Lucullus

  A letter of Cicero to Atticus, perhaps from August of 59 BC, preserves some commentary on the Vettius scandal (II.24). Cicero expresses little concern about how the whole matter will unfold, though he notes that he is sick of life (II.24.4 sed prorsus vitae taedet) – and he writes that Pompey assured him not to be concerned about Clodius.6

  Diminished Capacity

  In any case, from this juncture in his life, Plutarch dates the alleged diminution of Lucullus’ mental abilities.7 Plutarch cites Cornelius Nepos for the story that Lucullus’ descent into senility was not the result of either old age or disease, but rather of drugs that were administered to him by his freedman Callisthenes. The drugs were allegedly given in order that Lucullus might be more pliable to the Greek’s wishes; in fact they ruined his mind, so much so that eventually his younger brother had to take over his affairs. Lucullus eventually died, and the people are said to have mourned for him just as much as they might have been expected to grieve had he died at the very height of his military and political exploits. There was a clamour and outcry for him to be buried in the Campus Martius, where Sulla had also been buried. Plutarch vaguely notes that no one had expected this request, and the preparations for it were not easy (he does not explain why this would be so) – and finally Lucullus’ brother was able to convince the people by prayer and supplication that Lucullus should be buried where he had planned to be buried, namely at his Tusculan villa.

  Plutarch closes his biography by noting that Lucullus’ brother followed him in death not long after – a truly affectionate brother, who had followed Lucius in both age and reputation. We are not sure of the exact date of Lucullus’ death; it appears to have fallen either very late in 57 BC or very early in 56 (his near contemporary in age Crassus – himself also a commander under Sulla – would be dead in the East in some three years’ time). One wonders what Lucullus’ funeral oration emphasized; likely it dwelled on the role he played in confronting Mithridates, but his signal quality of pietas may also have proven an irresistible topic for praise. It was some two years since the Vettius affair. There is no reason to doubt the story of mental decline, or to imagine that Lucullus was somehow faking certain problems in order to protect himself. It is likely, too, that he had had more than enough of the New Republic. We have noted the theory subscribed to by some that Lucullus suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. While we have no way of confirming the legitimacy of the diagnosis, our ancient evidence does point to a decline in mental abilities and certainly public appearances; Lucullus’ end was not sudden in the manner of his mentor Sulla.

  In his Moralia, Plutarch offers a few more details about Lucullus’ dotage.8 He notes that Callisthenes tended to Lucullus much in the manner of a quack or a fake doctor; Marcus Lucullus eventually drove the fraud out of his brother’s house and proceeded to nurse Lucius – now essentially childlike in mind – for what little remained of his life. The De Viris Illustribus closes its account of Lucullus’ life with the note that Lucullus lost his mind in his later years, and that he became essentially a ward of his brother Marcus. In his Naturalis Historia, Pliny alludes to the story that Lucullus was driven mad by an amatorium, or love potion.9 Neither Pliny nor Plutarch gives much in the way of detail as to why the drug was administered. Pliny does not mention Callisthenes, while Plutarch speaks vaguely about the whole affair. Lucretius was said to have been poisoned in much the same way; it is possible that there is more than mere coincidence here, and that those who ascribed to Lucullus certain seemingly Epicurean tendencies may have appreciated the idea that both men were driven mad by a similar method.10 In short, we do not know for sure if there was a drug. If there was one, we have no idea of what it was composed; but we do know that such potions existed and were brewed, bought and sold, and that the tale – shared as it is by Lucretius, not to mention Caligula (though not fatally) – may well be true.11 If a fabricated romance, we may speculate as to the reason for the invention of the fiction. It may point to Lucullus’ reputation as a decadent bon vivant.12 At the very least, the similar stories offer another connection between commander and poet.13 Did the story of the love potion that led to Lucretius’ suicide originate in tales of the death of Lucullus?14

  Plutarch’s Summation

  It could be argued that Lucullus left the stage of Roman history at a particularly opportune moment. This is the sentiment with which Plutarch opens his comparison of Lucullus and Cimon – the most extended ancient appraisal we have of the character of the Roman general and man of letters.

  For Plutarch, Lucullus was blessed precisely because he died at a time when Rome was still free. On the other hand, while Cimon died in the field, and at the head of an army, Lucullus met his end amid feasts and revels, and with disordered mind. Plutarch condemns Lucullus as one who pursued pleasure as an end in itself; for him, Lucullus behaved more like an Epicurean than a follower of the Academy. While Cimon was disreputable in his youth and changed for the better, Lucullus was disciplined and possessed of a noble sobriety in his youth, only to age in an ever more pronounced fashion into a life of luxury and questionable leisure.

