Lucullus Read online

  The Sole Loyal Quaestor?

  The opening of Plutarch’s life of Lucullus, then, presents a devoted son and brother, a man of great literary and forensic talent, who soon enough becomes a loyal subordinate to a military commander of unquestioned ability, notwithstanding the serious controversies that would attend Sulla’s life and political career. One of the most damning of the criticisms that would be levelled against Sulla was that in 88 BC he marched on Rome itself in an effort to defeat his domestic opponents. The Greek historian Appian offers a tantalizing note in his account of the Roman civil wars (I.57) that all of Sulla’s senior officers abandoned him in his entry into Rome at the head of his armed forces – with the sole exception of a single quaestor. Scholars have considered the possibility, if not the likelihood, that Lucullus was the ‘loyal’ quaestor who remained steadfast to Sulla even in this most controversial and dramatic of military gestures.41 Sulla was some two decades older than Lucullus, and may well have served as a surrogate father for the young man in the early stages of his pursuit of the Roman cursus honorum. We certainly have every reason to believe that Lucullus remained devoted to Sulla until the latter’s death in 78 BC. 42

  If Ernst Badian and others are correct in asserting that Appian’s mysterious sole quaestor is to be identified as Lucullus, than the 29 or 30-year-old officer may presumably have aroused some mixed reactions and feelings from his peers at his decision to join Sulla in the dramatic step of marching on Rome. For some, decisions such as this are what would have engendered the apparent suspicion of many of his contemporaries that Lucullus was something of a degenerate, suspicions that may have been responsible for his ultimate failure to rise to the same first ranks as Crassus, Pompey and Caesar.43 Did some consider Lucullus’ loyalty to Sulla to be another example of the same sense of pietas that inspired him to avenge his father, guilty though he may well have known his sire to be of the charges lodged against him? One noted modern historian has written: ‘The revolutionary nature of the step [i.e., of Sulla’s march on Rome] may be seen from the fact that only one of his officers followed him, L. Licinius Lucullus.’44 If loyalty to a commander was to be praised, than Lucullus was worthy of approbation. The problem was whether or not Sulla deserved the fidelity.

  If Lucullus was the only quaestor of 88 BC to enter Rome with Sulla in that fateful year, we have no idea what he did in the aftermath of his superior’s taking control of the situation in the city. We are told that the Marian supporter, Sulpicius, was betrayed by one of his own slaves and subsequently killed. Sulla rewarded the slave by emancipating him, only to have him hurled from the Tarpeian Rock for the crime of having betrayed his master. Was Lucullus privy to this correction of what Sulla and he would have considered an unforgivable breach of pietas?45

  What are we to make, at any rate, of Lucullus’ earlier life and the possibility of military experience before his involvement with Sulla, the Social War and the quaestorship that would in the end last from c. 88–80 BC? We have no definitive evidence for any military campaign experience prior to the Italian War, though some have speculated that there must have been something on his curriculum vitae before he attracted the favourable attention of his famous commander (below we shall explore the evidence for his military tribunate). Like many heroes of the military and political realms, Lucullus was favoured by the time of his birth. Rome was in the opening movements of what would be the slow and inexorable decline and eventual fall of the Republic, a period in Roman history that afforded ample opportunity for valorous deeds and courageous acts, not least in the complicated arena of foreign affairs, where the domestic problems of the Republic found a twin peril in the clashes of Roman military forces with neighbours in both the East and the West. Lucullus spent some of these complicated, difficult years in the East, and others in Rome. On the whole, we shall see that his time in Asia was perhaps the most successful period in his life, and that overall he achieved far more in foreign affairs than he ever did in domestic.

  An ‘Optimate’ Life

  Lucullus entered what we have called his ‘optimate’ life as the grandson of a consul. That Lucius Licinius Lucullus served in 151 BC as a so-called novus homo46 or ‘new man’, the first in his family to attain the consulship.47 Lucullus was thus a nobilis or noble, though not, strictly speaking, a patrician. His family, after all, was not descended from the Trojan exiles under Aeneas who had made their way to Italy in the misty shadows of the mytho-historical past (we may compare Caesar’s alleged descent from Aeneas’ son Iulus). Tradition had it that the Luculli were descended from a king of Illyria, that vast region of the western Balkans that figured prominently in Roman expansion and colonization both during the Republic and Empire.48 Lucullus’ consular grandfather had a chequered career in Spain, the provincial playground in which he established the fame and fortune that would so benefit his descendant.49 If anything, Lucullus would outshine both his father and his grandfather in the upright rectitude and reputation of his ways. While he certainly profited from his status as the grandson of a consul and his unofficial rank as a ‘noble’ plebeian, he would more than earn the honours that would accrue to the name he shared with his sires. Without question, he would be the most storied member of the Lucullus family. The fact is, however, that we do not know Lucullus’ exact family tree.

