A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

CRASSUS.
tain. In the course of this expedition,-one of
the most disastrous in which the Romans were
ever engaged against a foreign enemy,-Crassus is
said to have lost 20,000 men killed, and 10,000
taken prisoners. At the time of his death,
Artavasdes had made peace with Orodes, and had
given one of his daughters in marriage to Pacorus,
the son of the Parthian. They were sitting together at the nuptial banquet, and listening to the
representation of the Bacchae of Euripides, when a
messenger arrived from Surenas, and brought in the
head and hand of Crassus. To the great delight
of the spectators, passages from the drama (1. 1168
&c.) were applied by the actors to the lifeless
head. Orodes afterwards caused melted gold to be
poured into the mouth of his fallen enemy, saying,
"Sate thyself now with that metal of which in
life thou wert so greedy." (Dion Cass. xl. 27;
Florus, iii. 11.)
(Plutarch, Crassus; Dion Cass. xxxvii.-xl.;
Cic. Epist. passim. The HIistoria Romanorums Parthica, usually attributed to Appian, is a compilation
from Plutarch. All the authorities are collected
in Drumann, Gesch. Roms iv. pp. 71-115.)
18. P. LICINIUS CRASSUS DIVES, son of No. 15,
and known by the designation of Decoctor; for,
though originally very rich, his prodigality and
dissipation were so inordinate, that he became insolvent, and his creditors sold his goods. After
this, he was often taunted by being addressed as
Crassus Dives. (Yal. Max. vi. 9. ~ 12.)
19. M. LICINIUS CRAssUS DIVES, the elder
son of the triumvir (No. 17) by Tertulla. (Cic. ad
Fam. v. 8.) From his resemblance to the senator
Axius, there was a slander that his mother had
been unfaithful to her husband. After his younger
brother Publius had left Caesar, Marcus became
Caesar's quaestor in Gaul, and at the breaking out
of the civil war, in B. c. 49 was praefect in Cisalpine Gaul. (Caes. B. G. v. 24; Justin xlii. 4.)
It is possible that he was the husband of the Caecilia or Metella, who appears by an inscription in
Gruter (p. 377, No. 7) to have been the wife of
M. Crassus, and has by some genealogists been
wrongly given to the triumvir. (Drumann, Gesch.
Roms ii. p. 55.)
20. P. LICINIUS M. F. CRASSUS DIVES, younger
son of the triumvir, was Caesar's legate in Gaul
from B. c. 58 to the second consulship of his
father. In B. c. 58, he fought against Ariovistus;
in the following year, against the Veneti and other
tribes in north-western Gaul; and in B. c. 56, he
distinguished himself in Aquitania. In the next
winter, Caesar sent him to Rome with a party of
soldiers who were intended to forward the election
of the triumvirs Pompey and Crassus, and he also
brought home 1000 Gallic cavalry, who afterwards
took part in the Parthian war. Notwithstanding
the mutual dislike of Cicero and Crassus the triumvir, Publius was much attacled to the great orator,
and derived much pleasure and benefit from his
society. In B. c. 58, he strove to prevent the
banishment of Cicero, and with other young Romans appeared in public clad in mourning; and,
on his return to Rome, in B. c. 55, he exerted
himself to procure a reconciliation between Cicero
and his father. (Cic. ad Qu. Fr. ii. 9. ~ 2.) At
the end of the year B. c. 54, he followed the triumvir to Syria, and, in the fatal battle near Carrhae,
behaved with the utmost gallantry. (Pint. Crass.
25.) Seeing that he could not rescue his troops,

CRASSUS. 879
he refused to provide for his own safety, and, as
his hand was disabled by being transfixed with an
arrow, he ordered his sword-bearer to run him
through the body. Though he was more ambitious
of military renown than of the fame of eloquence,
he was fond of literature. He was a proficient in
the art of dancing (Macrob. ii. 10 fin.), and under
the teaching of his friend and freedman Apollonius,
became well skilled in Greek. (Cic. ad Fam.
xiii. 16.) There is extant a Roman denarius
(post, p. 882) which has been usually supposed to
refer to him, although the name inscribed and the
device on the reverse would equally or better apply
to his grandfather, Publius the censor, No. 14.
See below, p. 882, a, (Eckhel, v. p. 232; Spanh.
ii. p. 99.)
21. M. LICINIUS M. F. CRASSUS DIVES, son of
No. 19. In B. c. 30, he was consul with Octavian, and in the following year, as proconsul of
Macedonia, he fought with success against the surrounding barbarians. (Liv. Epit. cxxxiv., cxxxv.)
22. M. LICINIUS M. F. CRASSUS DIVES, son of
No. 21, was consul B. c. 14. (Dion Cass. liv. 24.)
23. L. LICINIUS L. F. CRASSUS, the orator.
His pedigree is unknown. He was born B. c. 140,
was educated by his father with the greatest care,
and received instruction from the celebrated historian and jurist, L. Caelius Antipater. (Cic. Brut.
26.) At a very early age he began to display his
oratorical ability. At the age of twenty-one (or,
according to Tacitus, Dial. de Orat. c. 34, two
years earlier) he accused C, Carbo, a man of high
nobility and eloquence, who was hated by the
aristocratic party to which Crassus belonged. Val.
Maximus (vi. 5. ~ 6) gives an instance of his honourable conduct in this case. When the slave of
Carbo brought to Crassus a desk filled with his master's papers, Crassus sent back the desk to Carbo with
the seal unbroken, together with his slave in chains.
Carbo escaped condemnation by poisoning himself
with cantharides (Cic. ad Fam. ix. 21, Brut. 27);
and Crassus, pitying his fate, felt some remorse at
the eagerness and success of his accusation. (Cic.
Verr. iii. 1.) In the following year (B. c.118) he
defended the proposal of a law for establishing a
new colony at Narbo in Gaul. The measure was
opposed by the senate, who feared that by the
assignation of lands to the poorer citizens, the
aerarium would suffer from a diminution of the
rents of the ager publicus; but, on this occasion,
Crassus preferred the quest of popularity to the
reputation of consistent adherence to the aristocracy. (Cic. Brut. 43, de Ojf. ii. 18.) By eloquence
above his years, he succeeded in carrying the law,
and proceeded himself to found the colony. In
B. c. 114, he undertook the defence of his kinswoman, the vestal Licinia, who, with two other
vestals, Marcia and Aemilia, were accused of in
cest; but, though upon a former trial his client
had been acquitted by L. Caecilius Mettius, pontifex maximus, and the whole college of pontiffs,
the energy and ability of his' defence were unable
to prevail against the severity of L. Cassius, the
scopulus reorum, who was appointed inquisitor by
the people for the purpose of reviewing the former
lenient sentence. (Veil. i. 15; Cic. de Orat. ii. 55,
de Off. ii. 18; Macrob. i. 10; Clinton, Fasti,
B. c. 114; Ascon. in Mil. p. 46, ed. Orelli.)
In his quaestorship he was the colleague of
Q. Mucius Scaevola, with whom, as colleague, he
served every other office except the tribunate. of