Plutarch's Lives, Volume 2 (of 4)

by Plutarch

XXXII. Elated and encouraged by this victory, Lucullus was intending to advance farther into the country, and to subdue the barbarian; but contrary to what one would have expected at the season of the autumnal equinox, they were assailed by heavy storms, generally snow-storms, and, when the sky was clear, there was hoar-frost and ice, owing to which the horses could not well drink of the rivers, by reason of the excessive cold; and they were difficult to ford, because the ice broke, and the rough edges cut the horses' sinews. And as the greater part of the country was shaded and full of defiles and wooded, the soldiers were kept continually wet, being loaded with snow while they were marching, and spending the night uncomfortably in damp places. Accordingly, they had not followed Lucullus for many days after the battle when they began to offer resistance, at first making entreaties and also sending the tribunes to him, and then collecting in a tumultuous manner, with loud shouts in their tents by night, which is considered to be an indication that an army is in a state of mutiny. Yet Lucullus urged them strongly, and called on them to put endurance in their souls till they had taken and destroyed the Armenian Carthage, the work of their greatest enemy, meaning Hannibal. Not being able to prevail on them, he led them back by a different pass over the Taurus, and descended into the country called Mygdonike, which is fertile and warm, and contains a large and populous city, which the barbarians called Nisibis,[412] but the Greeks Antiocha Mygdonike. The city was defended in name by Gouras, a brother of Tigranes, but in fact by the experience and mechanical skill of Kallimachus, who had given Lucullus great trouble in the siege of Amisus also. Lucullus seated himself before the city, and, by availing himself of every mode of pressing a siege, in a short time he took the city by storm. Gouras, who surrendered himself to Lucullus, was treated kindly; but he would not listen to Kallimachus, though he promised to discover concealed treasures of great value; and he ordered him to be brought in chains to be punished for the conflagration by which he destroyed Amisus and deprived Lucullus of the object of his ambition and an opportunity of displaying his friendly disposition to the Greeks.

XXXIII. So far one may say that fortune accompanied Lucullus and shared his campaigns: but from this time, just as if a wind had failed him, trying to force everything and always meeting with obstacles, he displayed indeed the courage and endurance of a good commander, but his undertakings produced him neither fame nor good opinion, and even the reputation that he had he came very near losing by his want of success and his fruitless disputes. Lucullus himself was in no small degree the cause of all this; for he was not a man who tried to gain the affection of the soldiery, and he considered everything that was done to please the men as a disparagement to the general's power, and as tending to destroy it. But, what was worst of all, he was not affable to the chief officers and those of the same rank as himself; he despised everybody, and thought no man had any merit compared with his own.[413] These bad qualities, it is said, that Lucullus had, though he possessed many merits. He was tall and handsome, a powerful speaker, and equally prudent in the Forum and the camp. Now, Sallustius says that the soldiers were ill-disposed towards him at the very commencement of the war before Kyzikus, and again at Amisus, because they were compelled to spend two winters in succession in camp. They were also vexed about the other winters, for they either spent them in a hostile country, or encamped among the allies under the bare sky; for Lucullus never once entered a Greek and friendly city with his army. While the soldiers were in this humour, they received encouragement from the demagogues at Rome, who envied Lucullus, and charged him with protracting the war through love of power and avarice. They said that he all but held at once Cilicia, Asia, Bithynia, Paphlagonia, Galatia, Pontus, Armenia, and the parts as far as the Phasis, and that at last he had plundered even the palace of Tigranes, as if he had been sent to strip kings and not to conquer them. This, it is said, was urged by one of the prætors, Lucius Quintus,[414] by whom they were mainly persuaded to pass a decree to send persons to supersede Lucullus in his province. They also decreed that many of the soldiers under Lucullus should be released from service.

