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.
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