Lucullus Read online

  There is a significant detail about Lucullus’ quaestorship that is preserved by Cicero in his Academica.10 Cicero notes that Lucullus was devoted to the study of philosophy and literature, even while immersed in his military and diplomatic responsibilities. As we have noted, Lucullus is said to have kept Antiochus of Ascalon (c. 125–c. 68 BC) as his companion in this period. Antiochus was an Academic philosopher and a student of Philo (Antiochus would also be a teacher of Cicero in Athens).11 According to Cicero, Antiochus would speak with Lucullus about various books that the Roman would then eagerly devour. Lucullus’ great memory is said to have served him well as he mastered the doctrines he was taught by his learned companion. Alexandria was famous for the library that had been established by Alexander’s general and successor in Egypt, Ptolemy I Soter. One imagines that Lucullus and Antiochus took the time to visit the great wonder of the ancient world, to consult its riches and bask in the accumulated scholarly glory of the Greek world. First Cyrene, and then Alexandria: no Roman of literary tastes could visit the East and not be expected to indulge in the rich treasures of its cities and libraries.

  Piracy

  If the Cretans had had a reputation for piracy, they had been significantly eclipsed, we have noted, by the Cilicians. Cilicia was something of a lawless land at various points in the long history from the death of Alexander to the advent of Roman power in the eastern Mediterranean. At one point, the region had been a part of Ptolemaic Egypt. It later fell to the Seleucid monarchy of Asia Minor, though that house had never been able to maintain effective control over the entire region. It is perhaps no surprise that pirates soon found a ready reception in the coastal waters due north and north-east of Cyprus.12

  Lucullus faced a significant threat from the Cilician pirates, and had already suffered one great defeat to Mediterranean brigandage. This time, he was both prepared and focused on either evading or ending the pirate threat. Lucullus displayed sound, practical skill in logistical organization and creative execution of a daring plan.13 Essentially, he tricked the pirates into thinking that he planned to winter on Cyprus. He contacted the cities of the island and asked for support in just such a hibernation plan – and was as warmly received by the island authorities as he had been in Alexandria. Cyprus was a secure part of the Ptolemaic dominion, and was more or less ‘safe’ territory for a Roman visitor – but Lucullus had no plans for a long sojourn on the island. Instead, he intended at once to take advantage of favourable winds and sail by surprise for Rhodes, enforcing a full sail departure by night, with daytime voyaging under low sail to give the impression that he was lingering in the vicinity.

  Lucullus thus avoided a direct engagement with the Cilician pirates. They would have had the advantage of fighting in their territory, and with superior numbers. Lucullus could not count on any serious reinforcements from Cyprus, especially not in difficult temporal straits. And in the general progress of the war against Mithridates, the Cilician pirates were at best an annoying sideshow, a tedious delay that could sap strength from Lucullus’ forces and render him unable to assist Sulla in the primary goal of defeating the Pontic king. Having suffered one loss to marine marauders, Lucullus had no intention of suffering an even more serious setback in the waters beyond Cyprus and the Asian coast – he was on the ‘homeward’ arc of his return to Sulla.

  Rhodes

  Scholars cannot precisely delineate what Lucullus was doing from 86 into 85 BC. Some think that he must have spent some time in Rhodes during the winter, his clever plan for avoiding any defeat at the hands of the Cilicians having succeeded. For from Cyprus he certainly proceeded to Rhodes, the largest of the so-called Dodecanese islands – and another legendary place of literary associations (it was the home island of Apollonius of Rhodes, the third-century BC Greek epic poet who authored the Argonautica, a mythological epic in four books on the quest of Jason in search of the Golden Fleece). Rhodes was an island of rich history and conflicted foreign allegiances, and at present it was under naval siege and blockade from Mithridatic forces. We learn from Plutarch that Rhodes supplied Lucullus with more vessels, the implication being that the commander was able to defeat Mithridates’ naval units.14 Rhodes, in any case, was famous for its naval strength and the marine acumen of its sailors; a Rhodian naval contingent would be a most welcome aid.

  The Lucullan victory in the waters off Rhodes was soon joined by two other major achievements to the general’s credit: the securing of Cnidus on the coast of modern Turkey, and the Greek island of Cos, for Sulla’s cause. Both Cnidus and Cos had gone over to Mithridates, but now reversed course and pledged allegiance to Rome through Lucullus’ diplomatic overtures. The Cnidians and Coans agreed to supply more forces to support the Roman advance against Mithridates. Both the king and his Roman adversaries were pressing a war on both land and sea. Sulla was at present engaged in the prosecution of the land war in Greece, and his deputy Lucullus in braving the seas – and thus far, things were not going badly for the young commander. He had faced little in the way of resistance, and had successfully brooked many dangers. If his achievements were not the stuff of military legend, they were certainly evidence of a competent, careful prosecution of a difficult and challenging war. No one could say that Lucullus had not acquitted himself well. It is perhaps important to note, too, that we have no clear evidence for what Lucullus might have learned about the advances in the Sullan campaign, as communications must have been difficult (though not impossible).

  For the time being, though, Lucullus was invested in island work. It was 85 BC, and he was on his return journey back to Sulla.

