an war in which he lost his life, he made an inventory of his
property and found that he was possessed of 7,100 talents, $8,165,000,
double what Cicero attributes to him. How did Crassus increase his fortune
so enormously? Plutarch says that he bought the property confiscated
by Sulla at a very low figure. Then, he had a great number of slaves
distinguished for their talents; lecturers, writers, bankers, business men,
physicians, and hotel-keepers, who turned over to him the benefits which
they realized in their diverse industries. Moreover, he had among his
slaves 500 masons and architects. Rome was built almost entirely of wood
and the houses were very high, consequently fires were frequent and
destructive. As soon as a fire broke out, Crassus hastened to the place
with his throng of slaves, bought the now burning buildings--as well as
those threatened--at a song, and then set his slaves to work extinguishing
the fires. By this means he had become possessed of a large[16] part of
Rome.

Some other facts confirm that which Plutarch tells us of Crassus.
Athenaeus[17] says that it was not rare to find Roman citizens possessed
of 20,000 slaves. At the commencement of the civil war between Caesar and
Pompey, the future dictator found opposed to him, in Picenum, Domitius[18]
Ahenobarbus at the head of thirty cohorts. Domitius seeing his troops
wavering, promised to each of them four jugera out of his own possessions,
and a proportionate part to the centurians and veterans. What must have
been the fortune of a man who was able to distribute out of his own lands,
and surely without bankrupting himself, about 100,000 jugera?

[Footnote 1: Cicero says these exactions were common and that the provinces
were even restrained from complaining. Verres apologized for his exactions
by saying that he simply followed the common example. In Verrem, II, 1-3,
17.]

[Footnote 2: "Parentes aut parvi liberi militum, ut quisque potentiori
confinis erat, sedibus pellebantur." Sall., _Jugertha_, 41. Horace, Ode II,
18.]

[Footnote 3: Duruy, _Hist. des Romains_, II, 46-47.]

[Footnote 4: "Sex domini semissem Africae possidebant." _Hist. Nat._,
XVIII, 7.]

[Footnote 5: Seneca, Epist., 89.]

[Footnote 6: Petronius, Sat., 48: VII. calendas sextilis in praedio Cumano,
quod est Trimalchionis, nati sunt pueri, XXX, puellae, XL; sublata in
horreum, ex area, tritici millia modium quingenta; boves domiti quingenti
... eodem die incendium factum es