Crassus: The First Tycoon (Ancient Lives)

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This biography is part of a series by Yale University Press called Ancient Lives that has already covered Cleopatra and Demetrius. I will certainly try those out, but hope they are less dense as my knowledge of those periods is virtually non-existent. King Charles will 'never reach status of the Queen who would always rise over 'problematic' family members, Omid Scobie says in new book Stothard] manages to bring us Crassus’s life and times in amazing detail. There’s barely a wasted line in the book. . . . Every sentence hits where it needs to, and the book comes together beautifully. . . . A gem.”—Gil Roth on The Virtual Memories Show Crassus until now has not been the subject of a popular biography. For the many fans of this period of Roman history, Stothard offers a fascinating story, both well told and well worth the telling.”—Anthony Spawforth, Literary Review

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Gwyneth Paltrow joins ex Chris Martin, Dakota Johnson and children Apple and Moses on a helicopter after Thanksgiving party But the rise and fall of Crassus ran through the chaos of the final decades of the republic. His father was killed, and Crassus had to flee to Spain during the height of the populist tyranny of Marius and his supporters. By the time he was in his 20s, “he had seen politics at close quarters since he was a boy.” Witnessing brutality, murder, and scheming, Crassus was resolved to build his own fortune in a subtler manner. Acquiring run-down and decaying manors, he rebuilt them and rented them out to curry favors. He built his own private empire on social trust and financial loans to those in need but also to those who would be useful allies in the future. “Crassus took a more businesslike approach” to politics and social scheming than the murder politics with which he had been previously familiar. After all, even the winners in that latter situation did not seem to last long. He was a hard, tough man, Marcus Licinius Crassus, a proper b*****d even by the standards of ancient Rome. Though you had to be tough to survive in those harsh days. Pictured: Laurence Olivier with fists clenched on table in a scene from the film 'Spartacus', 1960 Stothard’s biographical history is erudite yet written in an easy-to-read style honed by years as an editor, journalist, and critic. . . . In Crassus, Stothard has produced a finely drawn, insightful portrait of an infamous man.”—Lindsay Powell, Ancient Warfare

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As Beyonce unveils oddly light-skinned look...experts warn of the life-threatening effects of skin bleaching treatments, including coma Jodie Marsh is branded 'pathetic' after vegan glamour model compared meat-eaters to serial killer Jeffrey DahmerBut like many political leaders, he was burdened by an overreaching ambition, and the sense that some of the glories of ancient Rome were being withheld from him. Above all, he craved a triumphant march through Rome after great military deeds. Omid Scobie takes aim at Kate in first bombshells: Biographer claims late Queen liked that 'Katie Keen' she was 'coachable' unlike Diana It was this vibrant mixed civilization off in the east that drew Crassus, who had managed to survive and thrive through the Marian civil wars, Sulla’s restoration, and the Catiline Conspiracy. With the Roman Republic devolving into a three-man power struggle, Crassus had to pursue something that he only faintly tasted in his earlier years: military glory. Although he defeated and crucified Spartacus, the fact that Crassus’s greatest military achievement was fighting slaves did not bode well for him. Pompey had conquered the lands of the east, including Jerusalem. Julius Caesar was conquering Gaul and winning much praise. And even Crassus’s son, Publius, was making a name for himself as a daring cavalry commander in Caesar’s army. Yet Stothard's book is clever. In a manner much befitting a subject whose head ended as a stage prop in a Greek tragedy, this story of Crassus is told as if it were an ancient Greek play. It has all the necessary elements: the harmatia of the protagonist - that fatal flaw in someone otherwise favoured by fortune; the hubris and nemesis; that peripeteia when realization dawns that retreat and defeat are the only option; and heaps of dramatic irony as the audience watches how each chapter or 'scene', each stage in Crassus's life leads to this one conclusion. Aristotle would be proud. Ferne McCann looks cosy in a cardigan and beanie hat as she takes daughters Sunday, 6, and Finty, 4 months, to Winter Wonderland

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Rochelle Humes jokes about husband Marvin's I'm A Celeb stint after his hilarious 'humping' trial with Josie Gibson T.J. Holmes and Amy Robach are still going strong as they are seen canoodling on NYC street and sharing boozy lunch The Crown actor Jared Harris who portrayed dying King George VI in first season of Netflix show says Royal Family would be 'delighted' by the series His last sight of his father was of his head on a spike in the Roman Forum: he had killed himself rather than be dishonoured by defeat in the vicious civil wars scarring Italy in the early years of the last century BC. Crassus himself was forced to flee into hiding in Spain, where he had to hole up in a cave with some followers. Though it couldn’t have been that bad: an ally would send over good meals and a couple of pretty slave girls every evening who were told to enter and say they were ‘in search of a master’. #MeToo this wasn’t.