The History of Rome, vol 5 | Page 7

Alexander the Great, and to account himself a
man of unique standing, whom it did not beseem to be merely one of
the five hundred senators of Rome. In reality, no one was more fitted to
take his place as a member of an aristocratic government than
Pompeius. His dignified outward appearance, his solemn formality, his
personal bravery, his decorous private life, his want of all initiative
might have gained for him, had he been born two hundred years earlier,
an honourable place by the side of Quintus Maximus and Publius
Decius: this mediocrity, so characteristic of the genuine Optimate and
the genuine Roman, contributed not a little to the elective affinity
which subsisted at all times between Pompeius and the mass of the

burgesses and the senate. Even in his own age he would have had a
clearly defined and respectable position had he contented himself with
being the general of the senate, for which he was from the outset
destined. With this he was not content, and so he fell into the fatal
plight of wishing to be something else than he could be. He was
constantly aspiring to a special position in the state, and, when it
offered itself, he could not make up his mind to occupy it; he was
deeply indignant when persons and laws did not bend unconditionally
before him, and yet he everywhere bore himself with no mere
affectation of modesty as one of many peers, and trembled at the mere
thought of undertaking anything unconstitutional. Thus constantly at
fundamental variance with, and yet at the same time the obedient
servant of, the oligarchy, constantly tormented by an ambition which
was frightened at its own aims, his much-agitated life passed joylessly
away in a perpetual inward contradiction.
Crassus
Marcus Crassus cannot, any more than Pompeius, be reckoned among
the unconditional adherents of the oligarchy. He is a personage highly
characteristic of this epoch. Like Pompeius, whose senior he was by a
few years, he belonged to the circle of the high Roman aristocracy, had
obtained the usual education befitting his rank, and had like Pompeius
fought with distinction under Sulla in the Italian war. Far inferior to
many of his peers in mental gifts, literary culture, and military talent,
he outstripped them by his boundless activity, and by the perseverance
with which he strove to possess everything and to become all-important.
Above all, he threw himself into speculation. Purchases of estates
during the revolution formed the foundation of his wealth; but he
disdained no branch of gain; he carried on the business of building in
the capital on a great scale and with prudence; he entered into
partnership with his freedmen in the most varied undertakings; he acted
as banker both in and out of Rome, in person or by his agents; he
advanced money to his colleagues in the senate, and undertook-- as it
might happen--to execute works or to bribe the tribunals on their
account. He was far from nice in the matter of making profit. On
occasion of the Sullan proscriptions a forgery in the lists had been

proved against him, for which reason Sulla made no more use of him
thenceforward in the affairs of state: he did not refuse to accept an
inheritance, because the testamentary document which contained his
name was notoriously forged; he made no objection, when his bailiffs
by force or by fraud dislodged the petty holders from lands which
adjoined his own. He avoided open collisions, however, with criminal
justice, and lived himself like a genuine moneyed man in homely and
simple style. In this way Crassus rose in the course of a few years from
a man of ordinary senatorial fortune to be the master of wealth which
not long before his death, after defraying enormous extraordinary
expenses, still amounted to 170,000,000 sesterces (1,700,000 pounds).
He had become the richest of Romans and thereby, at the same time, a
great political power. If, according to his expression, no one might call
himself rich who could not maintain an army from his revenues, one
who could do this was hardly any longer a mere citizen. In reality the
views of Crassus aimed at a higher object than the possession of the
best-filled money-chest in Rome. He grudged no pains to extend his
connections. He knew how to salute by name every burgess of the
capital. He refused to no suppliant his assistance in court. Nature,
indeed, had not done much for him as an orator: his speaking was dry,
his delivery monotonous, he had difficulty of hearing; but his tenacity
of purpose, which no wearisomeness deterred and no enjoyment
distracted, overcame such obstacles. He never appeared unprepared, he
never extemporized, and so he became a pleader at all times in request
and at all times ready;