What is Lucullus?

First Mithridatic War
Amnias – Mount Scorobas – Orchomenus –Chaeronea – Tenedos

Third Mithridatic War
Cyzicus – Cabira – Tigranocerta – Artaxata – Lycus

Mithridatic Wars
First – Second – Third

For his grandfather and namesake, see Lucius Licinius Lucullus.

Lucius Licinius Lucullus (ca. 118-56 BC) was a consul of ancient Rome, a supporter of Lucius Cornelius Sulla and victor in the East.

Biography

Born in Rome, he was a member of the prominent gens Licinia, the grandson of the consul Lucius Licinius Lucullus, and the son of Caecilia Metella Calva, sister of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Numidicus and of Lucius Caecilius Metellus Dalmaticus (who was the father of Caecilia Metella Dalmatica, Sulla's third wife).^[1]

Serving under Sulla

Lucullus first began service as a military tribune, serving in the Social War under Sulla, and as a quaestor in 88 BC he was the only officer to support Sulla's march on Rome. He also served under Sulla in the First Mithridatic War, raising a fleet which helped Sulla open up the seas during the siege of Athens and then, after Lucullus had defeated the Mithridatic admiral Neoptolemus in the Battle of Tenedos, it helped Sulla cross the Aegean to Asia. After a peace had been agreed, Lucullus stayed in Asia and collected the financial penalty Sulla imposed upon the province for its revolt. Lucullus, however, tried to lessen the burden that these impositions created.^[2]

Lucullus returned in 80 BC and was elected curule aedile in 79, along with his brother Marcus Terentius Varro Lucullus, and gave splendid games.^[3]

Consulship

Sulla dedicated his memoirs to Lucullus, and upon his death made him guardian of his son Faustus, preferring Lucullus over Pompey.^[4]. Shortly after this, in 74, he became consul (along with Marcus Aurelius Cotta, Julius Caesar's uncle)^[5], and defended Sulla's constitution from the efforts of Lucius Quinctius.

Initially, he drew Cisalpine Gaul in the lots at the start of his consulship as his proconsular command after his year as consul was done, but he got himself appointed governor of Cilicia after its governor died, so as to also receive the command against Mithridates VI in the Third Mithridatic War. ^[6]

Campaigns in the east

On arrival, Lucullus set out from his province to relieve the besieged Cotta in Bithynia.^[7] He harried the army of Mithridates and killed many of his soldiers. He then turned to the sea and raised a fleet amongst the Greek cities of Asia. With this fleet he defeated the enemy's fleet off Ilium and then off Lemnos. Turning back to the land, he drove Mithridates back into Pontus. He was wary of drawing into a direct engagement with Mithridates, due to the latter's superior cavalry. But after several small battles, Lucullus finally defeated him at the Battle of Cabira. He did not pursue Mithridates immediately, but instead he finished conquering the kingdom of Pontus and setting the affairs of Asia into order. His attempts to reform the rapacious Roman administration in Asia made him increasingly unpopular among the powerful publicani back in Rome.

He then led an attack against Tigranes II of Armenia, Mithridates's son-in-law and ally, and to whom Mithridates fled after Cabeira. He proceeded first against Tigranocerta and laid siege to it. This drew forth the army of Tigranes, which Lucullus defeated despite being heavily out-numbered. He then defeated Tigranes and Mithridates in the Battle of Artaxata (October 6 68 BC) but didn't proceed onto Artaxata because of dissension among his troops. His authority over his legions was undermined by the efforts of his brother-in-law Publius Clodius. This allowed Mithridates and Tigranes to retake much of their respective kingdoms.

At the machination of the equites and Pompeian supporters back in Rome, Lucullus was replaced by Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus in 66 BC and returned to Rome.