  The first Lucullus whose name survives in historical citation is a Lucius Licinius Lucullus of 202 BC, who served as curule aedile. No member of the family seems to have achieved anything of special note until the winning of the consulship by Lucullus’ grandfather in 151. As we have seen, the son of the consul fared rather less well in political life, and it would be for the grandson to achieve the greatest renown for his family. We do not know for certain if the consul of 151 was the son of the curule aedile of 202, or of another Lucullus who served as tribunus plebis or ‘tribune of the plebs’ in 196. Lucullus’ mother was one Caecilia Metelli, the sister of two consuls; Plutarch memorably describes her as simply being a bad woman, and there is evidence that her history of scandalous escapades led to divorce and certain ill-repute. Lucullus himself would have bad luck with women in his family, as both his first and second wife are said to have been of questionable moral reputation. We may wonder if any of this marital difficulty contributed to the husband’s eventual reputation as a hedonist. Lucullus could certainly never claim to have a peaceful, virtuous home life.

  Lucullus’ grandfather had experienced significant difficulties with the plebeian tribunes in consequence of his actions as consul, and his grandson would become firmly associated with the so-called optimates or boni (we might think of editorializing labels such as ‘best’ or at least ‘good’ men), traditionalists who sought to uphold the prerogatives of the senatorial aristocracy. Noble plebeians like the Luculli were allies of the patrician old guard in this movement; their opponents constituted the populares or ‘popular’ assemblies. What some would deride as hypocrisy could sometimes be found in the different ‘sides’ that individual Romans took in the republican squabbles that contributed so much to the downfall of the whole system. Lucullus’ grandfather had been a novus homo (cf. also Cicero himself), and yet both men were allied with the optimates. In general terms, the optimates were defenders of what they considered to be the mos maiorum, or the customs of their ancestors. There was a fair amount of pietas connected to all this, and given his history and what had befallen his family, there is absolutely no surprise in Lucullus’ aligning himself with the traditionalists.50 Events in the first half of the first century BC may also have contributed to a certain hardening of positions for Lucullus: the traditionalist may well have become far more traditional as Rome drew inexorably nearer to the Age of Pompey and the Age of Caesar.

  We may take stock at this juncture of certain aspects of the training, education and background of the young Lucullus. His family stood at the intersection of the two great divisions in Roman political life, the patrician and the plebeian. In some ways, the Luculli were patrician in all but blood lines a
nd name. The family traced its legendary origins to Illyria on the doorstep of the Roman East, and the noblest ancestor of young Lucius served as consul in the distant Roman West, in Spain. Professional difficulties vexed the lives of Lucullus’ father and grandfather; both Lucius and his brother Marcus came of age in a world teetering on the verge of major change and the hazard of governmental instability, if not collapse. The first war in which Lucullus certainly participated bore all the marks of a civil struggle that threatened to tear apart the very fabric of Italy. His early career was dominated by the turmoil between the supporters of Sulla and his great rival Marius, and by the rising threat from Rome’s increasingly aggressive enemies in the East. Lucullus’ career was formed in the spirit of the domestic and civil uprisings that threatened to tear apart the fabric of the Republic. It would be developed and reach maturity in the nascent imperial aspirations of Rome in the distant East of the dream of Alexander.

  Early Life

  Did Lucullus know hardship or financial struggle because of his father’s exile? Some scholars have cited the evidence of Pliny the Elder, who records a stray comment attributed to Marcus Varro to the effect that Lucullus never saw a lavish banquet at his father’s house in which Greek wine was served more than once.51 But we have no good reason to believe that the Luculli suffered inordinate harm from the banishment of their father. Marcus Lucullus was adopted by one Marcus Terentius Varro (not, as scholars hasten to note, the more famous Roman scholar and author of the same name). The reason for the adoption is unknown.

