Crassus goes to Syria

Marcus Crassus had for years been reckoned among the heads of the “three-headed monster,” without any proper title to be so included. He served as a makeweight to trim the balance between the real regents Pompeius and Caesar, or, to speak more accurately, he threw his weight into the scale of Caesar against Pompeius. The part of a supernumerary colleague is not a very honourable one; but Crassus was never hindered by any keen sense of honour from pursuing his own advantage. He was a merchant and was open to negotiation. What was offered to him was not much; but, as more was not to be got, he accepted it, and sought to forget the ambition that fretted him, and his chagrin at occupying a position so near to power and yet so powerless, amidst his always accumulating piles of gold. But the conference at Luca changed the state of matters also for him; with, the view of still retaining the preponderance as compared with Pompeius after concessions so extensive, Cæsar gave to his old confederate Crassus an opportunity of attaining in Syria through the Parthian war the same position to which Cæsar had attained by the Celtic war in Graul. It was difficult to say whether these new prospects proved more attractive to the ardent thirst for gold which had now become at the age of sixty a second nature and grew only the more intense with every newly won million, or to the ambition which had been long repressed with difficulty in the old man's breast and now glowed in it with restless fire.