Cicero, Academica, ii. 1.
1-3 ingenium, studium, doctrina, subjects of caruit.
3-5 quibus temporibus . . . urbanis = all this was divorced (caruit, lit. was cut off from) from the business of the capital, at the season when he might have had a specially brilliant career in the forum.—J. S. Reid.
6 paternas inimicitias = his father’s quarrel. The first appearance of Lucullus in public life was as the accuser of the Augur Servilius who had procured the banishment of his father.
7-9 in Asiam . . . praefuit, i.e. as Sulla’s quaestor in the first Mithridatic War, 88-84 B.C. and then till 80 B.C. in charge of the province of Asia (= orig. Kingdom of Pergamus, N.W. part of Asia Minor).
11 legis praemio = owing to a privilege conveyed by statute. J. S. R.
13-14 ad Mithridaticum bellum, i.e. the 3rd M. War, which he carried on for eight years (74-66 B.C.) with great success, until superseded by Pompeius in 66 B.C.
19-20 Murena . . . gerente. Lic. Murena, anxious for distinction, provoked the disastrous 2nd Mithridatic War, 83-81 B.C., when by the peremptory orders of Sulla the peace was renewed.
23 stet . . . servandis = persists in maintaining (lit. stands by) the ordinances of L.—J. S. R.
Reference. For Character of Lucullus, see Mommsen, vol. iv. pp. 337-8. Cf. also Vell. Paterc. ii. 32.