me to the place, he pointed
to the road that led up to it, and told them to go in boldly. Crassus,
seeing them approach, was afraid that the spot was known, and had been
discovered; and, accordingly, he asked them what they wanted, and who
they were. The women replied, as they had been instructed, that they
were looking for their master, who was concealed there; on which
Crassus perceived the joke which Vibius was playing off upon him, and
his kind attentions, and received the women; and they stayed with him
for the rest of the time, telling and reporting to Vibius what he
requested them. Fenestella[18] says, that he saw one of these slaves
when she was an old woman, and that he had often heard her mention
this, and tell the story with pleasure.

VI. In this way Crassus spent eight months in concealment; but as
soon as he heard of Cinna's end, he showed himself, and out of the
numbers that flocked to him he selected two thousand five hundred,
with whom he went round to the cities; and one city, Malaca,[19] he
plundered, according to the testimony of many authors, though they say
that he denied the fact, and contradicted those who affirmed it. After
this he got together some vessels, and crossed over to Libya, to
Metellus Pius,[20] a man of reputation who had collected a force by no
means contemptible. But he stayed no long time there; for he
quarrelled with Metellus, and then set out to join Sulla, by whom he
was treated with particular respect. When Sulla had passed over the
sea to Italy, he wished all the young men who were with him to aid him
actively, and he appointed them to different duties. Crassus, on being
sent into the country of the Marsi to raise troops, asked for a guard,
because the road lay through a tract which was occupied by the enemy;
Sulla replied to him in passion and with vehemence, "I give thee as
guards thy father, thy brother, thy friends, thy kinsmen, who were cut
off illegally and wrongfully, and whose murderers I am now pursuing."
Stung by these words, and pricked on to the undertaking, Crassus
immediately set out, and, vigorously making his way through the enemy,
he got together a strong force, and showed himself active in the
battles of Sulla. The events of that war, it is said, first excited
him to rivalry and competition with Pompeius for distinction. Pompeius
was younger than Crassus, and his father had a bad repute at Rome, and
had been bitterly hated by the citizens; but still Pompeius