Plutarch's Lives, Volume 2 (of 4)

by Plutarch

LIFE OF LUCULLUS.

I. The grandfather of Lucullus[315] was a man of consular rank, and his uncle on the mother's side was Metellus,[316] surnamed Numidicus. His father was convicted of peculation, and his mother, Cæcilia, had a bad name as a woman of loose habits. Lucullus, while he was still a youth, before he was a candidate for a magistracy and engaged in public life, made it his first business to bring to trial his father's accuser, Servilius the augur, as a public offender; and the matter appeared to the Romans to be creditable to Lucullus, and they used to speak of that trial as a memorable thing. It was, indeed, the popular notion, that to prefer an accusation was a reputable measure, even when there was no foundation for it, and they were glad to see the young men fastening on offenders, like well-bred whelps laying hold of wild beasts. However, there was much party spirit about that trial, and some persons were even wounded and killed; but Servilius was acquitted. Lucullus had been trained to speak both Latin and Greek competently, so that Sulla, when he was writing his memoirs,[317] dedicated them to Lucullus as a person who would put them together and arrange his history better than himself; for the style of the oratory of Lucullus was not merely suited to business and prompt, like that of the other orators which disturbed the Forum—

"As a struck tunny throws about the sea,"[318]

but when it is out of the Forum is

"Dry, and for want of true discipline half dead"—

but he cultivated the appropriate and so-called liberal sciences, with a view to self-improvement, from his early youth. When he was more advanced in years he let his mind, as it were, after so many troubles, find tranquillity and repose in philosophy, rousing to activity the contemplative portion of his nature, and seasonably terminating and cutting short his ambitious aspirations after his difference with Pompeius. Now, as to his love of learning, this also is reported, in addition to what has been mentioned: when he was a young man, in a conversation with Hortensius,[319] the orator, and Sisenna,[320] the historian, which began in jest, but ended in a serious proposition, he agreed that if they would propose a poem and a history, Greek and Roman, he would treat the subject of the Marsic war in whichsoever of these two languages the lot should decide; and it seems that the lot resulted in a Greek history, for there is still extant a Greek history of the Marsic war by Lucullus.[321] Of his affection to his brother Marcus[322] there were many proofs, but the Romans speak most of the first; being older than his brother, he did not choose to hold a magistracy by himself, but he waited till his brother was of the proper age, and so far gained the public favour that his brother in his absence was elected ædile jointly with him.

II. Though he was a young man during the Marsic war, he gave many proofs of courage and prudence; but it was rather on account of the solidity of his character and the mildness of his temper that Sulla attached Lucullus to himself, and from the beginning he constantly employed him in affairs of the greatest importance; one of which was the matter relating to the coinage. It was Lucullus who superintended the coining of most of the money in the Peloponnesus during the Mithridatic war, and it was named Lucullean after him, and continued for a long time to have a ready circulation, in consequence of the demands of the war. Afterwards, Sulla, who was in possession of the country about Athens,[323] but was shut out from supplies by sea by the enemy, who had the command of it, sent Lucullus to Egypt and Libya to get ships there. It was now the depth of winter, but still he set sail with three Greek piratical ships, and the same number of Rhodian biremes, exposing himself to a wide sea and to hostile vessels, which, owing to their having the superiority, were cruising about in great numbers and in all directions. However, he landed at Crete, and made the people friendly to his cause; and, finding the Cyrenæans in a state of confusion, owing to continual tyrannies and wars, he tranquillised and settled the state, by reminding the citizens of a certain expression of Plato, which the philosopher had addressed to them in a prophetic spirit. They asked him, as it appears, to draw up laws for them, and to settle their democracy after the model of a well-ordered polity; but he replied that it was difficult to legislate for the Cyrenæans while they were so prosperous. Nothing, indeed, is more difficult to govern than a man who considers himself prosperous; and, on the other hand, there is nothing more obedient to command than a man when he is humbled by fortune. And it was this that made the Cyrenæans tractable to Lucullus in his legislation for them. Sailing from Cyrene[324] to Egypt, he lost most of his vessels by an attack of pirates; but he escaped himself, and entered Alexandria in splendid style; for the whole fleet came out to meet him, as it was used to do when a king entered the port, equipped magnificently. The young king, Ptolemæus,[325] showed him other surprising marks of attention, and gave him a lodging and table in the palace, though no foreign general had ever before been lodged there. He also offered him an allowance for his expenditure, not such as he used to offer to others, but four times as much; Lucullus, however, would not receive anything more than his necessities required, nor yet any present, though the king sent presents to the value of eighty talents. It is said that Lucullus did not go up to Memphis,[326] nor make inquiry about any other of the wondrous and far-famed things in Egypt; he said that such things befitted an idle spectator, and one who had only to enjoy himself: not a man like himself, who had left the Imperator encamped under the bare sky, and close to the enemy's battlements.

Plutarch begins his Treatise which is intitled To an Uninstructed Prince with the same story about Plato and the Cyrenæans (Moralia, ed. Wyttenbach, vol. iv.).]

