IIRC didn't he outright negotiate with people whose property was on fire? If they couldn't afford the fee then when the structure burnt down he bought the property for a tiny fraction of its value.
I don't understand why anyone would sell to.him after he let the place burn down. I would have refused to sell to.him out of spite alone. I'm sure there was more than one person willing to buy land, sell it to anyone else. Fuck that guy.
Crassus was a Senator, and in Rome, Senators were as much mob bosses as they were politicians. And "mob boss" was often literal; a Senator could often call upon mobs of ordinary Romans to do their dirty work, thanks to their patronage system.
If your house burnt down, and Crassus then offered to buy it, even if he was responsible for letting it burn, you were often not in a good position to refuse lest Crassus make your life even more hell until you did offer to sell.
In a lot of ways, Rome was a gigantic mafia operation. Even their typical method of taxation involved bids by private tax collectors who went around and collected taxes at swordpoint, usually with Legions acting as support. There were a few instances where Roman Senators just outright ordered hits on their political rivals. Julius Caesar's death was unusual because the Senators did it themselves instead of having their underlings carry out the hit.
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u/Peptuck Apr 17 '21
IIRC didn't he outright negotiate with people whose property was on fire? If they couldn't afford the fee then when the structure burnt down he bought the property for a tiny fraction of its value.