From: Michael S. Lorrey (retroman@together.net)
Date: Tue Jan 19 1999 - 12:43:30 MST
Dick.Gray@bull.com wrote:
> Mike offers:
> >(...Crassus made his fortune in ancient Rome as the owner
> >of a fire company, he brought his pump and crew to the scene of a fire,
> >and wouldn't even set his pump up until the owner of the building had
> >paid him the negotiated price. Eventually he wound up owning most of Rome.
>
> Is this historical, or are you just pulling our legs? I'm an aficionado of
> Roman history, but I haven't encountered this story about Crassus before.
> He doesn't seem to have been a businessman of any sort.
Crassus was not born into a high aristocratic family. He began life as
contractor in the construction business, and developed his early fire fighting
technology to fight fires that erupted from time to time on the work site. From
this he founded a fire fighting company (I just saw this in a documentary on
firefighting on either the History Channel or the Discovery Channel). By the
time he arrives on the scene politically in the big histories (written by
aristocrats and mainly focused on the lives of other aristocrats) he was
already the major land lord in Rome. Eventually he became part of the
Triumverate with Pompey and Ceasar (but was killed at a battle in Persia (as I
recall)) which broke up when Ceasar decided to cross the Rubicon River to march
on Rome to declare himself Emperor (which originated in the term 'imperator',
which was not a political position, but merely a recognition by the troops that
a military leader is smart, blessed by the gods, lucky and has big balls).
> >This is where the term 'Crass commercialism' came from.).
>
> Ouch. :-) I think we've been set up again...
No, its supposedly the real source of the saying. I don't know if it originated
in his era or was merely one of a later era which appreciated classical
histories (much like how the Rubicon is synonymous with difficult fateful
decisions.). Crassus was an up and comer, and was thus seen by his aristocratic
contemporaries as an oaf, a usurper, with plebian tastes and habits. Being
crass denotes the sort of ostentatious displays and rudeness that newly wealthy
people display, as Robin Hansen described when he talked about the study on
signaling/counter signaling. Likewize, his aristocratic contemporary, Pompey,
is the source of the term pompous, presumably because of his stuffy manner.
Mike Lorrey
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