility. He was not Avithout literary acquirement, for, under the teach- ing of the Peripatetic Alexander, he had gained a moderate proficiency in history and philosophy. There was no profligacy in his private conduct to shock decent and respectable mediocrity. He was not above ordinarj^ comprehension. The many could appreciate a worldly and vulgar-minded but safe man, whose principles sat loosely but conve- niently upon him, who was not likely to innovate rashh', to dazzle by eccentric brilliancy, or to put to shame by an overstrained rigidity of virtue. Thus it was more prudent to combine with Cras- sus as an ally, than to incur the opposition of his party, and to risk the counter-influence of an enormous fortune, which made the name of Cms- J sus proverbial for wealth. Pliny {H. N. xxxiiL W 47) values his estates in the country alone at two hundred millions of sesterces. He might have maintained no despicable army at his own cost. Without the means of doing this, he thought that no one deserved to be called rich. In other less stirring times he might have lived and died with- out leaving in history any marked traces of his existence; but in the period of transition and commotion which preceded the fall of the republic, such elements of power as he possessed could scarcely remain neglected and quiescent. It was part of the triumviral contract — renewed at an interview between the parties in Luca — that Pompey and Crassus should be a second time con- suls together, should share the armies and pro- vinces of the ensuing year, and should exert their influence to secure the prolongation for five years of Caesar's command in Gaul. Notwithstanding the strenuous opposition of L. Domitius Aheno- barbus, backed by all the authority of Cato of Utica (who was forced on the day of election to leave the Field of Mars with his followers after a scene of serious riot and uproar), both Pompey and Crassus were elected consuls, b. c. 55. A law was passed at the rogation of the tribune C. Tre- bonius, by which Syria and the two Spains, with the right of peace and war, were assigned to the consuls for five years, while the Gauls and lUyri- cum were handed over to Caesar for a similar period. In the distribution of the consular pro- vinces, Crassus took Syria. Crassus was anxious to distinguish himself in war. Pompey, he saw, had subjugated the Pirates and Mithridates : Caesar had conquered Gaul, and was marching his army victoriously to Germany and Britain. Mortified at successes which made him feel his inferiority to both, he chose rather to enter upon an imdertaking for which he had no genius than to continue the pursuit of wealth and influence at home. Armed by the lex Trebonia with power to make war, he determined to exer-