Crassus

Plutarch

Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives, Vol. III. Perrin, Bernadotte, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1914.

He pleased people also by the kindly and unaffected manner with which he clasped their hands and addressed them. For he never met a Roman so obscure and lowly that he did not return his greeting and call him by name. It is said also that he was well versed in history, and was something of a philosopher withal, attaching himself to the doctrines of Aristotle, in which he had Alexander[*](Perhaps Alexander Cornelius, surnamed Polyhistor, a contemporary of Sulla.) as a teacher. This man gave proof of contentedness and meekness by his intimacy with Crassus;

for it is not easy to say whether he was poorer before or after his relations with his pupil. At any rate he was the only one of the friends of Crassus who always accompanied him when he went abroad, and then he would receive a cloak for the journey, which would be reclaimed on his return. But this was later on.