XXXIV. To these causes, in themselves so weighty, there was added another that, most of all, ruined the measures of Lucullus; and this was Publius Clodius, a violent man, and full of arrogance and audacity. He was the brother of the wife of Lucullus, a woman of most dissolute habits, whom he was also accused of debauching. At this time he was serving with Lucullus, and he did not get all the distinction to which he thought himself entitled. In fact, he aspired to the first rank, and, as there were many preferred before him, in consequence of his character, he secretly endeavoured to win the favour of Fimbria's army, and to excite the soldiers against Lucullus, by circulating among them words well suited to those who were ready to hear them, and were not unaccustomed to be courted. These were the men whom Fimbria had persuaded to kill the consul Flaccus, and to choose himself for their general. Accordingly, they gladly listened to Clodius, and called him the soldier's friend, for he pretended to feel indignant at their treatment. "Was there never to be an end," he would say, "to so many wars and dangers, and were they to wear out their lives in fighting with every nation, and wandering over every country, and getting no equivalent for so much service, but, instead thereof, were they to convoy waggons and camels of Lucullus, loaded with cups of gold, set with precious stones, while the soldiers of Pompeius were now living as citizens,[415] and with their wives and children were sitting quiet in the enjoyment of fertile lands and cities, though they had not driven Mithridates and Tigranes into uninhabited wildernesses, nor pulled down the palaces of Asia, but had fought with exiles in Iberia, and runaway slaves in Italy? Why, then, if there is never to be an end of our service, do we not reserve what remains of our bodies and our lives for a general who considers the wealth of the soldiers his chief glory?" By such causes as these the army of Lucullus was corrupted, and his soldiers refused to follow him either against Tigranes or against Mithridates, who immediately made an irruption from Armenia into Pontus, and endeavoured to recover his power; but alleging the winter as an excuse, the soldiers lingered in Gordyene, expecting every moment that Pompeius, or some other commander,[416] would arrive to supersede Lucullus.

XXXV. But when news came that Mithridates had defeated Fabius,[417] and was marching against Sornatius and Triarius, through very shame the soldiers followed Lucullus. Triarius, being ambitious to snatch the victory which he thought was in his grasp, before Lucullus, who was near, should arrive, was defeated in a great battle. It is said that above seven thousand Romans fell, among whom were a hundred and fifty centurions, and twenty-four tribunes; and Mithridates took the camp. Lucullus arrived a few days after, and secreted from the soldiers Triarius, whom in their passion, they wore looking for; and, as Mithridates was not willing to fight, but was waiting for Tigranes, who was already coming down with a large force, Lucullus determined to march back, and to fight with Tigranes before he and Mithridates could unite. As he was on his march the soldiers of Fimbria mutinied, and left their ranks, considering that they were released from service by the decree of the Senate, and that Lucullus had no longer any right to the command, now that the provinces were assigned to others. Upon this there was nothing, however inconsistent with his dignity, which Lucullus did not submit to do—supplicating the soldiers individually, and going about from tent to tent in humble manner, and with tears in his eyes, and sometimes even taking the soldiers by the hand. But they rejected his proffered hand, and threw down before him their empty purses, and told him to fight with the enemy himself, for he was the only person who knew how to get rich from them. However, at the request of the rest of the army, the soldiers of Fimbria were constrained, and agreed to stay to the end of summer, and if, in the meantime, no enemy should come down to fight them, they were then to be released. Lucullus was of necessity obliged to acquiesce in this, or else to be left alone, and give up the country to the barbarians. He therefore kept the soldiers together, without making any further attempt to force them, or lead them out to battle, for he was well content if they would stay with him, and he allowed Cappadocia to be ravaged by Tigranes, and Mithridates to resume his arrogance, as to whom he had written to the Senate, to inform them that he was completely subdued; and the commissioners[418] were now with him who had been sent to settle the affairs of Pontus, on the supposition that the country was completely in the power of the Romans. Indeed, the commissioners were now witnesses that Lucullus was not his own master, but was treated with contumely and insult by the soldiers, who carried their audacity towards their commander so far, that, at the close of the summer, they put on their armour, and drawing their swords, challenged to battle the enemy who were no longer there, but had already moved off. After uttering the war shout, and flourishing their swords in the air, they left the camp, declaring that the time was up which they had agreed to stay with Lucullus. The rest of the soldiers were summoned by Pompeius by letter, for he had been appointed to the command[419] in the war against Mithridates and Tigranes, by the favour of the people, and through the influence of the demagogues; though the Senate and the nobles thought that Lucullus was wronged, inasmuch as he was not superseded in a war, but in a triumph; and it was not the command, but the honours of the command that he was compelled to divest himself of, and to surrender to others.

