Crassus rose to political prominence following his victory over the slave revolt led by Spartacus, sharing the consulship with his rival Pompey the Great.

Following his second consulship, Crassus was appointed as the governor of Roman Syria, which he used as the launchpad for a military campaign against the Parthian Empire, Rome's long-time eastern enemy.

Crassus' death permanently unraveled the alliance between Caesar and Pompey, since his political influence and wealth had been a counterbalance to the two greater militarists.

There were three main branches of the house of the Licinii Crassi in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC,[11] and many mistakes in identifications and lines have arisen owing to the uniformity of Roman nomenclature, erroneous modern suppositions, and the unevenness of information across the generations.

But no ancient source accords him or his father the Dives cognomen; Plutarch says his great wealth was acquired rather than inherited, and that he was raised in modest circumstances.

After the Marian purges and the subsequent sudden death of Gaius Marius, the surviving consul Lucius Cornelius Cinna (father-in-law of Julius Caesar) imposed proscriptions on those surviving Roman senators and equestrians who had supported Lucius Cornelius Sulla in his 88 BC march on Rome and overthrow of the traditional Roman political arrangements.

After almost a day of fighting, the battle was going poorly for Sulla; his own center was being pushed back and was on the verge of collapse when he got word from Crassus that he had comprehensively crushed the enemy before him.

"[22] Some of Crassus' wealth was acquired conventionally, through slave trafficking, production from silver mines, and speculative real estate purchases.

Upon arriving at the scene, however, the firefighters did nothing while Crassus offered to buy the burning building from the distressed property owner, at a miserable price.

Now, Licinia was the owner of a pleasant villa in the suburbs, which Crassus wished to get at a low price, and it was for this reason that he was forever hovering about the woman and paying his court to her, until he fell under the abominable suspicion.

Family meals were simple, and entertaining was generous but not ostentatious; Crassus chose his companions during leisure hours on the basis of personal friendship as well as political utility.

[26] Although the Crassi, as noble plebeians, would have displayed ancestral images in their atrium,[27] they did not lay claim to a fictionalized genealogy that presumed divine or legendary ancestors, a practice not uncommon among the Roman nobility.

During the Third Servile War, or Spartacus' revolt (73–71 BC), Crassus offered to equip, train, and lead new troops at his own expense, after several legions had been defeated and their commanders killed in battle.

When a segment of his army fled from battle, abandoning their weapons, Crassus revived the ancient practice of decimation – i.e. executing one out of every ten men, with the victims selected by drawing lots.

Plutarch reports that "many things horrible and dreadful to see" occurred during the infliction of punishment, which was witnessed by the rest of Crassus' army.

On the night of a heavy snowstorm, they sneaked through Crassus' lines and made a bridge of dirt and tree branches over the ditch, thus escaping.

In Plutarch's account, Crassus "had written to the Senate that they must summon Lucullus from Thrace and Pompey from Spain, but he was sorry now that he had done so, and was eager to bring the war to an end before those generals came.

Pompey arrived in time to deal with the disorganized and defeated fugitives, writing to the Senate that "indeed, Crassus had conquered the slaves, but that he himself had extirpated the war.

"[38] Crassus displayed his wealth by realizing public sacrifices to Hercules, entertaining the populace at 10,000 tables and distributing sufficient grain to last each family three months, an act that had the additional ends of performing a previously made religious vow of a tithe to the demigod Hercules and also to gain support among the members of the popular party.

In 53 BC, at the Battle of Carrhae (modern Harran, in Turkey), Crassus' legions were defeated by a numerically inferior Parthian force.

Crassus' legions were primarily heavy infantry, and not prepared for an attack by swift mounted archers, a tactic which Parthian troops had mastered.

The Parthian horse archers devastated the unprepared Romans with hit-and-run tactics, feigning retreats as they shot to their rear.

[44] Crassus refused his quaestor Gaius Cassius Longinus' plans to reconstitute the Roman battle line, and remained in the testudo formation to protect his flanks until the Parthians eventually ran out of arrows.

However, the Parthians brought camels carrying arrows to continuously resupply their archers, letting them relentlessly barrage the Romans until dusk.

Despite taking severe casualties, the Romans successfully retreated to Carrhae, forced to leave many wounded behind to be slaughtered by the Parthians.

Crassus, despondent at the death of his son Publius in the battle, finally agreed to meet the Parthian general Surena.

[47] Both kings were enjoying a performance of Euripides' tragedy The Bacchae when an actor of the royal court, named Jason of Tralles, took the head and sang these verses: We bring from the mountainA tendril fresh-cut to the palaceA wonderful prey.