Crassus sacks the temple of Jerusalem

In 54 BC Marcus Licinius Crassus was the richest man in Rome and hungry for the military glory his partners Caesar and Pompey already had. On his way east to attack Parthia, he stopped in Jerusalem and stripped the Temple of its treasure to pay for the war. That is the moment Pittoni stages here: Roman soldiers hauling out the sacred gold under a vast columned hall, the general directing them while a figure in blue kneels in protest. The campaign the plunder paid for ended in disaster. A year later Crassus was trapped and killed at Carrhae, and the story went round that the Parthians poured molten gold into his dead mouth, a mocking answer to his greed. Pittoni painted this small history picture in 1743 for Augustus III, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, one of the great collectors of the age.