III. Ptolemæus declined the alliance, being afraid of the war; but he gave Lucullus ships to convoy him as far as Cyprus, and when he was setting sail he embraced him and paid him great attention, and presented him with an emerald set in gold, of great price. Lucullus at first begged to be excused from taking the present; but when the king showed him that the engraving contained his royal likeness, Lucullus was afraid to refuse the present, lest, if he should be supposed to sail away at complete enmity with the king, he might be plotted against on the sea. In his voyage along the coast Lucullus got together a number of vessels from the maritime towns except such as participated in piratical iniquities, and passed over to Cyprus, where, hearing that his enemies were lying in wait for him with their ships at the headlands, he drew up all his vessels, and wrote to the cities about winter quarters and supplies, as if he intended to stay there till the fine season. As soon as a favourable opportunity offered for his voyage, he launched his ships and got out to sea, and by sailing during the day with his sails down and low, and putting them up at night, he got safe to Rhodes. The Rhodians supplied him with some more ships, and he persuaded the people of Kos and Knidus to quit the king's side, and join him in an attack on the Samians. He drove the king's party also out of Chios, and he gave the people of Kolophon freedom by seizing Epigonus, their tyrant. It happened about this time that Mithridates had left Pergamum, and was shut up in Pitane.[327] While Fimbria[328] was keeping the king blockaded there on the land side and pressing the siege, Mithridates, looking to the sea, got together and summoned to him ships from every quarter, having given up all design of engaging and fighting with Fimbria, who was a bold man and had defeated him. Fimbria observing this, and being deficient in naval force, sent to Lucullus, and prayed him to come with his fleet and help him to take the most detested and the most hostile of kings, in order that Mithridates, the great prize, which had been followed through many contests and labours, might not escape the Romans, now that he had given them a chance of seizing him, and was caught within the nets. He said, if Mithridates was taken, no one would have more of the glory than he who stopped his flight and laid hold of him when he was trying to steal away; that if Mithridates were shut out from the land by him, and excluded from the sea by Lucullus, there would be a victory for both of them, and that as to the vaunted exploits of Sulla at Orchomenus and Chæronea,[329] the Romans would think nothing of them in comparison with this. There was nothing unreasonable in all that Fimbria said; and it was plain to every man that if Lucullus, who was at no great distance, had then accepted the proposal of Fimbria, and led his ships there and blockaded the port with his fleet, the war would have been at an end, and all would have been delivered from innumerable calamities. But whether it was that Lucullus regarded his duty to Sulla above all private and public interests, or that he detested Fimbria, who was an abandoned man, and had lately murdered his own friend and general,[330] merely from ambition to command, or whether it was through chance, as the Deity would have it, that he spared Mithridates, and reserved him for his own antagonist—he would not listen to Fimbria, but allowed Mithridates to escape by sea, and to mock the force of Fimbria. Lucullus himself, in the first place, defeated off Lektum in the Troad,[331] the king's ships, which showed themselves there, and again observing that Neoptolemus was stationed at Tenedos with a larger force, he sailed against him ahead of all the rest, in a Rhodian galley of five banks which was commanded by Demagoras, a man well affected to the Romans, and exceedingly skilful in naval battles. Neoptolemus came against him at a great rate, and ordered the helmsman to steer the ship right against the vessel of Lucullus; but Demagoras, fearing the weight of the king's vessel and the rough brass that she was fitted with, did not venture to engage head to head, but he quickly turned his ship round and ordered them to row her stern foremost,[332] and the vessel being thus depressed at the stern received the blow, which was rendered harmless by falling on those parts of the ship which were in the water. In the meantime his friends coming to his aid, Lucullus commanded them to turn his ship's head to the enemy; and, after performing many praiseworthy feats, he put the enemy to flight, and pursued Neoptolemus.

IV. After this, Lucullus joined Sulla in the Chersonesus, as he was going to cross the Hellespont, and he made the passage safe for him, and assisted his army in getting over. When the treaty was made, and Mithridates had sailed off to the Euxine, and Sulla had imposed a contribution[333] of twenty thousand talents on Asia, and Lucullus had been appointed to collect the money, and to strike coin, it appeared some small consolation to the cities of Asia for the harshness of Sulla that Lucullus not only behaved with honesty and justice, but conducted himself mildly in the discharge of so oppressive and disagreeable a duty. Though the Mitylenæans had openly revolted, Lucullus wished them to come to their senses, and to submit to some reasonable penalty for their ill-conduct in the matter of Marius;[334] but perceiving that they were under the influence of some evil dæmon, he sailed against them, and defeated them in a battle, and, after shutting them up in their walls, and establishing a blockade, he sailed out in open day to Elæa,[335] but he returned by stealth, and laying an ambuscade near the city, kept quiet. The Mitylenæans approached in disorder, and with confidence in the expectation of plundering a deserted camp; but Lucullus falling on them took a great number alive, and killed five hundred of them who made resistance. He also took six thousand slaves, and the rest of the booty was past count. But in the miseries which Sulla and Marius were at that time bringing on the people of Italy, without limit and of every kind, he had no share, being detained by his business in Asia by some happy fortune. Nevertheless, he had not less favour with Sulla than the rest of his friends; for, as I have said Sulla dedicated his memoirs to Lucullus, as a token of his affection, and finally he appointed him the guardian of his son, and passed by Pompeius. And this was probably the origin of the difference and the jealousy between Lucullus and Pompeius; for they were both young, and burning for distinction.