Crassus vs Spartacus

RV and welcome to Emperors of Rome, a Roman history podcast from La Trobe University. I'm your host Matt Smith and with me today is Rhiannon Evans, Associate Professor in Classics and Ancient History at La Trobe University. This is episode CCXL, Crassus vs Spartacus. In the tales of Hollywood, Crassus will always be the antagonist to the slave hero Spartacus, but is that how he would see himself? A war against slaves is something that no self-respecting Roman would want to be pushed into. And yet here we are, and here is Rhiannon Evans. Even though Crassus had been instrumental in helping Sulla to win the Civil War over the Marians, he's still somehow secondary in what follows. And we're told, especially by Plutarch, that he really envies Pompey the Great's success and that he kind of makes sarcastic remarks about it. So Pompey's title, Pompey the Great, Pompeius Magnus, he mocks the Magnus and he says, "Well, how great is he? How big?" The word he uses in Greek is really sarcastic. You use to say, "It's not as big as you think," kind of thing. And Plutarch suggests, Plutarch always wants us to do a bit of kind of armchair psychology really, that it's jealousy over Sulla preferring Pompey. Pompey's still quite young at this point, and Sulla's hailing him as Imperator, standing up for him when he comes in the room, kind of thing, and so everyone's kind of looking around and feeling like Pompey has been preferred over all other. Then Plutarch says, "Well, Krasus kind of realizes that his strength is money." So rather than trying to compete with him on the military side, he gains his influence through helping people out politically and in the law courts. So he lends them money, he defends cases, he supports candidates, which takes money as well. So he's kind of getting this political influence, but it's largely through his money. Yes. Well, it's a time on a tradition to buy your supporters. Yes, it does happen. But Pompey seems to have gone the hearts and minds kind of route, I guess, if you want to call it that. I guess if you're going to be cynical, you could say that he can rest on that reputation because certainly his PR tells us, manages to have the reputation as being supreme militarily, and he will continue to be able to do that through to 70 and then into the 60s BCE. And I have to say that Plutarch says this, it probably is to a certain extent true. I mean, why wouldn't you use that vast wealth within the Roman system? When it comes to it, Krasus will want military success and that will kind of bring him to a sticky end. And so it's not true that he completely rests on manipulating from behind the scenes, but it certainly helps him be in there in very important moments. I mean, it's interesting that he has had military success. Plutarch has told us in the civil wars that he's just experienced and gone through and he is young and that is still to come. But I guess it's just when you put him next to Pompey, it's pretty hard to measure up to that kind of, you know, the greatness. Yeah. And I think Plutarch is buying into and maybe not without reason, that idea of what we used to call this being the century of the individual. And in the Republican system, it always created this territory where men are competing for power. All right, the zero sum game of whether you get to be a magistrate or not, whether you get to be appointed as leader in this militia campaign or not, but I guess because Plutarch knows what will happen, he knows that one man will come out on top at the end of this decades long decline of the Republic. He sees them constantly at each other's throats. I have to say, just as a slight aside, there is a kind of rethinking of this to a certain extent now that there was more negotiation and, you know, people backing each other going on in the Republic than you might think. If you see it as entirely everyone at each other's neck all the time. But I do think it's fair to say that having Sulla come out so victorious in this literal war against other Romans means that people want his attention and Pompey seems to be the one getting it. Yeah. Okay. And also, you mentioned before Pompey playing the populist game. I don't think you used that phrase, but along those lines, no, well, he's getting hearts and minds on his own merit by being a great general, whereas Crassus is definitely somebody who's paying for those hearts and minds. I mean, you know, he even and we'll get into this. He even gets Caesar on board. And Pompey on board by having such wealth to buy what you need. Yeah. I know we're concentrating on Crassus, but it is also true to say that Pompey, sometimes he plays the populist mode, but often it's kind of isolationism, this kind of keeping it arm's length, something Caesar never does. He's always out there for a crowd sort of burnishes this mystique around him to a certain extent. It's kind of special because he's not coming out and fronting the crowds all the time. So he kind of plays that hand, I guess, whereas Crassus, you know, he will pay for things that please the people. He will pay for things that buy elections for people. So he's always got that money to shore up whichever side he wants to be on. And he does constantly move around. He's not taking one side and sticking to it. An important figure from