Lucullus

  5. ‘Lucullus was a strategist and tactician of truly exceptional talent’ A. Goldsworthy, In the Name of Rome: The Men Who Won the Roman Empire (London: Phoenix, 2003), p.191.

  6. Cf. here C. Edwards, The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome (Cambridge, 1993), pp.146–47, 153.

  7. On this see especially A. Keavaney, Lucullus, A Life (Piscataway, New Jersey: Gorgias Press LLC, 2009), second edition with a new postscript of the 1992 Routledge original. There is also a French language monograph by J. Van Ooteghem, Lucius Licinius Lucullus (Bruxelles: Palais des Academies, 1959), with illustrations and maps; these are the two ‘standard’ scholarly overviews of Lucullus’ life. Antonelli 1989 may be added to the ‘basic’ Lucullan bibliography, though his treatment is more popular than Keaveney’s or van Ooteghem’s. There is a helpful, concise and informative account of the world in which Lucullus lived in the essay of Jürgen von Ungern-Sternberg in the 2004 Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic (translated by the editor, Harriet Flower), pp.89–109. This is one of the best synopses of the difficult problems of ‘The Crisis of the Republic’. Lucullus’ name receives extensive commentary from van Ooteghem, 1959, pp.5 ff.

  8. And on how Caesar allegedly treated Lucullus with insolent contempt, see R. Syme, The Roman Revolution (Oxford, 1939), p.56 (after Suetonius, Divus Iulius 20.4; cf. Plutarch, Vita Luculli 42.6); also A. Goldsworthy, Caesar: Life of a Colossus (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2006), p.173. The episode is reminiscent of the story we shall soon enough consider of Lucullus’ encounter with Glabrio and the voluntary humiliation of Lucullus; the difference between the two encounters is telling for how much Rome had changed in just a few years of Lucullus’ adult life. For a possible reconstruction of what really happened between Caesar and Lucullus, see Keaveney, 2009, pp.217 ff.; cf. Gelzer, 1968, p.75. 59 BC was, in any case, an exceedingly difficult year for Lucullus; his health may have already entered an irreversible decline, and the future – however finite – belonged to such as Pompey and Caesar.

  9. In the case of Clodius, it was apparently to enable himself to serve as tribune of the plebs, so as more easily to seek revenge on Cicero for the latter’s machinations against him on the occasion of the Bona Dea scandal of December 62 BC – a subject to which we shall return.

  10. For general introductory commentary on Plutarch’s life, see G.B. Lavery, ‘Plutarch’s Lucullus and the Living Bond of Biography’, in The Classical Journal 89.3 (1994), pp.261–73. Lavery considers the problem of what exactly Plutarch thinks of his biographical subject; the problem of whether Plutarch liked, admired and respected his Roman subject. ‘Plutarch undertook a formidable business in composing a biography of Lucullus, more than most Romans a man of paradoxes and contradictions, a man who opened himself to conflicting verdicts by his behaviour at different points in his career’ (p.262). A comprehensive account of certain themes of the biography is the work of M. Tröster, Themes, Character, and Politics in Plutarch’s Life of Lucullus, The Construction of a Roman Aristocrat (Historia Einzelschriften 201) (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2008). The standard Greek text of the life is the Bibliotheca Teubneriana (Teubner) edition of Hans Gärtner, Plutarchus: Vitae Parallelae, Volumen I, Fasciculus I, (K.G. Saur Verlag, 2000) (fifth revised edition). The life is also found in Volume II of the Loeb Classical Library edition (1914), with English translation by Bernadotte Perrin. There is also an excellent introduction to the life (with translation, including the comparison to Cimon) in the ‘Penguin Classics’ volume Rome in Crisis, edited by Ian Scott-Kilvert and Christopher Pelling (2010). Dryden’s translation of Plutarch’s lives has remained regularly in print as a part of the Modern Library series of editions of the classics.

  11. Ancient sources for Lucullus’ life also include historians and other writers interested in the general’s military exploits: we shall return to the evidence of the Latin writers Florus, Eutropius and Orosius (inter al.), and Book XXXVI of the monumental Roman history in Greek of Dio Cassius. But the major sources are Plutarch and Appian. Sallust’s histories (Books III and IV in particular) also provide valuable evidence, though they survive only in fragments. There is a particularly valuable Loeb Classical Library edition of the fragments (edited by John T. Ramsey); the Loeb offers a generously annotated text of the fragments with translation and detailed introduction (2015). There is also a commentary by Patrick McGushin in two volumes, for the Oxford Clarendon Ancient History series (1992; 1994). The first volume is concerned with Books I-II; the second with III-V. McGushin has exceptionally detailed notes on the historical problems of the remains of Sallust’s work.

