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Why did the Parthians put molten gold in Crassus' mouth?
How did Crassus die?
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Did molten gold kill a Roman Emperor?
Jun 10, 2014 · Having molten lead or gold poured down your throat, they conclude, is a pretty sure way to die: it might rupture your organs, burn your lungs and choke you.
- Leaving Rome
- Death in The Battle of Carrhae
- Mockery and Outcome
- Sources
In the mid-first century BCE, Crassus was the proconsul of Syria, and as a result, he had become enormously wealthy. According to several sources, in 53 BCE, Crassus proposed that he act as general to wage a military campaign against the Parthians (modern Turkey). He was sixty years old, and it had been 20 years since he had participated in a battl...
As he prepared to go to war against Parthia, Crassus turned down the offer of 40,000 men from the king of Armenia if he would cross the Armenian lands. Instead, Crassus chose to cross the Euphrates and travel overland to Carrhae (Harran in Turkey), on the advice of a treacherous Arab chief called Ariamnes. There he engaged in battle with the numeri...
Although none of the Roman sources could have seen how Crassus died and how his bodywas treated after death, a rich set of myths are written about that. One myth said the Parthians poured molten gold into his mouth, to show the futility of greed. Others say the general's body remained unburied, cast among the undistinguished heaps of corpses to be ...
Braund, David. "Dionysiac Tragedy in Plutarch, Crassus." The Classical Quarterly 43.2 (1993): 468–74. Print. Rawson, Elizabeth. "Crassorum ." Latomus 41.3 (1982): 540–49. Print.Funera Simpson, Adelaide D. "The Departure of Crassus for Parthia." Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 69 (1938): 532–41. Print.
Another account records that Crassus was killed when a Parthian soldier poured molten gold down his throat as a symbol of Crassus' greed and love of wealth. Then, it is said, Crassus' head was used as a prop in a play which was being performed for the Parthian king.
Crassus and his legions were defeated by the Parthian King Orodes II. Crassus was taken alive and, according to legend, executed by having molten gold poured down his throat as literal reference to his unquenchable thirst for wealth.
A story later emerged to the effect that, after Crassus' death, the Parthians poured molten gold into his mouth in a symbolic mockery of his thirst for wealth. [46]
Jul 25, 2023 · Moreover, being well-known for his obsession with wealth, Dio claims (Book XL, 27.3) that the Parthians poured molten gold down the dead man’s throat. Not to be beaten, Plutarch ( Crass. 33.2) says that the dead general’s head was later presented at a royal Parthian wedding feast.
By Jordan Long. The sweltering heat of the Parthian desert was a terrible place to die. Stricken with grief at the death of his son, and exhausted from battle, Roman general Marcus Licinius Crassus met his end in that miserable place. Crassus’s death, as well as what happened to his body after death, is shrouded in mystery.