this time that we haven't talked about yet is Julius Caesar, who comes up in this context as somebody who appreciates Crassus because of his deep pockets. Yeah. Look, Caesar is always needing money in this period, I think really until he has his victories in Gaul, he's always short of money, he's always needing to be bought out of, you know, when he gets captured by pirates, that kind of thing, he needs to be lent money. So yeah, it's not surprising that Caesar can be won over. And look, if it is true that Crassus is jealous of Pompey and maybe Caesar too, he doesn't mind lending the money, he doesn't seem to mind getting his influence that way. So the whole jealousy thing may be a creation of Plutarchs, who knows. So for example, Plutarch tells us, "It is true that once when Caesar had been captured by pirates in Asia, great episode in itself, and was held a close prisoner by them, he exclaimed, 'Oh, Crassus, how pleased you'll be when you hear of my capture.' So the idea that, you know, of course, Crassus is going to pay out because Caesar's worth it. There's so much to unpack there in terms of Caesar's sense of his own worth, but this idea that the person you can turn to when you need huge amounts of money is Crassus." So continuing with Plutarch. But afterwards, at least, they were on friendly terms with one another. And once when Caesar was on the point of setting out for Spain as Pritor and had no money and his creditors descended upon him and began to seize his luggage, Crassus did not leave him in the lurch, but freed him from embarrassment by making himself his surety for eight hundred and thirty talents, which is a very large amount of money. An awful lot of money. Yeah. So Caesar really owes Crassus, and of course he's not the only person, perhaps just the most famous one. And I think this speaks to, well, a couple of things. Well, one we already know that Crassus is vastly wealthy and two that he sees promise in Caesar. Yeah. You know, he's not doing this for nothing. There's a reason for backing Caesar here. If I can just flag slightly, so did he bail Caesar out from the pirates? Well, I don't know if that's entirely clear, because I think we're just told that Caesar gets the money together. Yeah. The implication here is that Plutarch thinks, yeah, he probably was part of that. Yeah. Maybe he doesn't state it outright. Because if I remember that story correctly, Caesar also negotiated the pirates upwards because he thought he was worth more money. Yeah. So he's just trying to cheat Crassus out of just a bit more. I have to say, I know this is not entirely a Crassus point, but I do think that Caesar's story is apocryphal. Oh, yes. Well, yeah. Certainly, I mean, he may have been captured by pirates, but the idea that he said, "I'm worth more than that" is crazy. So at this point, you've got very much Sulla's old generals dividing Rome amongst themselves. And it seems almost like the factions just settle back into place with new people in charge. Kind of. I mean, we always got to be wary of seeing them too much like factions is a good word. They're not political parties, but given that they'll come together in a sort of coalition, if you see Caesar as the more populist front of this, which he is, the division continues where Pompey is broadly on the conservative side, and he'll certainly end up very much on that side. Caesar always plays to the people. He can do that. He has that great oratory style. He just got that talent for talking to the people, and also he at least claims that he is taking their side on land rights and issues like that. And then Crassus, I guess you could see as a kind of mediator in the middle who moves between the two of them and is useful because he has the money. So he's someone who seems to have shifting alliances and also will sometimes use a populist turn of phrase, and then sometimes seem to stand entirely for the Senate, which you would assume is more natural to him as someone who fought for Sulla. On his popularity, Plutarch says he was powerful because he was popular and because he was feared. And this is noted by a man called Sikinius, who was a Tribune of the Plebs in 76 BCE. He says the man had hay on his horn, which became a famous phrase. And this is a warning, a Roman warning about dangerous foes. And the idea is that Sikinius is suggesting, Crassus might be dangerous. He might look like he's doing something beneficial to you, but underneath it is a bit of a wolf in sheep's clothing analogy. But also this is the opinion of someone who's a populist. He's trying to restore powers of the Tribunes of the Plebs, which remember Sulla had stripped away. Sulla has got rid of their veto. So what he probably means by this is a bit of a pun on the word for hay in Latin, which is finum, which is very close to the word for a loan shark or a lender, finer ator. The idea is that money is Crassus's weapon. You might think you're just getting something good out of him. You're getting lent money that you need, but there might be something dangerous underneath this finum, this hay. It doesn't work very well in translation, does it? No, it doesn't. I think that's what's going on. Plutarch explains it. The Romans used to coil hay around the horn of an ox that has gourd, so that those who encountered it might be on their guard. So therefore if you explain somebody as being like that, there's somebody who has taken blood. Yeah. Nasty, isn't there? Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, be a bit careful of that one. And, you know, when you've got enough money to lend out and splash around, you can very easily take care of your enemies, I guess. Plutarch's very fond of these kind of pithy phrases about people, like, you know, is it Pompey who he calls the... All right. 73 BCE. Yeah. This is a big one. This is a big one. Yeah. This is a big one. So, Spartacus. We have talked about him before. Yes. In an episode number you told me, but I now can't remember. We did a number of episodes back in 2018. Oh, I can't believe it was that long ago. Towards the end of 2018, yeah. For those of you who want to track them down, I think there was three episodes on it. The story of Spartacus and the experiences of the Servile War are very important to Crassus' story because he is the main foe, I guess. He's the one who is concerned with snails and oysters. Only in the movie. Yes. I just want to make sure I'm remembering, right? And I'm a bit curious as to whether Crassus would see this as one of his kind of foundational experiences. To use a modern word that I hate, I think he'd be conflicted. And in a way, this is Crassus' story, isn't it? Because yeah, maybe he would be proud of supporting Sulla and really helping Sulla win that war with the final push. But it is a war against Romans. This is going to be a war against enslaved people. Yeah. Romans are meant to be fighting foreigners. This is going to be his second war and he's still not fighting foreigners. So give us a bit of a background. Spartacus was a gladiator, therefore a slave, therefore not an honorable foe for a Roman general. Yes, exactly. This war starts in 73 BCE. Spartacus and a group of gladiators escaped from the gladiator school in Capua in southern Italy. They make Spartacus their leader. Plutarch describes him as more Hellenic than Thracian, which I think is an attempt to make him a more worthy enemy. He's more Greek than Thracians. You know, from the north, they're a bit barbarian, Plutarch would think. And that's because he does get an army together, a pretty powerful army, and he defeats Roman armies. Very quickly, they don't just have gladiators, weapons, they get the real thing. They see them as dishonorable and barbarous, we're told. Spartacus great ingenuity, they escape a Roman siege by weaving ladders from a wild vine of abundant growth, and then ambush and defeat the Romans chasing after them. So Spartacus wins victories against Roman commanders, including one called Cassinius, who barely escapes with his life. And then it seems like Spartacus was trying to flee over the Alps, so not to be a continual danger to Italy, but his army refuses and they continue pillaging Italy. So they become a problem for Italy. And indeed, you know, the reputation of Roman armies everywhere. And Rome is now terrified because the last time people were pillaging around Italy, it was Hannibal. That was more than 100 years before, and there was a lot of danger and it went on for over a decade. So the Senate sends in the big guns, both consuls, but Spartacus defeats both of them, Lentulus and Cassius. He crushes Lentulus' forces, seizes the supplies, so now he doesn't have to worry about supplies, and defeated Cassius, who escaped with difficulty. So this is not good, defeating two consuls. And all through this, you know, gradually the Senate is coming around to seeing that this army of enslaved people is a credible threat, but they're very slow to it because they just think they're nothing. People are not trained Roman army, and the Roman army by now is very professional. Treating this as a credible threat is one thing, but when does this become Crassus' problem? I feel that Crassus wouldn't have liked this to become his problem, and maybe he would have insisted that Pompey deal with it, but Pompey's not nearby. No, he's out, he's in Spain, I think. Crassus is brought in after both the consuls are defeated, and you're right, this is not a point of glory for Crassus because of what we talked about, the an army of enslaved people. But he is the person who has enough money to fund an army, so the money comes into it again. He's chosen by the Senate, and I guess if you beg hard enough, Crassus will do it. And indeed, many of the nobles were induced by his reputation and their friendship with him to serve under him, so it's Plutarch. So I guess they butter him up, and they also send him in some aristocrats to fight with him. So he takes six legions against Spartacus. As we said in our Spartacus episodes, it's always difficult to know quite how many troops Spartacus has, but he has thousands and thousands, which is a good match. And Crassus takes his position on the borders of Pecanum. He expects Spartacus to come to him, and he sends his legate, Momius, to herd him up, but not engage, and Momius does engage, so he disobeys Crassus and is completely defeated. Crassus gave Momius a rough reception, says Plutarch, and when he armed his soldiers and knew, made them give pledges that they would keep their arms, I guess not run away. Five hundred of them, moreover, who had shown the greatest cowardice and had been the first to