XLII. What he did as to his collection of books is worth notice and mention. He got together a great number of books which were well transcribed, and the mode in which they were used was more honourable to him than the acquisition of them; for the libraries were open to all, and the walking-places which surrounded them, and the reading rooms were accessible to the Greeks without any restriction, and they went there as to an abode of the Muses, and spent the day there in company with one another, gladly betaking themselves to the libraries from their other occupations. Lucullus himself often spent some time there with the visitors, walking about in the ambulatories, and he used to talk there with men engaged in public affairs on such matters as they might choose; and altogether his house was a home and a Greek prytaneum[435] to those who came to Rome. He was fond of philosophy generally, and well disposed to every sect, and friendly to them all; but from the first he particularly admired and loved the Academy,[436] not that which is called the New Academy, though the sect was then flourishing by the propagation of the doctrines of Karneades by Philo, but Old Academy, which at that time had for its head a persuasive man and a powerful speaker, Antiochus of Askalon, whom Lucullus eagerly sought for his friend and companion, and opposed to the followers of Philo, of whom Cicero also was one. Cicero wrote an excellent treatise upon the doctrines of this sect, in which he made Lucullus[437] the speaker in favour of the doctrine of comprehension[438] and himself the speaker on the opposite side. The book is entitled 'Lucullus.' Lucullus and Cicero were, as I have said, great friends, and associated in their political views, for Lucullus had not entirely withdrawn from public affairs, though he had immediately on his return to Rome surrendered to Crassus and Cato the ambition and the struggle to be the first man in the state and have the greatest power, considering that the struggle was not free from danger and great mortification; for those who looked with jealousy on the power of Pompeius put Crassus and Cato at the head of their party in the Senate, when Lucullus declined to take the lead, but Lucullus used to go to the Forum to support his friends, and to the Senate whenever it was necessary to put a check on any attempt or ambitious design of Pompeius. The arrangements which Pompeius made after his conquest of the kings, Lucullus contrived to nullify, and when Pompeius proposed a distribution of lands[439] Lucullus with the assistance of Cato prevented it from being made, which drew Pompeius to seek the friendship of Crassus and Cæsar, or rather to enter into a combination with them, and by filling the city with arms and soldiers he got his measures ratified after driving out of the Forum the partisans of Cato and Lucullus. The nobles being indignant at these proceedings, the party of Pompeius produced one Vettius,[440] whom, as they said, they had detected in a design on the life of Pompeius. When Vettius was examined before the Senate, he accused others, and before the popular assembly he named Lucullus as the person by whom he had been suborned to murder Pompeius. But nobody believed him, and it soon became clear that the man had been brought forward by the partisans of Pompeius to fabricate a false charge, and to criminate others, and the fraud was made still more apparent, when a few days after the dead body of Vettius was thrown out of the prison; for, though it was given out that he died a natural death[441] there were marks of strangulation and violence on the body, and it was the opinion that he had been put to death by those who suborned him.
XLIII. This induced Lucullus still more to withdraw from public affairs; and when Cicero was banished from Rome, and Cato[442] was sent to Cyprus, he retired altogether. Before he died, it is said that his understanding was disordered and gradually failed. Cornelius Nepos says that Lucullus did not die of old age nor of disease, but that his health was destroyed by potions given him by Callisthenes, one of his freedmen, and that the potions were given him by Callisthenes with the view of increasing his master's affection for him, a power which the potions were supposed to have, but they so far disturbed and destroyed his reason, that during his lifetime his brother managed his affairs. However, when Lucullus died, the people grieved just as much as if he had died at the height of his military distinction and his political career, and they flocked together and had his body carried to the Forum by the young men of the highest rank and were proceeding forcibly to have it interred in the Campus Martius where Sulla was interred; but, as nobody had expected this, and it was not easy to make the requisite preparations, the brother of Lucullus prayed and prevailed on the people to allow the funeral ceremony to take place on the estate at Tusculum, where preparations for it had been made. Nor did he long survive; but as in age and reputation he came a little after Lucullus, so he died shortly after him, a most affectionate brother.
FOOTNOTES:
[315] The complete name of Lucullus was L. Licinius Lucullus. The Licinii were a Plebeian Gens, to which belonged the Luculli, Crassi, Murænæ, and others. Lucius Licinius Lucullus, the grandfather of Plutarch's Lucullus, was the son of L. Licinius Lucullus, who was curule ædile B.C. 202, and the first who gave nobility to his family. This grandfather of Lucullus was consul B.C. 151 with P. Postumius Albinus. He conquered the Vaccæi, Cantabri, and other nations of Spain, hitherto unknown to the Romans. Appian (Iberica, c. 52) gives an instance of his cruelty and perfidy in his Spanish wars. L. Licinius Lucullus, the father, was prætor B.C. 103. In B.C. 102 he went to take the command against the slaves who were in rebellion in Sicily under Athenion. He conducted the war ill, and on his return he was prosecuted for peculation and convicted. His punishment was exile. It is not known what the offence was that Servilius was charged with.
[316] This Metellus was the conqueror of Jugurtha; he was consul B.C. 109. See the Life of Marius, c. 7. His sister Cæcilia was the wife of L. Licinius Lucullus, the father of Plutarch's Lucullus; she was also the mother of Marcus the brother of Lucius Lucullus.
[317] See Life of Sulla, c. 6.
[318] This line is also quoted by Plutarch in his Treatise 'De Sera Numinis Vindicta,' c. 10.
[319] I should have translated the Greek word ( δικολόγος) "orator." Jurist in Plutarch is νομοδείκτης (Plutarch, Tib. Gracchus, c. 9) or νομικός. Quintus Hortensius Ortalus, the orator, was a friend and rival of Cicero, who often speaks of him. He began his career as a pleader in the courts at the age of nineteen, and continued his practice for forty-four years. (Brutus, c. 64, and the note in H. Meyer's edition.)
[320] L. Cornelius Sisenna, a man of patrician family, was prætor, B.C. 119, and in the next year he was governor of Sicily. He and Hortensius defended C. Verres against Cicero. He wrote the history of the Marsic war and of the war of Sulla in Italy, which he continued to the death of Sulla. The historical work of Sallustius began where that of Sisenna ended. Cicero (De Legg. i. 2) says that Sisenna was the best historical writer that had then appeared at Rome. He wrote other works also, and he translated into Latin the lewd stories of Aristides the Milesian (Plutarch, Crassus, c. 32; Ovidius, Tristia, ii. v. 443).
See Cicero, Brutus, c. 64, and the notes in Meyer's edition; Krause, Vitæ et Frag. Vet. Histor. Roman. p. 299.