[1] Marcus Crassus was the son of a man who had been censor and had enjoyed a triumph; but he was reared in a small house with two brothers. His brothers were married while their parents were still alive, and all shared the same table, which seems to have been the chief reason why Crassus was temperate and moderate in his manner of life. When one of his brothers died, Crassus took the widow to wife, and had his children by her, and in these relations also he lived as well-ordered a life as any Roman.
[2] And yet when he was further on in years, he was accused of criminal intimacy with Licinia, one of the vestal virgins, and Licinia was formally prosecuted by a certain Plotius. Now Licinia was the owner of a pleasant villa in the suburbs which Crassus wished to get at a low price, and it was for this reason that he was forever hovering about the woman and paying his court to her, until he fell under the abominable suspicion. And in a way it was his avarice that absolved him from the charge of corrupting the vestal, and he was acquitted by the judges. But he did not let Licinia go until he had acquired her property.
Crassus. Plutarch. Bernadotte Perrin (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1916.
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