flee, he divided into fifty decades, so groups of ten, and put to death one from each decade. Wow. So that's decimation. Yes. Which is harsh punishment. That's the literal definition of it. Exactly. Put to death one from each decade on whom the lot fell, so they do it by pulling lots. Crassus reviving after the lapse of many years, an ancient mode of punishing the soldiers. We're told that Caesar does this a little bit later too, so maybe it's Crassus who brings it back into fashion. Terrifying. Yeah, but the fact that it's gone out of practice is interesting in itself, and that Crassus revives that practice. Yeah, it does align him with this idea of Roman traditions and discipline is what is needed here. And I can imagine that there's a lot of that going around, because even at this point in the seventies, and especially when the Romans are struggling to fight an army of enslaved people, there's going to be a lot of that rhetoric of where have we gone wrong. And you know, it still happens today, isn't it? All the punishments aren't harsh enough, that's why there's crime. Very similar things would have been being said here, and Crassus says, "All right, I'm going to bring back that harsh punishment, and this will make the army fight harder." Continuing with Plutarch. "For disgrace also attaches to this manner of death, and many horrible and repulsive features attend the punishment which the whole army witnesses." Plutarch is going to tell us what those horrible and repulsive features are, but obviously it is an example to the others, is the idea. It's going to terrify you into fighting really fiercely. I somehow feel that Crassus could be taking his anger and his impatience with the whole situation out on his soldiers, who are, you know, being cowards and disobeying orders. This is what he would, sorry, I'm traveling Crassus, I'm not. Okay. However much of a point he might have, I feel that if he was, you know, fighting an actual enemy, if he was happy with the situation, he mightn't have been this brutal. I don't know. I mean, yeah, if there'd been a victory, then what's the point in doing that? Exactly. And I guess maybe it feeds back a little bit into what we've already said about that whole metaphor of him being the horn in the hay, he is dangerous. People fear him, that fear that people have when they're in debt to him, he's now trying to impose on his army. But I don't know whether Plutarch maybe wants us to think that this is a bit desperate. I feel like there's always a little bit of that going on with Crassus, because the way you make your mark in Rome, yes, it's by having property, but also it's through your oratory or your military glory, and Crassus needs the money to help him. Yes. Yeah. He's eternally compensating for something. Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. I think it's Plutarch's reading of it, though. We do need to keep reminding ourselves that Plutarch is absolutely our main source for Crassus, but he's writing a long time later, and he's writing with this very specific moralistic purpose. Okay. So, to paraphrase really poorly, the Servile War at this point is Crassus chasing Spartacus around the mountains. None of Spartacus' men wanting to listen to Spartacus, and not seemingly a lot of purpose on the side of, you know, I think Spartacus has kind of gone, "Well, what do I do now?" Yeah, maybe so, yeah. And this is the situation that Crassus has to clean up with his six legions. Yeah. But it's not happening. I guess because they're up in the mountains, they're hard to defeat. They can use guerrilla tactics. So, Crassus had already asked the Senate to recall a general called Lucullus from Thrace and Pompey from Spain. So, Plutarch says, again, psychoanalyzing, he later regrets it. He's afraid that they'll take credit for his victory, and to some extent that happens. But asking for Pompey to be recalled is acknowledging that you can't deal with slaves. Yeah. Yeah. It's not a good look. It really isn't a good look. It depends what point at which he asks for it, I guess, but yeah, either way, I think from what transpires, he probably will regret it. So, the war now moves into southern Italy, and we're kind of in the toe of Italy at the end. So, Spartacus is going to be trapped there, and Crassus is really, you know, he's eager to finish this off. He wants to finish the war himself before Pompey gets there and takes credit for his victory, and he's right to fear that. And what actually happens to Spartacus, we're told, is that when his horse was brought to him, he drew his sword, and saying that if he won the day, he would have many fine horses of the enemies, but if he lost it, he did not want any, and so he slew his horse, poor old horse. So, Spartacus is kind of driven to extremity here, they're down to the very end, kills two centurions, fights well, as, you know, a worthy enemy should, but after his army does eventually flee, he stands alone, surrounded by a multitude of foes, and was eventually cut down. It's very cinematic, which makes me think Plutarch has jazzed this up a bit. It is helpful for Crassus, though, for it to be this heroic and jazzed up. It shows that Spartacus was maybe not a foreign enemy, but a worthy opponent to a certain extent. And this time, Crassus is up on a nearby hill, pointing a