He avoided open collisions, however, with criminal justice, and lived himself like a genuine moneyed man in homely and simple style.

In this way Crassus rose in the course of a few years from a man of ordinary senatorial fortune to be the master of wealth which not long before his death, after defraying enormous extraordinary expenses, still amounted to 170,000,000 sesterces (1,700,000 pounds).

He had become the richest of Romans and thereby, at the same time, a great political power.

If, according to his expression, no one might call himself rich who could not maintain an army from his revenues, one who could do this was hardly any longer a mere citizen.
In reality the views of Crassus aimed at a higher object than the possession of the best-filled money-chest in Rome.

He grudged no pains to extend his connections.