  12. The nine essays of Brunt, 1988, offer a good starting point for exploration of a well-documented period and set of problems.

  13. On the difficult question of Plutarch’s methodology in chronicling the fall of the Republic, see C.B.R. Pelling, ‘Plutarch’s Method of Work in the Roman Lives’, in The Journal of Hellenic Studies 99 (1979), pp.74–96.

  14. Lucullus’ uncle was no friend of Gaius Marius – a fact that may have added to the youth’s attractiveness to Sulla. The cognomen Numidicus was earned for his achievements in the Jugurthan War; he was exiled in 100 BC but returned within two years. Lucullus himself never received an agnomen or special title; he was not, for instance, ever referred to as Ponticus (unlike his colleague Cotta).

  15. Cf. Cicero, De Officiis 2.50, where the prosecution of Servilius by the Luculli is considered a matter of ulcisci, or the seeking of vengeance. The enmity between the families is noted also by Cicero at De Provinciis Consularibus 22.

  16. Diodorus Siculus XXXVI.8–9 is the principal surviving source. Diodorus is most conveniently available in the Loeb Classical Library edition.

  17. Lucullus Senior had already distinguished himself – at least in some fashion – for having put down a servile uprising in southern Italy; for the so-called Vettius Affair, see Keaveney, 2009, pp.4–5 (another affair involving a very different Vettius would involve Lucullus Junior); Diodorus Siculus XXXVI.2. Diodorus relates that an equestrian fell in love with another man’s slave girl; he bought her at a high price, but was unable to pay the debt by the agreed date. When he felt that he could no longer delay, he conceived the mad plot of raising an army of hundreds from his own slave holdings, and setting himself up as a petty tyrant, complete with purple cloak and diadem. He murdered his creditors and soon found himself in command of some 700 men, later to swell to 3,500. Lucullus’ father is said to have succeeded in confronting the threat by a promise of immunity to one of Vettius’ commanders; Vettius in the end committed suicide with his comrades.

  18. With whatever family enmities there existed between the Luculli and the Servilii, we may compare the conflict between the Luculli and the Pompeii that, as we shall see, was at the heart of the Archias episode.

  19. Exactly what Lucullus’ father was guilty of has been lost to history. Diodorus blames him for not following up on what would have been an easy opportunity to crush the slave revolt for good and all; this failure leads directly to Lucullus’ being worsted in a subsequent engagement. Diodorus asserts that Lucullus’ failure to succeed was the cause of the charges later imputed to his indolence or avarice. His successor – Gaius Servilius – is said by Diodorus also to have failed in achieving any real success (some have argued that this Servilius may be Servilius Augur, but there is no good reason for the speculation). Lucullus is said to have disbanded his army and burned his equipment to prevent any chance of Servilius winning where he had lost. Curiously, Diodorus also notes that Lucullus was suspected by some of wishing to broaden the scope of the war (this admittedly does not accord well with the charge of indolence); the burning of his camp and supplies, the historian observes, was a way both to harm Servilius and to dispel the charge.

  20. Keaveney, 2009, pp.6–7.

  21. Cicero, Pro Archia Poeta III.5.

  22. Cicero dates the voyage to Interim satis longo intervallo, which indicates some considerable time after 102 BC, but without specificati
on.

  23. He became Aulus Licinius Archias.

  24. It seems that Archias lived long enough to see the assassination of Caesar in 44 BC.

  25. The significance of Hellenism in Lucullus’ life is the subject of the second chapter of Tröster, 2008, with particular reference to the narrative of this quality in Plutarch’s life.

  26. We have no way of judging the merits of Archias’ work, since his poetry has all but vanished from record; Keaveney, 2009, p.15, concludes that ‘The loss to literature is not, perhaps, all that great’, noting that Archias was best known for laudatory works on his patrons. Keaveney’ 2009, pp.292–93, 303, considers the theory of some that Archias’ poem on the Third Mithridatic War was an important source for Plutarch’s life of Lucullus (the theory is based on the allegedly significant amount of fantastic material in the biography, which to some points to a poetic source). Keaveney rightly notes that Plutarch does not cite Archias as a source – not a definitive argument against influence, to be sure – but we can only speculate.