bit. Crassus is there, but Pompey does get the credit for the final victory. Yeah, that's nuts. Because he meets the fleeing slaves, all the people who fled from Spartacus' army, and he ends the war by taking them as captives. The quote from Plutarch is, "Although Crassus had been fortunate, had shown most excellent generalship, and had exposed his person to danger, so he'd taken all of the risks. Nevertheless, his success did not fail to enhance the reputation of Pompey." So Pompey gets a victory, not for defeating a slave army, of course, for his victories over Sertorius and in Spain. Sertorius is one of the kind of remnants of the followers of Marius, so that's why Pompey had been in Spain, finishing off that war, that southern war. Well, that's fair enough reason for a triumph, he gets a triumph out of this. Yeah, technically he's fighting Romans. Yeah, I know, but it's better than slaves. Crassus gets, what you don't see too often, a minor triumph. Yes, degrees of triumph. And we're told elsewhere by Plutarch from actually the life of Marcellus. Right, just before you say this, so the reason that I dug this out is that Plutarch refers to himself in the life of Crassus, you know, he fully references himself. See me, previous book. Well, that's what we're doing with our Spartacus episodes. The ultra-actually acts. All right, grand tradition, grand tradition. The word of the day. Plutarch tells us in conducting it, the minor triumph, the general does not mount upon a four-horse chariot, does anyone who's seen a triumph in a movie, right, the general is on the chariot, drawn by four horses, the focus of attention. He doesn't get a wreath in a minor triumph, no wreath of laurel. He doesn't have trumpets sounding about him, but he goes a foot with shoes on, accompanied by the sound of exceeding many flutes, so a lot of flutes. Flutes is against trumpets, so I guess less sound, it's not going to be as blaring. And wearing a wreath of myrtle, myrtle is actually the plan of Venus, which of course she's very important to the foundation of Rome, she's the mother of the goddess. Not as important as Jupiter. Yeah, no one says it's important as Jupiter. But you know, as far as triumphs go? Yeah, exactly, yeah. So that his appearance is unwarlike and friendly rather than terrifying. Because remember, in the triumph, you also get your face painted red, the idea is it might look more like the original clay statue of Jupiter. And this is the strongest proof to my mind that in ancient times, the two triumphs were distinguished not by the magnitude but by the manner of the achievements which they celebrated. So he is definitely getting put on the second tier. It's almost like a slow clap. Isn't that get out? Well it's that, yeah, probably is that too, sure, we'll give you a triumph. Yeah. Oh, mean. Well, you know, no chariot. Is it like in Monopoly where you win second prize in a beauty contest? This guy's the banker, this guy. So we've finished with the war against Spartacus by 71. Yes. I feel like that's something that happened to Crassus. He's gone right. Okay, I did Roma solid here. Yeah. You know, I spent my money, I got rid of this slave problem that they had. They gave me a minor triumph. And how does he make capital out of that? Well, he gets the highest magistracy in the Roman Republic. He gets to be one of the consuls of 17 BCE. But guess who the other consul is? Hmm. It's Pompey. Yeah. And I feel like Pompey was very much by popular demand. Please Pompey, can you be the consul? And Crassus was, how much is this going to cost me? Yeah. Well, apparently Crassus, again, back in with Plutarch, although he had hopes of becoming his colleague, Pompey's colleague, did not hesitate to ask Pompey's assistance. So I think what this means is that Pompey can rest on his achievements to be popular enough, as you say. He's kind of the king of popularity. And this is something that definitely happened when Roman elites were going for magistracies, not just the consulship. Even if they could say there's been a triumph in my family, let alone, you know, I have held a triumph. If you've had a triumph recently, they're going to vote you in this consul. But of course, Crassus is represented as being continually kind of on the coattails with Pompey. He's had that degree less of a triumph and apparently has to ask Pompey for help, presumably in canvassing for him. Yes. Because he can fund the election. He can fund all the bribery he wants. We are indeed told he, quote, eagerly promoted his candidature and finally said in a speech to the assembly that he should be no less grateful to them for the colleague than for the office which he desired. I feel like this is like the worst friendship these two. You think it's some kind of toxic friendship here? Yeah. Right from, you know, how much is this going to cost me to, it must have been cold there in your shadow kind of stuff. Well, apparently they don't get on as consuls. I mean, the whole idea of joint consuls, two consuls, is that they balance each other out. Yeah. But there's also an idea that you have to cooperate because of that. So you can't just have things done by fiat, by one person saying it will happen, all right. Which is what Caesar's consulship was. Yeah. It's the consulship of Julius and Caesar. Yeah. But you know, things