XXXVI. But it appeared a still greater wrong to those who were with Lucullus in Asia, that Lucullus had not the power either to reward or punish for anything that was done in the war; nor did Pompeius allow any person to go to him, nor to pay any attention to the orders and regulations that he was making in concert with the ten commissioners, but he obstructed him by publishing counter edicts, and by the fear which he inspired from having a larger force. However, their friends agreed to bring them together, and they met in a village of Galatia, where they saluted one another in a friendly manner, and each congratulated the other on his victories. Lucullus was the elder, but Pompeius had the greater reputation, because he had oftener had the command, and enjoyed two triumphs. Fasces, wreathed with bay,[420] were carried before both generals in token of their victories. But, as Pompeius had made a long march through a country without water and arid, the bays upon his fasces were withered, which the lictors of Lucullus observing, in a friendly manner gave them bays out of their own, which were fresh and green. And this the friends of Pompeius interpreted as a good omen; for, in fact, the exploits of Lucullus served to set off the command of Pompeius. But the conference[421] resulted in no amicable arrangement, and they separated with increased aversion towards each other. Pompeius also annulled the regulations of Lucullus, and he took off with him all the soldiers with the exception of sixteen hundred, whom he left to Lucullus for his triumph; and even these did not follow him very willingly: so ill suited was the temper of Lucullus, or so unlucky was he in securing that which, of all things, is the chief and greatest in a general; for, if he had possessed this quality, with the other many and great virtues that he had, courage, activity, judgment, and justice, the Roman empire would not have had the Euphrates for its limit, but the remotest parts of Asia, and the Hyrkanian Sea;[422] for all the other nations had already been defeated by Tigranes, and the Parthian power was not such as it afterwards showed itself to be in the campaign of Crassus,[423] nor so well combined, but owing to intestine and neighbouring wars, was not even strong enough to repel the attacks of the Armenians. But it seems to me that the services of Lucullus to his country were less than the harm he did it in other things; for his trophies in Armenia, which were erected on the borders of Parthia, and Tigranocerta, and Nisibis, and the great wealth that was brought from these cities to Rome, and the display of the diadem of Tigranes in his triumph, urged Crassus to attack Asia, and to think that the barbarians were only spoil and booty, and nothing else. But Crassus soon felt the Parthian arrows, and so proved that Lucullus had got the advantage over the enemy, not through their want of skill or cowardice, but by his own courage and ability. This, however, happened afterwards.

