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Pilot Accidentally Lands in Enemy Airfield and Other Historic Mistakes

Khalid Elhassan October 5, 2020 31 min

Focke-Wulf Fw 190 Würger - Focke-Wulf — Fw 190 dogfighting a Spitfire over the English Channel. Pintrest

20. A Rich Man’s Quest for Military Glory Sets the Stage for an Oops Moment

Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar, heads of the First Triumvirate. Wikimedia

By the 70s BC, Crassus was Rome’s richest man. He leveraged his wealth into political power by sponsoring politicians such as Julius Caesar, whose political rise he financed. Eventually, Crassus entered into a power sharing agreement with Caesar and Pompey the Great. Known as “The First Triumvirate“, the agreement divided the Roman Republic between the trio.

However, the one thing Crassus wanted that his fellow Triumvirs had but he did not was military glory. Unlike Pompey’s and Caesar’s brilliant military records, Crassus’ only military accomplishment had been to crush Spartacus’ slave uprising, and that did not count for much in Roman eyes. As seen below, Crassus’ quest for military glory led him to an ignominious end and a final oops moment.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.