When Sulla had passed over the
sea to Italy, he wished all the young men who were with him to aid him
actively, and he appointed them to different duties. Crassus, on being
sent into the country of the Marsi to raise troops, asked for a guard,
because the road lay through a tract which was occupied by the enemy;
Sulla replied to him in passion and with vehemence, "I give thee as
guards thy father, thy brother, thy friends, thy kinsmen, who were cut
off illegally and wrongfully, and whose murderers I am now pursuing."
Stung by these words, and pricked on to the undertaking, Crassus
immediately set out, and, vigorously making his way through the enemy,
he got together a strong force, and showed himself active in the
battles of Sulla. The events of that war, it is said, first excited
him to rivalry and competition with Pompeius for distinction. Pompeius
was younger than Crassus, and his father had a bad repute at Rome, and
had been bitterly hated by the citizens; but still Pompeius shone
conspicuous in the events of that period and proved himself to be a
great man, so that Sulla showed him marks of respect which he did not
very often show to others of more advanced years and of his own rank,
by rising from his seat when Pompeius approached, and uncovering his
head, and addressing him by the title of Imperator. All this set
Crassus in a flame, and goaded him, inasmuch as he was thus slighted
in comparison with Pompeius; and with good reason; Crassus was
deficient in experience, and the credit that he got by his military
exploits was lost by his innate vices,--love of gain and meanness;
for, upon taking Tudertia,[21] a city of the Umbri, it was suspected
that he appropriated to himself most of the spoil, and this was made a
matter of charge against him to Sulla.
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