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There was even a fourth, meditated by Crassus, which Caesar so far encouraged as to undertake a journey to Rome from a very distant quarter merely with a view to such chances as it might offer to him; but, as it did not, upon examination, seem to him a very promising scheme, he judged it best to look coldly upon it, or not to embark in it by any personal co-operation.
Noble of birth, but not trusted by his peers, he joins with Cæsar, leader of all the people, and with Crassus, for more power, and loses the world by giving Cæsar an army, and Gaul to conquer. Crassus, brave general, too, is slain in battle in far Parthia, and Pompey steals a march by getting a long term in Spain. Cæsar demands as much and is refused by Pompey's friends.
Suetonius, who got his story not improbably from Livy, tells us that Cæsar was suspected of having joined this conspiracy with Crassus; and he goes on to say that Cicero, writing subsequently to one Axius, declared that "Cæsar had attempted in his Consulship to accomplish the dominion which he had intended to grasp in his Ædileship" the year in question. There is, however, no such letter extant.
But though Crassus was overbearing and tyrannical in his public life, yet we cannot deny that the shrinking timidity and cowardice of Nikias deserve equally severe censure; and it must be remembered that when Crassus was carrying matters with so high a hand, it was no Kleon or Hyperbolus that he had for an antagonist, but the great Julius Cæsar himself, and Pompeius who had triumphed three several times, and that he gave way to neither of them, but became their equal in power, and even excelled Pompeius in dignity by obtaining the office of censor.
I have mentioned these facts not because I am afraid of these dreadful feathers and stains of soot least of all with you to judge me but that Crassus might meet with due punishment for having sold mere smoke to a helpless rustic like Aemilianus. Their next charge concerns the manufacture of a seal which they produced when they read Pudentilla's letters.
Philus had a far smaller household than Laelius, Laelius than Scipio, Scipio than Crassus the Rich, and yet not even Crassus had as much as he wanted; and so, though he surpassed all others in wealth, he was himself surpassed by his own avarice and seemed rich to all save himself.
He ended them at last, however, successfully, and Caesar would not allow his caution to be blamed. During the same months, Publius Crassus had made a brilliant campaign in Aquitaine. The Aquitani had not long before overthrown two Roman armies.
Crassus meanwhile had followed the robber-army nearly as far as the mouth, of the Crathis, and, like Scipio before Numantia, ordered his soldiers, seeing that they did not fight as they ought, to construct an entrenched wall of the length of thirty-five miles, which shut off the Bruttian peninsula from the rest of Italy, intercepted the insurgent army on the return from Rhegium, and cut off its supplies.
In 55 B.C. Pompey was consul for the second time with Crassus. He received as his provinces the two Spains, but he governed them by his legates and remained in the neighbourhood of the City.
His beds were of massive silver, his table and plate of pure gold, and his mattresses, covered with carpets of cloth of gold, were stuffed with down found only under the wings of partridges. Crassus paid one hundred thousand sesterces for a golden cup. Banqueting rooms were strewed with lilies and roses.
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