  One additional, important shred of evidence about the early career of Lucullus comes from the world of inscriptions. Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae 60 praises Lucullus as the victor over Mithridates and Tigranes; it notes that he served as tribunus militum, or tribune of the soldiers.52 The military tribunate had become an office more political than military after the army reforms of Marius of 107 BC,53 but Lucullus’ tenure in the position points to something of a military career prior to his service under Sulla in the Social War.54 Once again we are without firm evidence for a particular date, though shreds of evidence offer clues of a more or less conventional approach to a Roman political and/or military career.55 Lucullus may have served as tribune in 90–89 BC. At the very least, we can say that the son of a disgraced father had found a model for military acumen and martial science in one of the finest minds for war that Rome had ever seen. If Sulla’s own résumé were to be examined, his patronage and promotion of Lucullus would surely stand forth as one of his most impressive accomplishments on behalf of the Republic. If Lucius Lucullus had a father after the events of 102 BC, it was Sulla.56 Under Sulla’s patronage, Lucullus would receive training in foreign service, an extended time abroad that would contrast with the domestic horrors of the Social War, not to mention the turmoil in Rome and Italy occasioned by the civil strife between Sullans and Marians.

  Lucullus had the perfect optimate training in his service as quaestor under the consul Sulla in c. 88 BC. The quaestorship was the lowest rung of the Roman ladder of public offices, essentially a financial and economic occupation, with responsibility for treasury transactions and maintenance. The author of the Lucullan life in the De Viris Illustribus states the fact clearly: Lucius Licinius Lucullus nobilis, disertus et dives, munus quaestorium amplissimum dedit. Lucullus was not only eloquent (disertus), but also wealthy (dives) – and he more than adequately discharged his quaestorial duties. While there were the aforementioned, serious domestic challenges that confronted both Sulla and his young officer, there was also a far more perilous threat in the Roman East – the advance of King Mithridates VI of Pontus that threatened the stability of Roman holdings in both Asia Minor and Greece. Whatever Lucullus had done to merit the confidence of his superiors in Italy, he would soon rise to the occasion presented by war in the eastern Mediterranean in a manner that would leave no doubt as to his merit and resourceful achievement.57

  Arrival in Greece

  Greece enjoyed a long and storied history for countless centuries before Sulla and Lucullus arrived there in what was probably early 87 BC. While Rome was convulsed by the aftermath of the Social War and the de facto civil war between Sulla and Marius, Greece suffered the threat of yet another invasion from an eastern potentate – Mithridates had launched a wide-ranging, full-scale attack on his western neighbour, the doorway to Europe. Events in Rome arguably demanded Sulla’s attention – but in the absence of bilocation, the pressing problems of the East could no longer be ignored either. With ‘peace’ more or less restored in the aftermath of his march on Rome, Sulla proceeded to Greece – as did Lucullus. It seems likely that Lucullus arrived first, perhaps as part of an advance, reconnaissance embassy to gauge the situation on the scene before the arrival of the new commander. Our knowledge of the early events of what would become a long and protracted engagement in the East – and the real chance for Lucullus’ abilities and mettle to shine forth – comes largely from Plutarch’s life of Sulla.58 Quintus Bruttius Sura was the Roman commander in the service of Gaius Sentius Saturninus, the praetor of Macedonia. In 88 BC, he had engaged Mithridates’ commander, Archelaüs, in at least three encounters over three days at Plutarch’s hometown of Chaeronea in Boeotia – the famous site of the battle in 338 BC where Alexander the Great’s father, Philip II of Macedon, decisively defeated the Greek forces allied against him.

  Sura did well (in Plutarch’s estimation at least) against Archelaüs; though Sura commanded a moderate force and was surrounded by potential threats and hostile forces, he acquitted himself well and may have provided the only real challenge at this point to Mithridates’ advances into the region. Again, Lucullus seems to have arrived in Greece before Sulla. He proceeded to Sura’s camp and announced that Sulla was now taking command of the overall struggle against the Pontic threat. Sura withdrew to Sentius, his moment of glory now past. Chaeronea would prove soon enough to be the scene for another engagement of the Mithridatic war – and this time, Sulla would receive the credit and fame for what would prove to be a decisive Roman victory.