XXXVII. When Lucullus returned to Rome, first of all he found that his brother Marcus was under prosecution by Caius Memmius,[424] for what he had done in his quæstorship at the command of Sulla. Upon Marcus being acquitted, Memmius transferred his attack to Lucullus himself, and endeavoured to excite the people against him, and persuaded them not to give him a triumph, on the ground that he had appropriated to himself much of the spoils, and had prolonged the war. Now that Lucullus was involved in a great struggle, the first and most powerful men, mingling themselves among the tribes, by much entreaty and exertion with difficulty persuaded the people to allow Lucullus to have a triumph;[425] not, however, like some, a triumph which was striking and bustling, from the length of the procession, and the quantity of things that were displayed, but he decorated the circus of Flaminius with the arms of the enemy, of which he had a great quantity, and with the royal engines of war; and it was a spectacle in itself far from being contemptible. In the procession a few of the mailed horsemen, and ten of the scythe-bearing chariots moved along, with sixty of the king's friends and generals, and a hundred and ten brazen-beaked ships of war also were carried in the procession, and a gold statue of Mithridates six feet high, and a shield ornamented with precious stones, and twenty litters loaded with silver vessels, and two-and-thirty loaded with golden cups, armour, and money. All this was carried on men's shoulders; but there were eight mules that bore golden couches, and fifty-six carried silver in bars, and a hundred and seven others carried silver coin to the amount of near two million seven hundred thousand pieces. There were also tablets, on which was written the amount of money that Lucullus had supplied Pompeius with for the pirates' war, and the amount that he had paid to those who had the care of the ærarium; and besides this, it was added that every soldier received nine hundred and fifty drachmæ. After this Lucullus feasted all the city in a splendid style, and the surrounding villages which the Romans call Vici.

XXXVIII. After Lucullus had divorced Clodia, who was a loose and unprincipled woman, he married Servilia,[426] the sister of Cato, but neither was this a happy marriage; for he thus escaped only one of the misfortunes that resulted from his union with Clodia, the scandal about her brothers: in every other respect Servilia was as abominable as Clodia and a licentious woman, and yet Lucullus was obliged to bear with her from regard to Cato; but at last he put her away. Lucullus had raised the highest expectations in the Senate, who hoped to find in him a counterpoise to the overbearing conduct of Pompeius and a defender of the aristocracy,[427] inasmuch as he had the advantage of great reputation and influence; but he disappointed these hopes and gave up political affairs, either because he saw that they were already in a difficult position and not in a healthy state, or, as some say, because he was satisfied with glory, and wished to fall back to an easy and luxurious life, after his many contests and dangers, which had not been followed by the most fortunate of results. Some commend him for making such a change, whereby he avoided what had befallen Marius, who, after his Cimbrian victories and that great and glorious success, did not choose to dedicate himself to honour so great and to be an object of admiration, but through insatiate desire of glory and power, though an old man, entered into political warfare with young men, and so ended his career in dreadful acts, and in sufferings more dreadful than acts; and they say that Cicero also would have had a better old age if he had withdrawn from public life after the affair of Catiline, and Scipio after he had added the conquest of Numantia to that of Carthage, if he had then stopped; for there is a close to a political period also, and political contests as well as those of athletes are censured when a man's vigour and prime have failed him. But Crassus and Pompeius sneered[428] at Lucullus for giving himself up to pleasure and extravagant living, as if a luxurious life was not more unsuitable to persons of his age than affairs of state and military command.

XXXIX. Now in the life of Lucullus, as in an ancient comedy, we may read, in the first part, of political measures and military command, and, in the last part, of drinking and feasts, and hardly anything but revels, and torches, and all kinds of amusement; for I reckon among amusements, expensive buildings, and construction of ambulatories and baths, and still more paintings and statues, and eagerness about works of this kind, all which he got together at great cost, and to this end spent profusely the wealth which he had accumulated to a large and splendid amount in his military command; for, even now, when luxury of this kind has increased, the gardens of Lucullus are reckoned among the most sumptuous of the imperial gardens.[429] But with respect to his works on the sea-coast and in the neighbourhood of Neapolis, where he suspended as it were hills by digging great tunnels,[430] and threw around his dwelling-places circular pieces of sea-water and channels for the breeding of fish, and built houses in the sea, Tubero the Stoic,[431] on seeing them, called him Xerxes in a toga. He had also country residences in the neighbourhood of Tusculum, and towers commanding prospects,[432] and open apartments and ambulatories, which Pompeius on visiting found fault with Lucullus, that he had arranged his house in the best way for summer, but had made it unfit to live in during the winter. On which Lucullus said, with a smile, "You think, then, I have less sense than the cranes and storks, and do not change my residence according to the seasons." On one occasion, when a prætor was ambitious to signalize himself in the matter of a public spectacle, and asked of Lucullus some purple cloaks for the dress of a chorus, Lucullus replied, that he would see if he had any and would give them to him; and the day after he asked the prætor how many he wanted. The prætor said that a hundred would be enough, on which Lucullus told him to take twice as many; in allusion to which the poet Flaccus[433] has remarked, that he does not consider a man to be rich, if the property that he cares not for and knows nothing about is not more than that which he sees.

