Publius Crassus
The civil war between Caesar and Pompeius is often said to have been made inevitable by the deaths of two people: Caesar's daughter Julia, whose political marriage to Pompeius surprised Roman social circles by its affection; and Marcus Crassus, whose political influence and wealth had been a counterweight to the two greater militarists. It would be idle to speculate on what role Publius Crassus might have played either in the civil war or during Caesar's resulting dictatorship. In many ways, his career follows a course similar to the early life of Decimus Brutus, whose role in the assassination of Caesar was far from foreseeable. Elizabeth Rawson concludes: