Publius Licinius Crassus (86 or 82 – 53 BC) was one of two sons of Marcus Licinius Crassus, the so-called "triumvir",Triumvir was a formal designation in ancient Rome; the political alliance among Crassus, Pompeius Magnus ("Pompey the Great") and Julius Caesar has been nicknamed the "First Triumvirate" by modern scholars, but unlike the legally recognized triumvirate during the transition from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire, the three were not in Roman terms triumviri. and Tertulla, daughter of Marcus Terentius Varro Lucullus., p.831 He belonged to the last generation of Roman nobiles who came of age and began a political career before the collapse of the Republic. His peers included Marcus Antonius, Marcus Junius Brutus, Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, the poet Gaius Valerius Catullus, and the historian Gaius Sallustius Crispus.

Publius Crassus served under Julius Caesar in Gaul from 58 to 56 BC. Too young to receive a formal commission from the Roman Senate, Publius distinguished himself as a commanding officer in campaigns among the Armorican nations (Brittany) and in Aquitania. He was highly regarded by Caesar and also by Cicero, who praised his speaking ability and good character. Upon his return to Rome, Publius married Cornelia Metella, the intellectually gifted daughter of Metellus Scipio, and began his active political career as a triumvir monetalis and by providing a security force during his father's campaign for a second consulship.

Publius's promising career was cut short when he died along with his father in an ill-conceivedElizabeth Rawson, "Crassorum funera," Latomus 41 (1982) 540–549. war against the Parthian Empire. Cornelia, with whom he probably had no children, then married the much older Pompeius Magnus ("Pompey the Great").

Early life Scholarly opinion is divided as to whether Publius or his brother Marcus was the elder, but with Roman naming conventions, the eldest son almost always carries on his father's name, including the praenomen, or first name, while younger sons are named for a grandfather or uncle.Lawrence Keppie, Understanding Roman Inscriptions (Routledge, 1991), p. 19 online. The achievements of Publius, named after his grandfather (consul in 97 BC) and uncle, eclipse those of his brother to such an extent that some have questioned the traditional birth order.G.V. Sumner, The Orators in Cicero’s "Brutus" (University of Toronto Press, 1973) and Allen Ward, Marcus Crassus and the Late Roman Republic (University of Missouri Press, 1977). Both Ronald Syme and Elizabeth Rawson, however, have argued vigorously for a family dynamic that casts Marcus as the older but Publius as the more talented younger brother.Ronald Syme, "The Sons of Crassus," Latomus 39 (1980) 403-408, reprinted in Roman Papers, vol. 3, edited by Anthony R. Birley (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984); see also Elizabeth Rawson, "Crassorum funera," Latomus 41 (1982) 540–549.

Publius grew up in a traditional household that was characterized by Plutarch in his Life of Crassus as stable and orderly. The biographer is often harshly critical of the elder Crassus's shortcomings, particularly moralizing his greed, but makes a point of contrasting the triumvir's family life. Despite his great wealth, Crassus is said to have avoided excess and luxury at home. Family meals were simple, and entertaining was generous but not ostentatious; Crassus chose his companions during leisure hours on the basis of personal friendship as well as political utility.Plutarch, Crassus 3.1–2; for a perspective on the triumvir's positive characteristics, see T.J. Cadoux, "Marcus Crassus: A Revaluation," Greece & Rome 3 (1956) 153–161. Although the Crassi, as noble plebeians, would have displayed ancestral images in their atrium,On the ius imaginum, or right of nobiles to display ancestral images, see the article "Nobiles" in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, Bill Thayer's edition at LacusCurtius online; also P.A. Brunt, "Nobilitas and novitas," Journal of Roman Studies 72 (1982), pp. 12–13, and R.T. Ridley, "The Genesis of a Turning-Point: Gelzer's Nobilität," Historia 35 (1986), pp. 499–502. The term ius imaginum is a modern coinage, and the notion that this display was constituted by a legal right was reexamined and refined by Harriet I. Flower, Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), especially pp. 53–59 online. they did not lay claim to a fictionalized genealogy that presumed divine or legendary ancestors, a practice not uncommon among the Roman nobility.T.P. Wiseman, "Legendary Genealogies in Late-Republican Rome," Greece & Rome 21 (1974), p. 162, in reference to Publius's consular grandfather. The elder Crassus, even as the son of a consul and censor, had himself grown up in a modestly kept and multigenerational house;Plutarch, Crassus 1.1. Marcus's two brothers "took their meals at home" even after they married, indicating that they continued to live in their father's house; see K.R. Bradley, "Remarriage and the Structure of the Upper-Class Roman Family," in Marriage, Divorce, and Children in Ancient Rome (Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 87 online. the passage of sumptuary laws had been among his father's political achievements.See "Sumptuariae Leges" in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, Bill Thayer's edition at LacusCurtius online.