As a decadent

The opposition to him continued on his return and caused the delay of his triumph until 63 BC. Instead of returning fully to political life (although, as a friend of Cicero, he did act in some issues^[8]), however, he mostly retired to extravagant leisure, or, in Plutarch's words,:

quitted and abandoned public affairs, either because he saw that they were already beyond proper control and diseased, or, as some say, because he had his fill of glory, and felt that the unfortunate issue of his many struggles and toils entitled him to fall back upon a life of ease and luxury...[for] in the life of Lucullus, as in an ancient comedy, one reads in the first part of political measures and military commands, and in the latter part of drinking bouts, and banquets, and what might pass for revel-routs, and torch-races, and all manner of frivolity[9]

He used the vast treasure he amassed during his wars in the East to live a life of luxury. He had splendid gardens outside the city of Rome, as well as villas around Tusculum and Neapolis. The one near Neapolis included fish ponds and man-made extensions into the sea, ^[10]and was only one of many elite senators' villas around the Bay of Naples.

Gastronome

So famous did Lucullus become for his banqueting that the word lucullan now means lavish, luxurious and gourmet.

Once, Cicero and Pompey succeeded in inviting themselves to dinner with Lucullus, but, curious to see what sort of meal Lucullus ate when alone, forbade him to send word ahead to his servants to prepare a meal for guests. However, Lucullus outsmarted them. He ordered that his servants serve him in the Apollo Room, and as his servants had been schooled ahead of time as to precisely what to make for each of the different dining rooms, Cicero and Pompey ate the most luxurious of all meals.

Another tale runs that one of his servants, upon hearing that he would have no guests for dinner, served only one course. Lucullus reprimanded his servant saying, "What, did not you know, then, that today Lucullus dines with Lucullus?".^[11] He was also responsible for bringing the sweet cherry and the apricot to Rome.

Bibliophile

He was a student of the philosopher Antiochus of Ascalon and one of only a few late Republican senators (Caesar also included) who expressed interest in the idea of building a public library.^[12]

Marriages

• Clodia, or Claudia Pulchra Tertia; whom he married as her first husband, but divorced c.66 on his return to Rome after friction in Asia with her brother. Claudia became notorious for her love affairs, and also became a plebeian for unknown reasons, thus taking the name of Clodia.
• Servilia Caepionis Minor, the younger sister of Servilia Caepionis, also notorious for her loose morals, but mother of Lucullus's only son.

Plutarch writes:

After his divorce from Clodia, who was a licentious and base woman, he married Servilia, a sister of Cato, but this, too, was an unfortunate marriage. For it lacked none of the evils which Clodia had brought in her train except one, namely, the scandal about her brothers. In all other respects Servilia was equally vile and abandoned, and yet Lucullus forced himself to tolerate her, out of regard for Cato. At last, however, he put her away[13]

References

Sources

• Plutarch, Lucullus
• Keaveney, Arthur. Lucullus. A Life. London/New York: Routledge, 1992. ISBN 0-415-03219-9.

External links

• Bust of Lucullus

•  • [ e] The Works of Plutarch
The Works	Parallel Lives The Moralia Pseudo-Plutarch
The Lives	Alcibiades and Coriolanus1 Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar Aratus of Sicyon & Artaxerxes and Galba & Otho2 Aristides and Cato the Elder1 Crassus and Nicias1 Demetrius and Antony1 Demosthenes and Cicero1 Dion and Brutus1 Fabius and Pericles1 Lucullus and Cimon1 Lysander and Sulla1 Numa and Lycurgus1 Pelopidas and Marcellus1 Philopoemen and Flamininus1 Phocion and Cato the Younger Pompey and Agesilaus1 Poplicola and Solon1 Pyrrhus and Gaius Marius Romulus and Theseus1 Sertorius and Eumenes1 Tiberius Gracchus & Gaius Gracchus and Agis & Cleomenes1 Timoleon and Aemilius Paulus1 Themistocles and Camillus
The Translators	John Dryden Thomas North Jacques Amyot Philemon Holland Arthur Hugh Clough
1 Comparison extant 2 Four unpaired Lives

Preceded by Gaius Aurelius Cotta and Lucius Octavius	Consul of the Roman Republic with Marcus Aurelius Cotta 74 BC	Succeeded by Gaius Cassius Longinus and Marcus Terentius Varro Lucullus