XL. The daily meals of Lucullus were accompanied with all the extravagance of newly-acquired wealth; for it was not only by dyed coverlets for his couches, and cups set with precious stones, and choruses and dramatic entertainments, but by abundance of all kinds of food and dainty dishes, curiously prepared, that he made himself an object of admiration to the uninstructed. Now Pompeius gained a good reputation in an illness that he had; for the physician had ordered him to eat a thrush, and, on his domestics telling him that a thrush could not be found in the summer season except at the house of Lucullus, where they were fed, Pompeius would not consent to have one got from there; but remarking to his physician, "What, if Lucullus were not so luxurious, could not Pompeius live?" bade them get for him something else that could be easily procured. Cato, who was his friend and connected with him by marriage, was so much annoyed at his life and habits that, on one occasion, when a young man had delivered in the senate a tedious and lengthy discourse, quite out of season, on frugality and temperance, Cato got up and said, "Won't you stop, you who are as rich as Crassus, and live like Lucullus, and speak like Cato?" Some say that a remark to this effect was made, but that it was not by Cato.

XLI. That Lucullus was not merely pleased with this mode of living, but prided himself upon it, appears from the anecdotes that are recorded. It is said, that he feasted for many days some Greeks who visited Rome, and that they, feeling as Greeks would do[434] on the occasion, began to be ashamed and to decline the invitation, on the ground that he was daily incurring so much expense on their account; but Lucullus said to them with a smile, "It is true, Greeks, that this is partly done on your account, but mainly on the account of Lucullus." One day, when he was supping alone, a single course and a moderate repast had been prepared for him, at which he was angry, and called for the slave whose business it was to look after such matters. The slave said, that he did not suppose that he would want anything costly, as no guest was invited. "What sayest thou?" said Lucullus, "didst thou not know that to-day Lucullus sups with Lucullus?" Now, this matter being much talked of in the city, as one might expect, there came up to Lucullus, as he was idling in the Forum, Cicero and Pompeius, of whom Cicero was among his most intimate friends; but between Lucullus and Pompeius there was some difference, arising out of the affair of the command in the Mithridatic war, and yet they were accustomed to associate and talk together frequently in a friendly manner. Accordingly, Cicero saluted him, and asked him how he was disposed to receive visitors, to which Lucullus replied, "Exceedingly well," and invited them to pay him a visit. "We wish," said Cicero, "to sup with you to-day, just in the same way as if preparation were made for yourself only." Lucullus began to make some difficulty, and to ask them to allow him to name another day; but they said they would not, nor would they let him speak to his servants, that he might not have the opportunity of ordering anything more than what was preparing for himself. However, at his request, they allowed him just to tell one of his slaves in their presence, that he would sup on that day in the Apollo; for this was the name of one of his costly apartments. This trick of Lucullus was not understood by his guests; for it is said that to every banqueting-room there was assigned the cost of the feast there, and every room had its peculiar style of preparation and entertainment, so that when the slaves heard in which room their master intended to sup, they also knew what was to be the cost of the supper and the kind of decoration and arrangement. Now, Lucullus was accustomed to sup in the Apollo at the cost of fifty thousand drachmas, and this being the cost of the entertainment on the present occasion, Pompeius and Cicero were surprised at the rapidity with which the banquet had been got ready and the costliness of the entertainment. In this way, then, Lucullus used his wealth, capriciously, just as if it were a captive slave and a barbarian.