  Both men were wealthy, but Lucullus squandered his money in Eastern fashion; if Cimon had a democratic and charitable dinner table, Lucullus was known for sumptuous luxury and excess. Plutarch admits that Cimon might have become just as decadent as Lucullus, had he lived as long, and, conversely, that Lucullus might have avoided all censure had he died in Asia. This last sentiment is seemingly at odds with the notion that Lucullus died fortunate in that he was a casualty of the Republic and not the Empire – but the two views are not really mutually incompatible. Lucullus might have been better off had he died in battle in Asia, if one were to judge that his later life had no real successes that made up for his descent into a life of what some would call indolence. Lucullus could thus be said both to have spent too much time in Asia, and not to have spent enough; he was cheated of final victory, though arguably he had had plenty of time in which to attain it.

  Plutarch proceeds to the question of the relative merits of each man’s military skill and reputation, with particular reference to the question of each man’s relationship with his national sponsor. Here, in general appraisal, Cimon comes out the better-the main complaint lodged against Lucullus is that he was despised by his soldiers (while Cimon was loved). Lucullus’ failure to make his Asian victories complete is attributed to his lack of attention to the grievances of his soldiers, for which Plutarch blames him even if the question was one of ignorance of their demands and complaints. Plutarch has an explanation for the problem: aristocratic temperaments are little suited to dealing with the problems of the crowd. The aristocrat tends to annoy the commoner, even when his positions are correct and sound; he is like the bandage of the physician, which does so much to reorder the broken, but which brings irritation and annoyance to the patient – a medical metaphor that describes memorably how Plutarch viewed the social clashes and struggles between Lucullus and his men.

  Despite these negative assessments, Plutarch has much to say in praise of Lucullus’ military ability. He is credited with crossing the Taurus with an army; mastering the Tigris and capturing Tigranocerta, Nisibis and elsewhere; with expansion to the Phasis, Media and the Red Sea; annihilation of the armies of Mithridates and Tigranes; and a failure only to capture their persons – for like wild animals, Plutarch says, they escaped his grasp by flight into the forests. Plutarch notes that after Lucullus, Mithridates and Tigranes achieved nothing of real note – and Tigranes in his moment of abject surrender to Pompey flattered his Roman conqueror with the achievements of Lucullus. Lucullus is compared to an athlete who hands over a weaker antagonist to his successor.15 We do well to remember that age and battle injuries had taken their toll on Mithridates; the king Pompey would face would be significantly enervated compared to the king of the days of Lucullus and Sulla.

  Beyond all this, Plutarch notes that Tigranes had never been defeated when he faced Lucullus (whereas Cimon fought against Persi
a at a time when Persian power had been seriously weakened). In the final analysis, Plutarch refuses to say which man was the greater, observing that a decision is exceedingly difficult. Divine power seems to have pointed the one to what he must do, and the other to what he must avoid – an enigmatic remark of much psychological insight. But both men, Plutarch concludes, were noble and indeed godlike in nature. And both, we might note, were masters of military versatility. Cimon was present for the dramatic naval engagement at Salamis in 480 BC, but it was perhaps at the Battle of the Eurymedon where the Athenian statesman most decisively demonstrated his talent for war on both land and sea. In his work on behalf of the Delian League, Cimon more than proved his abilities in both types of warfare, while his diplomatic abilities were also exercised throughout his long career. He offered, in short, a natural pairing with Lucullus – not least in the circumstances of his difficulties at Athens and eventual exile, the somewhat unresolved and unfulfilled undertakings of his life and his eventual honourable burial in his native soil.

  Arthur Keaveney makes the reasonable argument that Lucullus was happier in Asia, under the service of military life, than he ever was in Rome.16 Keaveney concludes too that Lucullus never intended to make himself master of the Roman state, in contrast to Pompey (at least in some regards), and especially to Caesar. Keaveney’s own final summation is balanced, one might think: ‘A cultured and humane man, possessed of many talents, he did much good in his own lifetime and if he failed of greatness it may very well be because he lacked what was needed to achieve it in that age: ruthlessness.’17 By any measuring stick, Lucullus was certainly less ruthless than his mentor Sulla, his rival Pompey or the great Caesar. One might well add Crassus to the list. It may be that Lucullus alone of the lot was not interested in de facto monarchical rule, that even in time of great constitutional crisis, he did not have the will or desire to serve as dictator. He was thus an exceedingly noble champion of the senatorial cause, and the obvious choice to defend the rights of traditional republican government in the face of those who would turn the Republic into the possession of a military adventurer with the legions to make novel laws legal. One wonders to what extent he appreciated the inherent challenges of being a republican optimate in the guise of a new would-be Alexander – or vice versa, depending on analysis and point of view.

  A Lucullan Life

  We began our investigation into the life of Lucius Licinius Lucullus by noting that he could be considered the consummate man of his age, at least in some ways. Arthur Keaveney’s biography of Lucullus’ mentor Sulla offers the subtitle ‘the last Republican’ as a verdict on its subject. One could argue that Lucullus is more deserving of the title. Unlike Sulla, Lucullus was never possessed of a great urgency to return to Italy and Rome, being content to stay in the East until his task was completed. Avoidance of the Italian peninsula brought a long list of positive and negative results for Lucullus’ career. He certainly managed to be spared the reputation for involvement in the worst aspects of the civil strife in Italy that marked the turmoil of the Sullan years – though in the end his close relationship with his master and mentor may have been enough to condemn him in the eyes of many (Pompey was better in this regard in amassing items on his résumé that obscured, at least for some, his own formative experience under Sulla). At the risk of indulging speculative psychological analysis, it seems that Lucullus’ main problem upon his return to Italy was a feeling that he was supremely unappreciated by his colleagues and peers in Rome, while being unwilling to circumvent republican principles in the defence of the Republic. His interest in and patronage of the arts and literature made him an easy enough target for those who would dismiss him as an aesthete with greater concern for libraries and gardens than the life of the forum and the law courts. Age and illness also played their part in ensuring that Lucullus would commence his departure from the Roman republican stage at exactly the time when Pompey and Caesar were in the ascendant.

  If meeting a peaceful end is a blessing, Lucullus triumphed over his contemporaries. Crassus, Pompey and Caesar would all meet their ends by violence, Crassus deeply entangled in Parthia, and with a record of failure – and Caesar with post mortem deification as perhaps his most lasting consolation for a daring political and military life. Pompey would face the most shameful end, treacherously murdered in Egypt in the wake of his defeat at Pharsalus in the great civil war against Caesar. It is perhaps interesting to note that Lucullus’ demise had more in common with the final days of his mentor Sulla than with any of his great rivals for military fame and political glory.

  Lucullus was an optimate politician who quickly came into his own as a conservative, indeed traditionalist supporter of a mode of government and manner of statesmanship that was under increasing threat from the pressures in a system some would call inherently unstable. What distinguished him from certain others of his generation were the long sojourns that he spent in the East at two critical points in his life – foreign sojourns that invited him to walk in the steps of not only Achilles, but also Alexander. Hauntingly, a de facto revolt or mutiny of the army would doom the ambitions of both Alexander and Lucullus. Lucullus’ manner of life was deeply rooted in his conception of the traditions of the Roman Republic; his mission in the East was in several important regards profoundly at odds with that vision of Rome. It was a harbinger of an imperial Roman world that Lucullus may well have been happy not to have seen, with his demise a blessing that spared him the grim sight.

  And when he finally met his death – whatever the exact pathology of his illness, or the state of his mental faculties and intellectual power – Lucullus died as one of the supremely successful Romans of his day, a man who had made possible what was achieved in the Roman East for a generation and more after his death, and a man whose record survived largely unblemished in an age when it was all too easy for men in public life to succumb to all manner of crime and morally questionable action. His failures, such as they were, reflected in part the hazards and structural problems of the very Republic he so dearly loved and cherished. That his name is affectionately remembered today by the hospitable owners of highly regarded, quality restaurants throughout the eastern Mediterranean may in some ways be a more complimentary and praiseworthy legacy than that enjoyed by several of his great rivals and antagonists, both foreign and domestic.18

  He was also a testament to the wisdom of the teachings of the man who may have been his acquaintance, if not his friend – the poet Lucretius.

  Endnotes

  Chapter 1: From the Dawn of an Optimate Life

  1. At the time of writing, the internet address is www.lucullus-naxos.com. One imagines that Lucius might be pleased to know about his legacy in the virtual Hellenic world, well over two millennia since he visited Naxos. The ‘Lucullus’ tavern in Chora, Naxos, boasts itself as being the oldest restaurant on the island (founded in 1908).

  2. Cf. the ‘Loukoulos’ Restaurant in the very heart of Heraklion on Crete, housed in a lovely neoclassical edifice with courtyard; also the winter season Lucullus Restaurant in a beach hotel in Ayia Napa on Cyprus. The Pontic monarch Mithridates – who had so devastatingly swept across the Aegean and invaded Europe – does not seem to have inspired so fervent a devotional cult among the restaurant owners of the eastern Mediterranean. There is also a ‘Lucullus’ restaurant on the Dalmatian island of Hvar in Croatia; the establishment has been noted for some eccentricities of its staff that have included serving fish with a snorkel mask and filleting the fish while dressed in surgical garb – and opening wine with a sword. It is not clear what the gastronome Lucullus would have thought of the theatrical wonders of his namesake establishment. The so-called Lucullus Circle was founded in New York City in 1951 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel; dinners were lavishly arranged, with such novelties as, e.g., on one occasion serving food only on golden plates and with golden knives and forks.

  3. Lucullus is also known to students of German theatre and opera for Bertolt Brecht’s radio drama on Lucullu
s, Das Verhör des Lukullus, in which the Roman general is tried post mortem to decide whether he should enter Hades or Elysium. The drama was originally conceived as an opera; it had a complicated production and composition history, and was eventually premiered in 1951 as Die Verurteilung des Lukullus.

  4. The name Lucullus may well be a diminutive version of Lucius; both words are likely to be derived ultimately from lux, lucis – the Latin word for ‘light’. The name ‘Licinius’ has been derived from an Etruscan word for ‘curving’ or ‘slanted’; why this adjective would have been applied to a family name is uncertain.