Everyone has heard of Caesar; many are aware of Pompey and his conquests. But few of us now know much about Crassus. This slim, riveting biography from Peter Stothard, a renowned writer about the classics and a former editor of The Times, should put the record straight When he arrived in Parthia shortly before he died, says Plutarch, there was ‘not a single growing thing in sight, not a stream, not a sign of any rising ground, not a blade of grass. There was a sea of sand and nothing else’, a bleak end for a life-long narcissist whose greed wrought his own destruction. Strictly fans AGREE with Shirley Balls as she 'rips Layton Williams to shreds' by insisting actor finds American Smooth 'difficult' This Crassus, as likely to greet a potter in the street as have a tenth of his own forces clubbed to death by their comrades as punishment for cowardice, was a puzzle to Plutarch and later writers. The way Crassus operated, behind the scenes in dealings that left few traces, certainly did no service to later historians. This scarcity of sources thus poses special challenges to potential biographers. Fortunately, in this brisk, lively, and accessible volume, Stothard presents a compelling portrait of Crassus in all his seeming contradictions. With great persistence and skill Crassus made his way through the danger and treachery of Roman politics to approach its zenith, but then fatally overreached, launching a disastrous military campaign against the Parthians that cost him his life and diminished his stature. In The First Tycoon, Peter Stothard, former editor of the Times and the TLS, tells the fascinating and ultimately tragic story of his life, perhaps for the first time since the Greek historian Plutarch wrote his Life of Crassus in the 1st century AD.

Dr Sidebottom is a lecturer in ancient history at Oxford University and the author of several acclaimed novels set in the ancient world, so he knows of what he speaks. First, the Crassus whom most of us know best as the crucifier of Spartacus’s slave army, would probably have owned the lithium fields himself. Rome’s richest man, memorably played by Laurence Olivier in the film of Spartacus, owned most of the city and its surroundings in the first half of the first century BCE. If he hadn’t owned the new mine he would certainly have had the mine’s owner in his debt: almost all the big players of the time, Julius Caesar most of all, owed money to Crassus. That was how a tycoon made his politics happen, then as now.

Thirty years later, the emperor Augustus regarded the return of Crassus’s eagles as one of his greatest achievements, celebrated by the finest Roman poets and sculptors. But how had it come to this? How had a life of considerable success ended in such failure? I'm A Celebrity's Jamie Lynn Spears speaks out on her relationship with sister Britney, as she admits: 'Family's fight. Listen, we just do it better than most' From luxury skincare to must-have make-up collections - get Christmas all wrapped up with dream gifts they'll love Demi Lovato braves VERY heavy snowfall as she headlines the Top Of The Mountain Opening Concert in Austria But most of it came through property. Think of the hardest, meanest estate agent you have ever come across and then double it: Crassus would make them look like a saint.

Crassus was a breaker of conventions. He was impatient with the old aristocratic models for running the Roman economy. He became notorious for greed and he liked best the money that came from close to home. While his rivals, Caesar and Pompey, marched around Europe and the Middle East, murdering, looting and, in their own eyes and those of later writers, civilising and bringing peace, Crassus spent most of his life pulling strings in Rome. Pompey brought gold home as booty, massive statues of the kings he had defeated, silver beds and ancient bronze. Crassus, by contrast, owned shares in Spanish mines and lent the proceeds to politicians whom he kept as clients, playing one against the other in the hope that none would ever exceed his own influence on events. He owned huge swathes of Italian land but acted as banker to the owners of much more. He bought property cheaply from owners who feared that he might otherwise burn their houses down. He was a builder and a briber, a very modern man in an ancient world. Doctor Who 60th Anniversary: Viewers left 'sobbing' after Wilf's fate is revealed after actor Bernard Cribbins died aged 93 Rita Ora flaunts her jaw-dropping figure in a revealing silver sequin co-ord as she performs at Hits Radio Live in Manchester The uniqueness of Stothard’s account of the tumultuous final decades of the Roman Republic is in a new east-west narrative in which we see the inner workings of Rome as well as the vibrancy—however brief in the narrative—of Parthia. Most readers will not find new details about how the last years of the Roman Republic unfolded; but many readers may discover new things about how Parthia was (and about how Parthians were perceived by Romans). Though brief, Stothard’s little biography of Crassus offers glimpses into other great civilizations and peoples during the first century B.C.Paris Hilton's special meaning behindnewborn daughter's name London after surprising fans with baby arrival announcement Everyone has heard of Caesar; many are aware of Pompey and his conquests. But few of us now know much about Crassus. This slim, riveting biography from Peter Stothard, a renowned writer about the classics and a former editor of The Times, should put the record straight. James Middleton pushes his newborn son Inigo in his pram as he and wife Alizee Thevenet are spotted Christmas shopping Would YOU be able to tell these doughnuts are healthier? From Double Chocolate to Peanut Caramel Protein and Strawberry Cheesecake - these treats all have less, fat, sugar AND calories

One shortcoming is that I would have liked to know more about why Crassus became so rich. The focus is really on the power politics of the times and much less on the day to day life of this 'first financier'. It would have been interesting to learn more about this. Still, it continues to surprise me how much we know of this period. Britain’s greatest biographer of great men leaves his usual home on the battlefields for Fleet Street, once the home of the British press which his latest subject, Lord Northcliffe did so much to create. The print media was for a century the theatre where tycoons took the stage before the digital age. Born into an ancient Roman family Crassus was not an ‘entrepreneur’ or ‘self-made man’, and the environment in which he built and maintained his wealth was not that of a modern democratic state in which even the powerful cannot — at least completely — evade the rule of law. But the exceptional administrative, strategic, deal-making and diplomatic skills that allowed him to develop a property empire unlike anything the ancient world had seen — he owned virtually all of the city’s three square miles at various times — bear comparison with those of the CEOs of today’s major corporations. Like them he accumulated far more wealth than he could ever spend, and an attendant sense of power. But like so many of them he was troubled by a gnawing sense that his success in the realm of money was not accorded the respect and popularity afforded to peers who come to prominence by other, more ‘heroic’ means: in Crassus’s day, victory on the battlefield, or command of the political arena. Although he had an acute understanding of what today would be called risk management, he ultimately overreached in pursuit of the glamour Pompey and Caesar had won through military conquest, a quest that ended in catastrophe at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE, a defeat which entered Roman lore as a disaster of comparable magnitude to the slaughter of the empire’s best legions by Germanic tribes at the Teutoburg Forest during the reign of Augustus. Stothard’s life is a study in the compulsions of power with rich contemporary resonances.Crassus was a breaker of conventions. He was impatient with the old aristocratic models for running the Roman economy. He became notorious for greed and he liked best the money that came from close to home. While his rivals, Caesar and Pompey, marched around Europe and the Middle East, murdering, looting and, in their own eyes and those of later writers, civilizing and bringing peace, Crassus spent most of his life pulling strings in Rome. Pompey brought gold home as booty, massive statues of the kings he had defeated, silver beds and ancient bronze. Crassus, by contrast, owned shares in Spanish mines and lent the proceeds to politicians whom he kept as clients, playing one against the other in the hope that none would ever exceed his own influence on events. He owned huge swathes of Italian land but acted as banker to the owners of much more. He bought property cheaply from owners who feared that he might otherwise burn their houses down. He was a builder and a briber, a very modern man in an ancient world.