Crassus   

is needful seems rather to come from necessity than from a hearty
friendship. Once taking with him two female servants, he showed them
the place and bade them go in boldly, whom when Crassus and his friends
saw, they were afraid of being betrayed and demanded what they were,
and what they would have. They, according as they were instructed,
answered, they came to wait upon their master, who was hid in that
cave. And so Crassus perceiving it was a piece of pleasantry and of
good-will on the part of Vibius, took them in and kept them there
with him as long as he stayed, and employed them to give information
to Vibius of what they wanted, and how they were. Fenestella says
he saw one of them, then very old, and often heard her speak of the
time and repeat the story with pleasure.
After Crassus had lain concealed there eight months, on hearing that
Cinna was dead, he appeared abroad, and a great number of people flocking
to him, out of whom he selected a body of two thousand five hundred,
he visited many cities, and, as some write, sacked Malaca, which he
himself, however, always denied, and contradicted all who said so.
Afterwards, getting together some ships, he passed into Africa, and
joined with Metellus Pius, an eminent person that had raised a very
considerable force; but upon some difference between him and Metellus,
he stayed not long there, but went over to Sylla, by whom he was very
much esteemed. When Sylla passed over into Italy, he was anxious to
put all the young men that were with him in employment; and as he
despatched some one way, and some another, Crassus, on its falling
to his share to raise men among the Marsians, demanded a guard, being
to pass through the enemy's country, upon which Sylla replied sharply,
"I give you for guard your father, your brother, your friends and
kindred, whose unjust and cruel murder I am now going to revenge;"
and Crassus, being nettled, went his way, broke boldly through the
enemy, collected a considerable force, and in all Sylla's wars acted
with great zeal and courage. And in these times and occasions, they
say, began the emulation and rivalry for glory between him and Pompey;
for though Pompey was the younger man, and had the disadvantage to
be descended of a father that was disesteemed by the citizens, and
hated as much as ever man was, yet in these actions he shone out and
was proved so great that Sylla always used, when he came in, to stand
up and uncover his head, an honour which he seldom showed to older
men and his own equals, and always saluted him Imperator. This fired
and stung Crassus, though, indeed, he could not with any fairness
claim to be preferred; for he both wanted experience, and his two
innate vices, sordidness and avarice, tarnished all the lustre of
his actions. For when he had taken Tudertia, a town of the Umbrians,
he converted, it was said, all the spoils to his own use, for which
he was complained of to Sylla. But in the last and greatest battle
before Rome itself when Sylla was worsted, some of his battalions
giving ground, and others being quite broken, Crassus got the victory
on the right wing, which he commanded, and pursued the enemy till
night, and then sent to Sylla to acquaint him with his success, and
demand provision for his soldiers. In the time, however, of the proscriptions
and sequestrations, he lost his repute again, by making great purchases
for little or nothing, and asking for grants. Nay, they say he proscribed
one of the Bruttians without Sylla's order, only for his own profit,
and that, on discovering this, Sylla never after trusted him in any
public affairs. As no man was more cunning than Crassus to ensnare
others by flattery, so no man lay more open to it, or swallowed it
more greedily than himself. And this particularly was observed of
him, that though he was the most covetous man in the world, yet he
habitually disliked and cried out against others who were so.
It troubled him to see Pompey so successful in all his undertakings;
that he had had a triumph before he was capable to sit in the senate,
and that the people had surnamed him Magnus, or the great. When somebody
was saying Pompey the Great was coming, he smiled, and asked him,
"How big is he?" Despairing to equal him by feats of arms, he betook
himself to civil life, where by doing kindnesses, pleading, lending