In marrying the widow of his brother,Plutarch, Crassus 1.1. who had been killed during the Sullan civil wars, Marcus Crassus observed an ancient Roman custom that had become old-fashioned in his own time. Publius, unlike many of his peers, had parents who remained married for nearly 35 years, until the elder Crassus's death;Adrian Goldsworthy, Caesar: Life of a Colossus (Yale University Press, 2008), p. 85 online, accepting as fact her placement on the list of Caesar's lovers by Suetonius. Syme implies political slander in the compilation; see "No Sons for Caesar?" Historia 29 (1980), p. 425. by contrast, Pompeius Magnus married five timesShelley P. Haley, "The Fives Wives of Pompey the Great," Greece & Rome 32 (1985) 49–59. and Julius Caesar at least three.On questions pertaining to whether Caesar had four wives (with Cossutia the first) or three (with Cossutia as a broken engagement), see Monroe E. Deutsch, "Caesar's First Wife," Classical Philology 12 (1917) 93–96, full text online. Crassus remained married to Tertulla "despite attacks on her reputation."Susan Treggiari, "Divorce Roman Style: How Easy and How Frequent Was It?" in Marriage, Divorce, and Children in Ancient Rome (Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 43 online. It was rumored that a family friend, Quintus Axius from Reate,T.P. Wiseman, New Men in the Roman Senate (Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 216. was the biological father of one of her two sons. Plutarch reports a joke by Cicero that made reference to a strong resemblance between Axius and one of the boys.Plutarch, Cicero 25.4, Bill Thayer’s edition at LacusCurtius online.

Education The Peripatetic philosopher AlexanderAt one time thought to be Alexander Polyhistor — see Wilhelm Siegmund Teuffel, A History of Roman Literature (London, 1873), vol. 1, p. 222 online — but this is not a widely held view now. was attached to the household of Crassus and is likely to have contributed to the education of the boys.On the role of intellectuals in the education of aristocratic youth at Rome, see Beryl Rawson, Children and Childhood in Roman Italy (Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 153–154 online. Although his poor remuneration is noted as evidence of Crassus's parsimony,Plutarch, Crassus 3.3; Elizabeth Rawson, Intellectual Life in the Late Roman Republic (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), p. 81. it has been suggested that in failing to enrich himself at Crassus's expense Alexander asserted a positive philosophical stance disregarding material possessions.This was the view of Robert Burton in The Anatomy of Melancholy, part 1, section 2, p. 206 in the edition of Chatto and Windus (London, 1881). The Peripatetics of the time differed little from the Old Academy represented by Antiochus of Ascalon, who placed emphasis on knowledge as the supreme value and on the Aristotelian conception of human beings as by nature political (a zōon politikon, "creature of politics"). This view of man as a "political animal" would have been congenial to the family political dynamism of the Licinii Crassi.Miriam Griffin, "Philosophy, Politics, and Politicians at Rome," in Philosophia togata: Essays on Philosophy and Roman Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), passim, including citations from Cicero.

The Peripatetics and Academics, according to Cicero, provided the best oratorical training;Cicero, De oratore 3.57f.; Brutus 119ff.; Tusculan Disputations 2.9. while the Academics drilled in rebuttal, he says, the Peripatetics excelled at rhetorical theory and also practiced debating both sides of an issue.Cicero, De finibus 5.10. The young Crassus must have thrived on this training, for Cicero praises his abilities as a speaker and in the Brutus places him in the company of gifted young orators whose lives ended before they could fulfill their potential:Others are Scribonius Curio (born ca. 85 BC) and Licinius Calvus (born 82 BC): Brutus 281f; discussed in Syme, "The Sons of Crassus," reprint p. 1222.

The secondary education of a Roman male of the governing classes typically required a stint as a contubernalis (literally a "tentmate",See Smith's entry "Contubernales" online. a sort of military intern or apprentice) following the assumption of the toga virilis around the age of 15 and before assuming formal military duties. Publius, his brother Marcus, and Decimus Brutus may have been contubernales during Caesar's propraetorship in Spain (61–60 BC). Publius's father and grandfather had strong ties to Spain: his grandfather had earned his triumph from the same province of Hispania Ulterior, and after the civil war of 87 BC his father had found refuge among friends there, avoiding the fate of Publius's uncle and grandfather. Caesar's field commission of Publius in Gaul indicates a high level of confidence, perhaps because he had trained the young man himself and knew his abilities.Syme, "The Sons of Crassus," reprint pp. 1220–1221.

Little else is known about Publius's philosophical predispositions or political sympathies. Despite his active support on behalf of his father in the elections for 55 BC and his ties to Caesar, he admired and was loyal to Cicero and played a mediating role between Cicero and the elder Crassus, who was often at odds with the outspoken orator.Eve J. Parrish, "Crassus' New Friends and Pompey's Return," Phoenix 27 (1973), p. 371, citing Cicero, Ad familiares 5.8.4 and 13.16.21; Ad Quintum fratrem 2.7.2; and Brutus 280–282. In his friendship with Cicero, Publius showed a degree of political independence. Cicero seems to have hoped that he could steer the talented young man away from a popularist and militarist path toward the example of his consular grandfather, whose political career was traditional and moderate, or toward modeling himself after the orator Licinius Crassus about whom Cicero so often wrote.Elizabeth Rawson, "Crassorum funera," Latomus 41 (1982), pp. 542 and 546; see Cicero, Brutus 282. Cicero almost always speaks of young Crassus with approval and affection, criticizing only his impatient ambition.Rawson, "Crassorum funera," pp. 542–543, citing D.R. Shackleton Bailey in his note to Ad fam. 13.16.1, as having introduced the question of whether Publius's ambition was the main impetus for the war against Parthia.

Early military career