ey are master. After a time, however, he grew so rich that a new
ambition seized him. He began to thirst after direct political
power--not merely the indirect power which his money gave him. Crassus
was no fool. In financial affairs of all kinds he had courage, resource,
ingenuity, determination, and persistence, with that touch of
imagination which belongs to any kind of genius. It was not only by
accident that everything he touched turned to gold. But his imagination
was of a narrowly limited kind. He understood all the lower motives that
move men but none of the higher ones, for he understood only what he
found within himself, and within himself there was no room for the power
of any kind of idea.

With most Romans of his time religion had become a dead thing. They kept
the sacred images in their houses and performed all the official and
recognized ceremonies. But this was matter of custom and manners, like
the rules of dress. There was no reality or feeling in it. The reality
of Roman religion had been men's devotion to their country and the
belief in the city as a great thing whose life went on after their own
ended. In its service they had been prepared to spend themselves, for it
to die. This kind of devotion had been profoundly shaken. The average
Roman of Crassus's time believed in nothing but his own pleasure, and in
power and glory for himself.

In this Crassus was exactly like them. He was the richest man in Rome,
but riches after a time ceased to satisfy him. They did not give him
popularity. This it is true was partly his own fault, for Crassus, like
many very wealthy men, combined reckless occasional expenditure with
steady meanness. He gave the most gorgeous shows; but he hardly ever let
off a debtor. His hardness in collecting small sums was a byword. He
would spend thousands one day and haggle about a shilling the next. Of
course it was this careful looking after the pence that had made and
kept Crassus so rich; but it did not make him beloved. Nor, though he
was a very capable soldier, could he compete in this respect with
Pompeius, who always seemed to manage to get the showy things to do
while other people only got the hard work. When Crassus boasted of his
exploits in the campaign against Spartacus, people shrugged their
shoulders. Yet the Slave War had been a most serious danger, the more so
that it broke out at a moment when difficulties were dark on every side.

More than once in the last few