Description

The story of Romes richest man who died a humiliating desert death in search of military glory

Marcus Licinius Crassus 11553 BCE was a modern man in an ancient world a pioneer disrupter of finance and politics and the richest man of the last years of the Roman republic Without his catastrophic ambition this trailblazing tycoon might have quietly entered history as Romes first modern political financier Instead Crassus and his son led an army on an unprovoked campaign against Parthia into what are now the borderlands of Turkey Syria and Iraq losing a battle at Carrhae which scarred Roman minds for generations

After Crassus was killed historians told many stories of his demise Some said that his open mouth shriveled by desert air had been filled with molten gold as testament to his lifetime of greed His story poses both immediate and lasting questions about the intertwining of money ambition and power