Crassus: The First Tycoon (Ancient Lives)

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I wanted to learn more about Crassus after enjoying Robert Harris's Cicero Trilogy, in which the First Tycoon features as one of the main villains. Crassus, by contrast, owned shares in Spanish mines and lent the proceeds to politicians whom he kept as clients, playing one against the other in the hope that none would ever exceed his own influence on events. Crassus is best known as the richest man of Rome and member of the First Triumvirate together with Caesar and Pompey.

Cracking first rate read on Marcus Licinius Crassus, the lesser known of the triumvirate formed with Pompey and Julius Caesar. The locals of Cesano on the edge of Rome are expecting a 21st century gold rush, their own Texas oil boom, after the announcement last year that the ‘rare earth’, lithium, lies in large extractable seams beneath their soil. One of the strengths of Stothard's writing is that he shows rather than tells: anecdote is preferred to adjectives. The central message is a topical one - even if someone is good at amassing wealth and political clout, they may be very bad at war.La o primă analiză, seria ar putea fi cuprinsă în colecțiile Osprey, calitatea scriiturii și veridicitatea informațiilor tinzând în acea direcție.

A fost considerat, de asemenea, cel mai bogat om din Roma și a rămas celebru pentru felul tragic în care s-a sfârșit viața sa, undeva în deșerturile Parției, ca recuzită într-o piesă de teatru. Eighteen years after rising to the public’s attention for ending Spartacus’ revolt, Caesar’s one-time banker and Rome’s former head of state departed for the Tigris and Euphrates with mad imperialist designs of annexing Parthia to Rome. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Since the Romans were certain that their country was the greatest country of its time, the underground wealth had surely to be somewhere.It has all the necessary elements: the harmatia of the protagonist - that fatal flaw in someone otherwise favoured by fortune; the hubris and nemesis; that peripeteia when realization dawns that retreat and defeat are the only option; and heaps of dramatic irony as the audience watches how each chapter or 'scene', each stage in Crassus's life leads to this one conclusion. If historical writing has shifted attention from the privileged and powerful in recent years, hovering over the lives of outsiders and the disenfranchised, Crassus yanks that pendulum right from its socket. If you are looking for a quick read that will teach you something new about a largely forgotten man, then it is worthwhile. Previous knowledge of the characters and the time period is definitely helpful as it is not a thorough biography (probably for the better).

In a manner much befitting a subject whose head ended as a stage prop in a Greek tragedy, this story of Crassus is told as if it were an ancient Greek play. The book starts when Crassus is already in his sixties, preparing for his military campaign against the Parthians. Inspection copies are books under consideration as required or recommended reading for an upcoming course.Pentru cei care nu se gândesc zilnic la Imperiul Roman, merită amintit faptul că Crassus, acest tycoon cum îl numește autorul, a făcut parte din "Primul Triumvirat", acționând ca o contrapondere pentru ceilalți doi colegi ai săi: mai faimoșii Iuliu Caesar și Pompei cel Mare. No amount of money could make his unprovoked attack on Parthia in 53 BCE seem a good thing except to the soldiers and officers who wanted to make money out of it.

Perennials PERENNIALS constant friends A selection of novels, memoirs and more by some of our favourite authors. Author seems more concerned with using the most grandiose of vocabulary than to tell the story of Crassus. Crassus's vanity and a desire to achieve something on the battlefield worthy of being welcomed back to Rome with a Triumph -- not accorded to him for the defeat of Spartacus -- drives him to his death and many of his men in faraway Parthia. However, he ignored it and worse he also dismissed a warning from an emissary of his Parthian opponent when Crassus turned down an offer of being free to leave and said he would give his answer once he was embedded in the royal city of Seleuceia.The story of Crassus is both extraordinary and cautionary, but through his eyes you can get a unique POV into the quickly unraveling world of the Republic. Could have done with more investigation into how Crassus and his image have been rendered throughout (Romand and beyond) historiography as well as the impact of Carrhae on the wider development of the Roman Empire (there are only ever subtle hints at it). Some said that his open mouth, shriveled by desert air, had been filled with molten gold as testament to his lifetime of greed.