  27. Keaveney, 2009, p.287, mentions the detail in Pliny, Naturalis Historia XXXV.200 that Lucullus had a freedman named Hector who had certain literary talents: ‘How far this man may have helped in the composition of Lucullus’ history of the Social War … is a moot point.’

  28. On this episode, note the edition with full commentary of D.R. Shackleton Bailey, Cicero’s Letters to Atticus, Volume I, Books I-II (Cambridge, 1965).

  29. The complete testimonia and evidence for the question of Lucullus’ historical compositions is conveniently assembled by T.J. Cornell, ed., The Fragments of the Roman Historians (3 vols) (Oxford, 2013). Volume I provides an introduction to Lucullus Historicus (p.287), and Volume II the texts and translations of the surviving evidence (pp.492–93). The last volume contains the extensive commentary on the historical fragments. In general, Cornell’s work is an outstanding reference for the study of Roman history and the remains of the ‘minor’ Roman historians. For how Lucullus seems not to have had anything to do with the editing or completion of the memoirs that Sulla left unfinished at the time of his death, see Keaveney, 2009, p.49, which takes Sulla’s comment to be purely honorific and not at all as a serious invitation for Lucullus to ‘meddle’ in the production of the autobiography.

  30. Hence some editors speak of the Academica Priora and the Academica Posteriora.

  31. Academica II.2.4.

  32. Indeed, we know that Lucius was born in either 118 or 117 BC on the basis of the story that he waited to hold office until his younger brother came of age; we know that Marcus was a curule aedile in 79 and that he held the office in the first year in which he was eligible – and so he was born in 116. Working from this, we can postulate a date for the birth of his older brother. See further Keaveney, 2009, p.4.

  33. On the particular importance of Greek culture in the Plutarchan account of Lucullus life, note S.C.R. Swain, ‘Plutarch’s Characterization of Lucullus’, Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, Neue Folge, 135. Bd., H. 3/4 (1992), pp.307–16, and more generally the same author’s ‘Hellenic Culture and the Roman Heroes of Plutarch’, The Journal of Hellenic Studies 110 (1990), pp.126–45.

  34. The best edition of this fascinating collection of biographies is the ‘Budé’ text of Paul Marius Martin, Les hommes illustres de la ville de Rome (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2016), with French translation, full introduction and copious commentary notes. There is a so-called ‘bilingual edition’ by Walter K. Sherwin (Norman: The University of Oklahoma Press, 1973), which offers a deterior comparison with Martin’s Budé. There is no Loeb edition.

  35. Vita Luculli I.4.

  36. One may note, for example, that even the exemplary Loeb Classical Library edition of Suetonius’ lives of the Caesars – in which Lucullus is mentioned but once, and not for luxurious habits – has an index note on Lucullus in which he is noted for his decadent ways, as if this were the defining characteristic of his life. The survey of many republican history and biography texts will often reveal the same judgment when Lucullus is cited in passing.

  37. For Arthur Keaveney, 2009, p.20, Lucullus was already of a ‘kindly disposition’, and Greek literature and the arts served to refine and polish someone who was already more or less refined and polished by nature. Comments of this sort easily descend into generalization; it may well be that Lucullus was not very different from other leading men of his day, with the exception that he took a greater pleasure and consolation in literature than they did – a consolation that would certainly find ample ground for indulgence in the final years of his life.

  38. On Sulla’s life and military/political career, note especially A. Keaveney, Sulla: The Last Republican (Oxford/New York: Routledge, 2005), second edition of the 1982 Croom Helm original publication, and L. Telford, Sulla: A Dictator Reconsidered (South Yorskhire: Pen & Sword Military, 2014). The latter book is an unabashed attempt to rehabilitate the reputation of its subject; at the very least, it offers interesting perspectives on certain aspects of Sulla’s career. Keaveney’s book is essential reading for a scholarly appraisal. Not surprisingly, the controversial Sulla has occasioned a controversial scholarly tradition.

  39. For the convenient overview of the so-called Bellum Italicum, see P. Matyszak, Cataclysm 90 BC: The Forgotten War That Almost Destroyed Rome (South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Military, 2014). The Social War remains one of the more poorly studied conflicts of the Republic, in part for lack of extensive ancient evidence.

