SOMETIMES in order to look forward we must first look back, and so we will cast our gaze back over 2,000 years to the last days of the Roman Republic as it struggled under the weight of the First Triumvirate. This informal political alliance, which comprised of Julius Caesar, Pompey ‘the Great’ and Marcus Licinius Crassus, was formed so that these worthies could combine their influence and collectively overcome opposition to their proposals and agendas in the Roman Senate. Caesar and Pompey require no further introduction beyond their august names but perhaps you haven’t heard of Crassus?

He was the richest man in Rome at the time, and his fortune, like most great fortunes, wasn’t exactly obtained by honest means. He started out by cheaply buying property confiscated by the Roman state from so-called traitors and dissidents (really, anyone on the wrong side of the powers that be) and went so far as to include the names of those whose wealth he coveted in the list of traitors who were to be proscribed and reduced to penury. An entrepreneur, he also set up Rome’s first fire brigade, albeit with a twist: Crassus’s fire brigade — 500 men strong — would rush to the site of one of the near-daily fires that plagued Rome and then do........

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