possible origin of the fire truck... a Roman extortionist

In the early days of Rome a real estate investor/ extortionist named Crassus used a team of firefighters in an effective scheme. There was no public firefighting service at that time, so when a building was on fire, Crassus and his team would show up with their water pump. Before fighting the fire, Crassus would make a very low offer on the building, and to neighboring building owners. If the owners refused, Crassus let the building burn and spread to neighboring buildings, and would later make an even lower offer. If the owner agreed to sell the property, the firefighters would try to put the fire out. Crassus became very wealthy with this scheme, owned a good portion of the city of Rome, bought his way into political office, and ruled Rome as Triumvirate with Pompey and Julius Caesar.

found on http://patentpending.blogs.com/patent_pending_blog/2005/06/the_fire_truck.html