Crassus and His Wealth

Crassus and His Wealth

During the Roman era, many noble characters had risen to be significant enough for people in the 21st century to have written texts that lasted all this time about them. One of the significant figures was Marcus Licinius Crassus. Crassus was a Roman military general and a famous politician. He played an exceptional role in transforming the Roman republic into an Empire. Crassus allied with Julius Caesar and Pompey to create an unofficial political alliance which helped him take over Rome’s political system. This alliance was called the First Triumvirate. Marcus was born at around 115 B.C. His father was a renowned senator, and he had two brothers. His family was confiscated of their wealth and therefore lived moderately with modest living standards. More importantly, Crassus managed to redeem his family’s wealth and even exceed it. He was considered as one of the wealthiest men in all of history. His net worth reached an equivalent of approximately 8.4 Billion US Dollars. Crassus was able to reach his goal of wealth through many smart ways. One of the most significant ways was according to Plutarch “Life of Crassus”, firefighting and rapine. Moreover, he also used Sulla’s proscriptions to get a hold of the fortune from the rich.

Crassus was very well known to have a set of schemes up his sleeves. He owned a legion of about five hundred slaves. His slaves were trained architects and strong builders. This was basically his firefighting department which Rome never had. This shows how Crassus’s mind was more business than anything else. Crassus used to wait for a fire alarm, and his brigade and him would run to and stand outside of the burning house’s door. The brigade would not even attempt to put out the fire until they were signaled to do so from Crassus only. Then, he would go to the owner of the burning house and bargain for the price of service and price of the surrounding buildings that might be damaged. If agreed by the owners of the buildings to buy the service, Crassus would send his brigade to extinguish the fire. If not agreed, Crassus will simply wait outside the house until it burns down fully along with the surrounding buildings. Afterwards, he would offer to buy the damaged and corrupted lands for an extremely cheap price, and the owners will have to comply. Subsequently, Crassus would command his slave legion to rebuild his newly purchased land and then collect taxes and rent from the new comers to the houses. Even sometimes he would demolish certain “unsafe” buildings and rebuild them and makes profits. Evidently, Crassus had a scheme and he was successful in implementing it. Over the years he had owned many areas around Rome and was richer than he ever was before. Finding a void in the system and fixing it while securing your share of the profits takes a lot of hard thinking. Crassus was smart in that sense. He was the business man.

Another way Crassus made extreme profits was through Sulla’s proscriptions. According to an article published in the University of Dalas, proscription is “a Roman practice of publishing a list of men, who were declared outlaws. Their property would then be taken by the state. A price was placed upon the heads of the men themselves, and they would be tracked down by bounty hunters or betrayed by those around them”. He took these proscriptions from Sulla after his death and managed to keep the system going over the years and he even added a man to the list which was not there initially. Crassus would take the properties that were seized by the state, and since he is consul he claims them and sells or builds over them for profits through; rent, taxes, or purchase. So it is evident that through this method Crassus made a hefty sum of money.