I believe the murder was set in motion far from the scene of the crime, in modern day Turkey, in a patch of desert about ten miles north of the border with Syria. In 53 B.C.E., this spot of what was then emptiness was called Carrhae (above), and in Roman history that name is synonymous with shame.
It was on the plain at Carrhae that 20,000 Legionaries died (above), and worse, 10,000 were captured, and even worse, it was here that the aristocrat’s aristocrat, the greedy bloodthirsty Marcus Licinius Crassus, was killed.
Few who did not depend on Crassus for their financial security had reason to mourn his demise. But within ten years of his death, what was left of the Roman Republic would collapse, and the cause of democracy would be set back two thousand years – and all that occurred because Crassus got what he deserved. I would label all that the horrible unintended consequences of a good thing.
Marcus Licinius Crassus (above), the richest man in Rome, who also saw himself as a hero. He led the right wing at the battle of Coline Gate, which made Sulla dictator of Rome. He had defeated the slave armies of Spartacus, and lined the Appian Way with 6,000 crucified slaves. Then he had turned to running the finances of Sulla' s brutal regime. But now, at 60, he wanted to be a hero again.
His plan to achieve this was to invade Parthia, the empire centered upon present day Iran. But age had not made Crassus more intellectually flexible or humble of spirit. When offered assistance from the King of Armenia, Crassus chose to keep all the plunder for himself.
So, in the spring of 53 B.C., at the head of seven veteran legions and 8,000 cavalry commanded by his son, Publius, Crassus crossed the Euphrates river at Zeugma, and almost immediately started making mistakes.
He hired a guide who led him deep into a treeless desert near Carrhea (above), and then vanished. And once the legions were ankle deep in sand and desperately short of water, only then did the Parthian army appear - 10,000 cavalry armed with powerful bows.
Arrows showered upon the massed legions, wounding men and sapping moral. The Roman tactical response was to form the infantry into turtles (testudos) (above), closing ranks tightly, with the center ranks marching beneath their shields, and the soldiers on the edges presenting the enemy with a moving wall.
But so strong were the Parthian bows that some arrows even penetrated the turtle's shell. It went on for hours. The turtles could only march in a straight line, and not very quickly under a baking desert sun. Eventually, reasoned Crassus, the Parthian bowmen would run out of arrows. But then he spotted large camel trains approaching, each dromedary carrying a fresh supply of arrows.
In desperation Publius's cavalry charged the camels, but the Parthian's proved adept at shooting while retreating - the famous Parthian shot (above), the sting in the scorpion's tail.
Publius was killed and his cavalry scattered. The Parthians closed in again on the turtles and the arrows continued to shower down, as did the merciless heat. Eventually Crassus was forced to retreat into the village of Carrhea. After a night without water his officers forced Crassus to parlay with the Parthian commander. The meeting was a disaster.
The deaf Crassus perceived an insult in some Parthian translation, and moved to remount his horse. A Parthian officer grabbed the horses' bridle. A proud Roman officer pulled his gladius to defend his commander's honor, and the Parthian generals slaughtered the Roman officers, including Marcus Licinius Crassus. After that, the Parthians fell upon the leaderless legions, and effectively wiped them out.
The legend is that after the slaughter, the Parthians poured molten gold into the severed head of the greedy Crassus. It sounds like a terrible waste of a precious metal, but then the war had been a terrible waste of seven irreplaceable Roman legions. But the two men in all the world who understood intuitively what a disaster Crassus' death really was for Rome, were his two greatest competitors.
The sardonic Sulla had nicknamed Gnaeus Pompeius, as Pompey the Great (above). But Sulla had meant it as a joke - whatever else he was, Sulla was a ruthless judge of character. Sent by Sulla to secure the Roman grain supplies in Sicily, the young Pompey had earned another nickname, 'the adolescent butcher'.
When the citizens of one small Sicilian village argued his attack upon them was illegal, Pompey responded bluntly, “Stop quoting laws. We carry weapons!” Returning home, Pompey demanded a triumphal parade, usually reserved for military victories. After Sulla's death, the Senate dispatched Pompey to crush a rebellious general. Pompey bribed one of the rebel officers to kill the general, and then eliminated the traitor. His justification was typically blunt. “A dead man cannot bite”. And he claimed another triumph. Sent to crush pirates who were raiding Roman grain fleets, Pompey bought them off, and again, claimed a triumph - Pompey Maximus, indeed.
As the two richest and most ambitious men in Rome, Pompey and Crassus had initially cooperated to strengthen the tribuni plebis.
This was not out of some faith in the Senate, but to use the tribunes as a buffer between them. For four hundred years these 'Tribunes of the Plebs' had been a counter-balance to the aristocrats in the Senate. Elected by the whole male population, tribunes could not make laws, but they could veto any law passed by the Senate (above). Sulla had reduced the tribunes to a ceremonial post. But Pompey and Crassus, increasingly driven apart by suspicion, paranoia and envy, used the tribunes to prevent their opponent from enacting policies they did not like. And one of the men supported by Crassus for tribune of the people had been Gaius Julius Caesar.
Sulla had taken one look at the smart, ambitious young Caesar (above), and marked him down for elimination. Julius avoided Sulla's assassins by joining the army. Once Sulla died, Julius returned to Rome, where Crassus backed his election as a Tribune and then sent him to Spain. While there Caesar had defeated two small tribes. This earned him the right to a triumph. Instead, Caesar asked Crassus for help, meaning money, to run for Tribune of the people.
Romans were so afraid of someone wanting to rule over them as a king, that the Tribune term of office was just one year long, and there were two equal Tribunes elected each year. Each had the power of veto over any action by the other or the Senate. This was a system designed to ensure deadlock. As a result of the election in 60 B.C., Caesar (Crassus' man) was elected.
But the other consul elected that year, Marcus Calpurnius Bilbus , was Pompey's man, meaning every law Crassus backed, Bibulus vetoed, and every law Pompey pushed, Caesar vetoed. And it was Caesar’s political genius that he saw the way to use this deadlock to increase his own power.
In 59 B.C., Pompey pushed for a land reform act that would give farms to veterans of his legions . Bibulus tried to veto the bill, but thugs hired by Caesar dragged Bilbulus out of the forum, threatened him and dumped a dung bucket on his head. The shaken man withdrew from public life. Then quickly, Caesar moved to grant Pompey's veteran's equal lands. And that quickly power in Rome was changed, from a deadlocked confrontation between two men, into a more balanced government ruled by three - The First Triumvirate. As a reward for bringing peace between Crassus and Pompey, Caesar was appointed Governor of Trans-alpine Gaul, what today is France, for ten years.
Thus Caesar went to seek his future in conquering and plundering Gaul with four legions. Pompey, who left his legions in Spain, stayed in Rome to plunder the Republic. And the financier Crassus had turned eastward, to conquer and plunder Parthia with seven legions.
But in 53 B.C.E. Crassus (above) had gotten himself killed, and the Roman Republic, was abruptly reduced to a direct confrontation between two men. It was a contest which must result in the death of one of them, and the Republic.
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