have fallen apart a bit more by then. But in this case, it was dysfunctional, it seems. Yeah. There's so much disagreement that they don't get anything done. They polarize. Does that sound familiar? They are barren politically and without achievement, says Blutock. And not a lot happened in terms of policy, I guess, passing laws and doing things that consuls are meant to do during the consulship. Crassus did manage to spend a lot of money, presumably buying popularity. Like a lot of these things at a religious event, so the sacrifice to Hercules at which he puts on a feast for 10,000 people. So this is a major banquet. In addition to that, each man present, dinner only for men apparently, is given enough grain for three months. Wow. I mean, this is always a good way of winning over the people, isn't it, to give them a food allowance. This is what the Roman state is meant to do. It's not what one person on their own is meant to be doing, giving out a doll. But this is just one little step in that taking on personally what the state is meant to be doing in the Republic. So I'd say Crassus is kind of pushing that process forward a bit here. But if Crassus and Pompey are going to be at each other's throats doing this consulship, then Crassus is going to try and win some of that popularity for himself. There's not far to go after you've been consul. Yeah. There's a lot of votes, but it's still good to have the people on site for whatever may happen in the future. So despite not being terribly productive, they do manage to make up at the end. I don't even feel like this is making up. Well, there's a kind of show of it at least. And I think they, according to the anecdote we've got, they're kind of pushed into it. They're apparently speaking near the end of their office, they're speaking at an assembly, but they're interrupted by a very ordinary person, which would be quite shocking, I guess, a man called Ornateus Aurelius says Plutarch, and he makes it very clear that this man's not an elite. It does say that he is rooting his way of life. Yeah, rough and ready in his manners, I've got. Okay. So I imagine that Plutarch has cleaned up this transcript, this speech that he's going to give this guy. Oh, yeah, yeah. Take it out all the swear words. The speech is always, yes, you want to make them sound better. But he actually jumps onto the platform, so jumps onto the rostra and said to the assembly that he'd had a vision. In his sleep, and we all know the Romans, Greeks and Romans like to think that dreams are meaningful, he says, quote, "Jupiter appeared to me and told me to say in public that you must not allow the consuls to lay down their office until they have become friends." When he said this, the people urged them to become reconciled. Pompey does nothing. Pompey just kind of stands there rigid, like I'm not playing this game. Brassus, however, takes the initiative, grabs Pompey's hand and says, "My friends, I do not think I'm lowering or demeaning myself in any way if I take the first step in the direction of friendship and goodwill towards Pompey, a man to whom you gave the title of the great." Remember, he mocked that. Yes, yes. I think he's still mocking that. You think the great? When he had scarcely a hair on his chin, maybe that's the diss. He was just a boy. One whom you honoured with a triumph, even before he was a member of the Senate. I think the implication is none of this should have been happening to a stripling at that age. But he does, to all intents and purposes, make the first move, so then Pompey's going to look really bitter if he doesn't reciprocate. Yeah, I mean, but Crassus apologised. He's also being the bigger man, which I guess is Plutarch's mode of operandus here is building him up as trying his good qualities. It's interesting to think about what we think at the end of, as I say, Plutarch is largely our source here, of whether we are meant to admire Crassus or not. I feel like constantly we're meant to see him as the glue trying to stick the Republic or trying to stick Pompey and the populists, who increasingly will be Caesar together and to use his money to this end to maintain his power and to kind of, I guess, by association with these people who have a lot of popularity, with these figures like Pompey and Caesar, to ensure that he kind of stays up at this rank as well. Yeah, but always that he's the man who's sick of being in the shadows. That was Rhianna Nevins, Associate Professor in Classics and Ancient History at La Trobe University and you have been listening to Emperors of Rome. If you like this podcast, you can subscribe to Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any readily available podcasting platform. Please leave a review, they are always very appreciated. You can like the Emperors of Rome on our Facebook page and you can follow us on Blue Sky. Rhiannon is @DrRiannon, I am @NightlightGuy and the podcast is @RomePodcast. In the next episode, Crassus gets some real power along with his allies Caesar and Pompey as they form a very powerful triumvirate. This podcast was recorded at the Bandura campus of La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia on the traditional lands of the Wurundjeri people. So until the next episode, I'm Matt Smith, you've been fantastic and thanks for listening.