in his Life of Crassus, says the wealth of Crassus increased from less than 300 talents at first, to 7,100 talents. This represented 229 tonnes of gold, or about 7.4 million troy ounces, worth about US$13.7 billion at November 2021 gold prices, accounted right before his Parthian expedition, most of which Plutarch declares Crassus got "by fire and war, making the public calamities his greatest source of revenue." Some of Crassus' wealth was acquired conventionally, through slave trafficking, production from silver mines, and speculative real estate purchases. Crassus bought property that was confiscated in proscriptions and by notoriously purchasing burnt and collapsed buildings. Plutarch wrote that, observing how frequent such occurrences were, he bought slaves "who were architects and builders." When he had over 500 slaves, he bought houses that had burnt and the adjacent ones "because their owners would let go at a trifling price." He bought "the largest part of Rome" in this way, buying them on the cheap and rebuilding them with slave labor. The first ever Roman fire brigade was created by Crassus. Fires were almost a daily occurrence in Rome, and Crassus took advantage of the fact that Rome had no fire department, by creating his own brigade—500 men strong—which rushed to burning buildings at the first cry of alarm. Upon arriving at the scene, however, the firefighters did nothing while Crassus offered to buy the burning building from the distressed property owner, at a miserable price. If the owner agreed to sell the property, his men would put out the fire; if the owner refused, then they would simply let the structure burn to the ground. After buying many properties this way, he rebuilt them, and often leased the properties to their original owners or new tenants. Crassus befriended Licinia, a Vestal Virgin, whose valuable property he coveted. Plutarch says "And yet, when he was further on in years, he was accused of criminal intimacy with Licinia, one of the vestal virgins, and Licinia was formally prosecuted by a certain Plotius. Now, Licinia was the owner of a pleasant villa in the suburbs, which Crassus wished to get at a low price, and it was for this reason that he was forever hovering about the woman and paying his court to her, until he fell under the abominable suspicion. And, in a way, it was his avarice that absolved him from the charge of