  40. Plutarch, Vita Luculli IV, 4.

  41. Cf. here P.J. Thonemann, ‘The Date of Lucullus’ Quaestorship’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, Bd. 149 (2004), pp.80–82; note also the foundational work of E. Badian, Studies in Greek and Roman History (Oxford, 1964), pp.153, 220. Thonemann’s paper on the date of the quaestorship is the subject of ‘postscript’ additional material in Keaveney, 2009, pp.287–90, with the author’s customary detailed appraisal of the evidence and sober judgment.

  42. For general remarks on the aristocrats who supported Sulla (especially those who remained more or less constant and loyal to him throughout), see E.S. Gruen, The Last Generation of the Roman Republic (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London, 1974), pp. 6–7.

  43. Cf., e.g., the review of Keaveney, 1992, by Boris Rankov, ‘The Life of a Rotted Sponge?’, The Classical Review, New Series, Vol. 43, No. 2 (1993), pp.341–43.

  44. M. Crawford, The Roman Republic (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1992) (second edition of the 1978 original), p.146. The relationship between the quaestor Lucullus and his mentor Sulla was certainly quite different in its outcome from that between the quaestor Sulla and his would-be mentor Marius. Crawford’s book is among the best English-language treatments of its (vast) subject.

  45. For the episode see Keaveney, 2005, pp.55–56, 201.

  46. On such figures note especially Wiseman, 1971, with comprehensive consideration of the problem of who exactly these ‘new men’ were, and whence they tended to come.

  47. The consular Lucullus of 151 BC is cited by Aulus Gellius at Noctes Atticae XI.8.2.

  48. Cf. van Ooteghem, 1959, p.8.

  49. Most of what we know about the consular Lucullus of 151 BC comes from Appian’s account of the Roman wars in Spain. For a brief overview note P. Matyszak, Sertorius and the Struggle for Spain (South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Military, 2013), pp.41–44. Lucullus’ grandfather campaigned in both Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior; if we can believe Appian, he was more distinguished for greed than for military strategy; for the ancient historian’s account of the whole affair, see J.S. Richardson, Appian: Wars of the Romans in Iberia (Warminster: Aris & Phillips Ltd., 2000), with Greek text, translation and helpful commentary). Cf. also A. Goldsworthy, Pax Romana: War, Peace and Conquest in the Roman World (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2016), pp.39 ff.; 58–59.

  50. ‘It was with good reason that the Roman noble appealed to custom and precedent. His whole way of life depended on them. In the ideology of th
e aristocracy … the standards and achievements of the ancestors formed the criteria by which those of the present generation were judged’, D. Earl, The Moral and Political Tradition of Rome (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1967), p. 30.

  51. Naturalis Historia XIV.96.

  52. The (Augustan Age) inscription is from Arezzo, Italy; the original is in the National Archaeological Museum there, a museum that is named after the Augustan patron of the arts, Gaius Cilnius Maecenas.

  53. On the similar attitudes and behaviours of Roman aristocrats in the execution of both their political and military duties, see A.K. Goldsworthy, The Roman Army at War, 100 BC-AD 200 (Oxford, 1996), p.148. On the army reforms of Marius, see de Blois, 1987, pp.11–13. ‘In the two decades following Sulla’s abdication (79–60) Roman armies operated in an area which stretched from Spain to Armenia.’

  54. Normally a tribunus was required to have had at least five years of service in the army.

  55. See further W.V. Harris, War and Imperialism in Republican Rome, 327–79 BC (Oxford, 1979, new printing 1991, with additional material), p.257. Harris considers the question of Roman magistrates who came to office with less than a decade of military experience.

  56. We should note that Lucullus was a first cousin on his mother’s side to Sulla’s wife Metella (see on this Keaveney, 2009, pp.22–23); at least the initial formation of the relationship between Lucullus and Sulla may well have owed something to this familial/marital connection.

  57. A detailed, comprehensive account of the life and times of Rome’s inveterate eastern enemy is the lengthy volume of A. Mayor, The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithridates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy (Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2010); cf. also P. Matyszak, Mithridates the Great: Rome’s Indomitable Enemy (South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Military, 2008); and R. Evans, Roman Conquests: Asia Minor, Syria and Armenia (South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword, 2011). There is a brief and useful overview of Mithridates’ conflicts with Rome in P. Matyszak, Enemies of Rome: From Hannibal to Attila the Hun (London: Thames & Hudson Ltd., 2004), pp.81 ff. McGing, 1986, offers a full appraisal of Mithridates’ foreign affairs, including valuable treatment of his propaganda efforts. McGing focuses more on Hellenistic affairs than strictly Roman material.