Talk:Marcus Licinius Crassus

Caesar.

There is no evidence to Caesar being a military tribune under Crassus. It is very possible for he was Tribune at the time of Spartacus's revolt, but not historical evidence can be found to back this.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.46.158.75 (talk) 02:23, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

No that was an unfortunate result of the Master of Rome series that now everybody is an expert on this time in history.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.132.216.253 (talk) 05:15, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Death of Crassus

This page (now edited) repeated a story about Crassus that he was executed by having molten gold poured down his throat. Plutarch disagrees with this account, giving an entirely different version of Crassus' death. This story about Crassus' death probably comes from confusion with Appian's account of the death of Manius Aquillius at the hands of Mithridates.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.254.151.27 (talk) 20:29, 25 June 2006‎

biography section

I recognize some of the wording of the first paragraph of the biography section from Caesar: Life of A Colossus, by Adrian Goldsworthy. I am not very familiar with wikipedia standards regarding this, but the lack of citation, and quite probably, exact copying, is most likely a violation and needs to be looked at more closely. Other unreferenced parts of this section also fit with Goldsworthy's writing style and should be investigated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.249.79.24 (talk) 10:53, 23 December 2006‎

Grandfather

The roman convention indicates in a name "John Doe X F Y N" where X is the father's praenomen and Y the grandfather praenomen. How come Crassus could be name "P F P N" where both P stand for Publius, and the article says his grandfather is named Marcus? 24.200.206.181 (talk) 20:37, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

This does need resolving. Is there a source for the "P F P N" inscription? ----Ehrenkater (talk) 17:28, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

According to Pliny, M. Licinius Crassus Agelastus is indeed M. Licinius Crassus' grandfather (Hist. Nat., vii.18.3), and this is what Smith reports ("Crassus," Dict. of Greek & Rom. Biog. & Myth. [1870] 1:872-73, 874). Unless we get a source for the P F P N inscription, my vote is to reference this instead. --HavelockWilltravel (talk) 13:59, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Crass error

I have deleted the silly piece of folk etymology about the expression "crass error" in Spanish (or any other language) coming from the name Crassus. It comes from the Latin "crassus" meaning "gross" (with which it is ultimately cognate), which is no doubt the origin of the Latin name. The reference to the Spanish Academy given does not support any linkage to Crassus, so whoever added this story was being dishonest as well as silly. Intelligent Mr Toad (talk) 07:15, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Wealth

The conception of Crassus as 'wealthiest man in history' wasn't even true in Roman times, nevermind in all of history. His reputation in this matter is not mentioned by contemporaries such as Cicero, Caesar, or Sallust - only later authors such as Plutarch made this claim. Badian noted that Pompey could have 'bought and sold Crassus'.

Crassus was certainly a man of immense wealth, but the claim to 'wealthiest man in Rome' - nevermind 'wealthiest man in histroy' is one which is completely unsourced. The difference between the richer Pompey and Crassus was that Crassus was boastful about his wealth, and Pompey was not.

I will aim to find sources from the literature, but for now there are precisely zero sources for the claim on this page (and only one on the 'list of wealthiest people' page, from a pop-history book), so the statement has no justification.

Fouriels (talk) 11:24, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

References

Crassus' age

I see that his date of birth was recently changed from c.115BC to 112BC. This would make him approx 59 at the time of his death. Most accounts (modern and contemporary) have him at least 60 years old at the time of his death. Plutarch says "Crassus was sixty years old and over". Most accounts age him as 61/62. Is there any consensus on exactly how old he was? --164.11.53.53 (talk) 12:43, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

C. 115BC seems correct. Compare Encyclopaedia Britannica or this book. I couldn't find a reliable source for 112BC. I'll change it back. Huon (talk) 19:11, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

I just noticed that the infobox gives sources for 112BC. Those seem of equal quality. In such cases we should present both options unless we can find reliable sources explicitly resolving the issue (ie "born in 112, not in 115 as was previously believed due to..." or something like that). I'll leave a note at WT:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome; maybe people there have an idea what the scholarly consensus is. Huon (talk) 19:55, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

It depends what you mean by "equal quality" :)

1. Encyclopedias are tertiary sources: not as good for Wikipedia as secondary sources, but they can be reliable if well edited. Whatever we might say about Britannica, it has been well edited and it has been pretty reliable for basic details, so, if it were a fight between Britannica and the Pimlico Dictionary Of Classical Civilizations (currently published by Penguin, though the title suggests it was taken over from another publisher), Britannica has the edge. The Pimlico dictionary is by a single non-specialist author, and what's quoted [in our footnote] is not even an article about Crassus. So, where did Arthur Cotterell pick up this date? How carefully did he check it? Who can say? Wikipedia has no reason to rely on him.
2. The book Primary Sources for Ancient History is different: it is compiled by a classicist who is actually a specialist in Roman republican historical sources. That should be very good. What's being cited in our footnote is not one of the primary sources implied in the book title, but Gary Forsythe's introduction to a primary source or sources. There's still nothing to say how he arrived at this date, and he's not writing about Crassus in particular. That's a tertiary source too, though by a good author.
3. [Comment added afterwards: The second link given by Huon above, supporting "115 BC", is a self-published book (the publisher is [www.lulu.com/ Lulu Press]) so definitely not a reliable source in Wikipedia terms.]

Higher than both of these would be a good secondary source, an article or book about Crassus's career that doesn't just give a date (or range) but discusses it or footnotes it or says how it's known. Andrew Dalby 10:21, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

So, I've looked via JSTOR for an article that focuses on Crassus, and found some, but none of them discusses his date of birth. The question might arise in Magistrates of the Roman Republic by T. R. S. Broughton, but I don't have access to this at home. My next thought is the biography in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Enzyklopädie (an encyclopedia, but in this case a good secondary source for us because sources are cited and discussed). This answers the question in its inimitable way. "Er wurde 115 oder 114 (Plut. Crass. 17,3) ... geboren." "He was born in 115 or 114, see Plutarch, Life of Crassus 17.3." That means that in 1926, when this article by de:Matthias Gelzer was published, there was no other known evidence than the statement by Plutarch, and no one had shown that there was any reason to question it. Well, Plutarch says (in an anecdote about early 54 BC) that Crassus was "just past his sixtieth year". So that's why people say "about 115 BC": they might say "115 or 114 BC", as Gelzer does. It's less justifiable to say "115 BC" without any vagueness, because Plutarch isn't quite precise enough for that, and there's no other primary source.

One still might suggest that, after Gelzer wrote in 1926, some other evidence turned up which means that the date "112 BC" is now justified, and someone has said so in a secondary source we could rely on. It's a bit hard to imagine what evidence that would be. The books by Marshall and Ward, in our bibliography, might help if anyone can get access to them. Andrew Dalby 13:26, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

I noticed that the book I linked to above was self-published when I tried to fill in the bibliographical details while citing it; instead I cited "Biographischer Index der Antike", a scholarly work published by a reputable publisher. Huon (talk) 00:05, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

That's good! I didn't notice. Andrew Dalby 12:13, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Infobox

This article, along with several other articles about ancient Romans, was changed to use a different infobox, {{infobox officeholder}}. In consequence, there's discussion about which infobox to use and how at Talk:Julius Caesar#Infobox and then at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome#Infoboxes for Roman office-holders as a more central location. NebY (talk) 19:47, 22 November 2022 (UTC)