This man started by monopolizing the Fire Department. When fires would start, he would personally go to nearby houses and buildings with his firefighters. He would begin negotiations: Crassus will ONLY save the building if you sell the building to Crassus immediately. Tick-tock, the price gets cheaper every minute that fire is going.
As such: Roman buildings would either burn to the ground (where he’d buy up the land cause he’s so rich anyway), or he’d buy the building for cheap. Crassus then purchased up a ton of slaves who would fix up these buildings, as well as his slave-firefighters, and his slave managers of real-estate. Money buys more real estate, buying more slave-firefighters, buying more portions of Rome, making Crassus likely the richest person in literally all of history.
In fact, Crassus’s personal wealth was roughly one-year’s worth of GDP of the entire Roman Empire.
Naturally, Crassus would enter politics with this immense amount of wealth. It is said that Crassus’s political power rivaled that of Ceasar himelf, despite being “just” a businessman… likely due to the incredible amounts of wealth he amassed.
I dunno, some people might give Brutus evil guy for betraying his close friend Ceasar. Or various serial killers throughout history who had disturbing ways of killing people. Or maybe conquerors like Ghenghis Khan who likely killed the most people ever. (Well… Hitler and Stalin probably beat Ghenghis Khan…) But somehow, none of them are more evil and loathsome than Crassus in my eyes.
Hitler’s killings ultimately are the kind of genocidal killings that are somehow a dime-a-dozen throughout history (Okay, Hitler’s numbers are bigger, but hardly unique). Crassus however? This guy is uniquely evil in that he levied this upon his own countrymen and his own damn neighbors. Its one thing to kill a demonized group (I mean, wrong and genocidal, but its hardly uncommon on a historical basis). But doing this to your own damn neighbors is… uggghhhh.
Marcus Licinius Crassus, Roman Republic 53 BC.
This man started by monopolizing the Fire Department. When fires would start, he would personally go to nearby houses and buildings with his firefighters. He would begin negotiations: Crassus will ONLY save the building if you sell the building to Crassus immediately. Tick-tock, the price gets cheaper every minute that fire is going.
As such: Roman buildings would either burn to the ground (where he’d buy up the land cause he’s so rich anyway), or he’d buy the building for cheap. Crassus then purchased up a ton of slaves who would fix up these buildings, as well as his slave-firefighters, and his slave managers of real-estate. Money buys more real estate, buying more slave-firefighters, buying more portions of Rome, making Crassus likely the richest person in literally all of history.
In fact, Crassus’s personal wealth was roughly one-year’s worth of GDP of the entire Roman Empire.
Naturally, Crassus would enter politics with this immense amount of wealth. It is said that Crassus’s political power rivaled that of Ceasar himelf, despite being “just” a businessman… likely due to the incredible amounts of wealth he amassed.
I dunno, some people might give Brutus evil guy for betraying his close friend Ceasar. Or various serial killers throughout history who had disturbing ways of killing people. Or maybe conquerors like Ghenghis Khan who likely killed the most people ever. (Well… Hitler and Stalin probably beat Ghenghis Khan…) But somehow, none of them are more evil and loathsome than Crassus in my eyes.
Hitler’s killings ultimately are the kind of genocidal killings that are somehow a dime-a-dozen throughout history (Okay, Hitler’s numbers are bigger, but hardly unique). Crassus however? This guy is uniquely evil in that he levied this upon his own countrymen and his own damn neighbors. Its one thing to kill a demonized group (I mean, wrong and genocidal, but its hardly uncommon on a historical basis). But doing this to your own damn neighbors is… uggghhhh.