  Appian provides some further details about the engagement of Sura and Archelaüs in his record of the war against Mithridates.59 Sura is attested there as having performed well in a naval encounter against one of the king’s commanders. In the subsequent land engagements, the contest was evenly matched until Lacedaemoneans and Achaeans came to the aid of Mithridates’ forces. Whatever the exact history of his military achievements, Sura fades from the pages of the records of war, and Lucullus announces the arrival of the optimate general, who would now prosecute a war that had already cost thousands of Italian military and civilian lives across the East. The first record of Lucullus’ activities in the East comes in the significant role of serving as spokesman for Sulla. The man who may well have been the lone senior officer to accompany his superior in the fateful march on Rome would now serve as his precursor in the midst of the chaos and tumult that was Greece in 87 BC.

  There are some mysteries, however, about Lucullus’ activities in and near Chaeronea in this period. It is not entirely certain that Sura’s campaigns against Archelaüs occurred only in 88 BC; they may have extended into 87. A larger problem is the narrative of Lucullus’ reaction to the sensationalized ‘Damon drama’ that we find at the very start of Plutarch’s life of Cimon (the biography paired with that of Lucullus in his collection). The Roman commander of a cohort based near Chaeronea had fallen madly in love, it seems, with a young local named Damon. Damon eventually raised a small force of friends and companions, sixteen in all. While under the influence of alcohol, they assaulted the Roman and several of his associates, and killed the lot of them. They fled the city out of fear of repercussions and reprisals, and were subsequently condemned to death in absentia by the townsfolk (who feared Roman revenge for the loss of the commander and his men). Damon and his gang had apparently had a taste for blood; they returned under cover of night to Chaeronea and killed the magistrates and their friends – revenge for the condemnation. Damon
’s outlaw rebels escaped yet again, with more blood and murder on their hands.

  Soon enough, Lucullus is said to have arrived in the area with an army. He launched an investigation into the whole affair, and ruled that the people of Chaeronea were victims and not guilty of any wrongdoing. He took away the Roman garrison that was present in the city, and continued on his way. Damon was meanwhile ravaging the surrounding countryside, and was a greater threat to Chaeronea in the absence of the Roman occupation force. The citizens offered a deal: Damon would be made gymnasiarch (the official technically in charge of training athletes) if he returned to the city. But soon after his acceptance of the amnesty, he was murdered in the bath – a significant local problem now solved.

  The whole sordid matter might have ended right then and there, had not the Chaeroneans’ neighbours – the Orchomenians – decided to take advantage of the controversy to do harm to their rivals. They suborned perjury from a Roman informer to testify that the citizens of Chaeronea were to blame for the death of the Roman soldiers Damon had assassinated. The city was compelled to invoke the name and aid of Lucullus, who agreed that the citizens were quite innocent. A marble statue was placed in the town market in honour of the saviour of what would later be Plutarch’s hometown; the commemorative tribute was placed right at the side of a statue of the god Dionysus. The people of Chaeronea had been saved from the threat of terrible Roman reprisals by the intervention of Lucullus. If the biographer can be trusted – and again, we have no good reason to argue to the contrary – the Roman commander treated the local population with measured sobriety and respect.

  The narrative is classic Plutarch, with more than a bit of local pride and respect for the Roman who had acted so honourably in his salvation of the imperilled city. The problem is that we are uncertain of the year of the events. The dates proposed for the Damon story are wildly divergent.60 Some would prefer 87 or 86 B.C. Part of the difficulty of establishing the chronology is knowing exactly what Lucullus was doing in the area when he was distracted by the case of the slain commander and the Chaeronean rebels. Plutarch’s life of Lucullus glosses over the whole period; we have seen that the Sulla biography offers the detail about Lucullus’ virtual deposition of Sura as part of the advance mission of the officer to Boeotia. It is not clear why Lucullus would have been taking soldiers away from Chaeronea, though the simplest explanation would be that they were needed elsewhere on the front in a tense time.61 Lucullus’ adjudication of the Chaeronea case presumably would have taken place some years after the original incident. The soldiers involved in the Damon affair were almost certainly men under the command of the deposed Sura.62