  Cnidus was a Greek city that, like Cos, was of Dorian origin. Together with Lindus on Rhodes, it comprised half of the so-called Dorian Hexapolis, six nearby Greek locales that were linked by common Dorian ancestry and the worship of the god Apollo. Cos is the most populous of the Greek Dodecanese islands after Rhodes, and the third largest in size after Rhodes and Carpathos. The Greek medical writer Hippocrates is perhaps the most famous inhabitant of the island, which was otherwise quite well-known for the silk trade in which it enjoyed prominence due to its close proximity to the East. Both Cnidus and Cos had suffered the depredations of pirate raids and the threat from Mithridates’ forces that had seemingly induced them to side with him. It was a time and place of conflicted, shifting alliances and frequent resentment of foreign powers and domination. Lucullus deftly managed the challenges posed by a confused and confusing map of allegiances. He had reason to be especially tolerant of the local population on Cos, as they had earned a modicum and more of respect from Rome for having resisted the demands of Mithridates to kill the Roman population of the island. Every new island presented a risk that Lucullus would suffer critical losses to his forces, a slow and inexorable wasting of men and materials at a time when reinforcement was difficult if not impossible. But Lucullus consistently showed himself to be a competent administrator and more. In some ways, this island sweep was the most successful of his military endeavours – it had a fixed goal, and he attained it.

  Samos

  According to Plutarch, Lucullus intended to use his Cnidian and Coan reinforcements to assail Mithridates’ forces on the Greek island of Samos.15 The biographer also notes that Lucullus successfully drove the Mithridatic military out of the island of Chios, without any assistance. Chios – celebrated as the birthplace of the poet Homer – had sided with Mithridates, no doubt under serious duress, but the comparative ease with which Lucullus apparently subdued it attests to a strong local sentiment in favour of Rome. To this same period Plutarch assigns Lucullus’ invasion of the coastal Greek city of Colophon (in modern Izmir Province, Turkey), where he expelled and arrested the tyrant Epigonus. One may well imagine that Lucullus associated his work on Chios with the liberation of the birthplace of the greatest of Greek epic poets; once again, the literary interests of the general coincided with the military.

  Plutarch is not informative about what happened in the attack on Samos. Some scholars have argue
d that Lucullus and his Cnidian and Coan allies suffered a reversal and were defeated by Mithridates’ forces. Certainly the laudatory context of Plutarch’s biography might have plausibly induced reticence as to the defeat – though the biographer was willing to note that Lucullus had suffered a defeat to pirates when he was in admittedly less powerful a position. Appian speaks of a pirate attack on Samos (XII.33), but it is not clear when exactly this may have taken place. It may well have been that the Samians were more inclined to support Mithridates than the Romans. But if there was a defeat or setback, it does not seem to have troubled Lucullus too greatly.

  Whatever happened at Samos, the next major development in Lucullus’ life in arms would be yet another example of the Roman general’s sense of loyalty and pietas. Simply put, while Lucullus was in search of allies and engaged in naval combat, his superior, Sulla, had been destroying Mithridates on land. Athens had fallen, and the king of Pontus had suffered a series of setbacks that threatened the security not only of his invasion plans, but also of his very empire. Mithridates would lose his war against Rome, though the enemies of both Sulla and Lucullus would point out that he would be permitted to regroup and resume his anti-Roman shenanigans – indeed, by the time he breathed his last when committing suicide, he would have seen not one but three more or less discrete wars against Rome.

  The Rebellion of Fimbria

  At this juncture in the Mithridatic War, the spotlight turned on one Gaius Flavius Fimbria. Fimbria was a committed partisan of Gaius Marius (he was the son of Gaius Flavius Fimbria, who had served as consul with Marius in 104 BC), and an inveterate opponent of Sulla. In 86 BC, he had been sent to Asia as a legate to Lucius Valerius Flaccus, the provincial governor.16 Flaccus was the consul suffectus, or ‘suffect consul’, who had finished Marius’ term of office in 86 BC; he was the younger brother of Gaius Valerius Flaccus, who had served as consul in 93. Flaccus was an unpopular commander, and Fimbria took advantage of the situation by stirring up a revolt that resulted in the death of the governor and his legate’s assumption of control over his military – which turned at once against Mithridates. It is not entirely clear why Fimbria was so hostile to Flaccus; some have speculated that Flaccus was seen as too friendly to Sulla. Certainly the whole matter was an ugly sideshow to the drama that was unfolding in Rome in the wake of the conflict between Marian and Sullan partisans.17

  Fimbria, we might note, is cited in Saint Augustine’s mammoth work De Civitate Dei (III.27), where he is given the dubious credit for having seen to the slaying of certain members of the Julian gens during the civil war.

  The Pontic king soon found himself trapped in Pitane in Aeolis. Fimbria sent word to Lucullus to note that while he himself had a sizeable ground force, the latter had an impressive navy. Together, the two Romans could conceivably close the vice on Mithridates and capture the wily king. This is one of those moments where students of alternative history may have a field day with potential developments.

  From the military point of view, Fimbria’s logic was unassailable, and we have every reason to believe it would have succeeded. Mithridates could indeed have easily been destroyed by the combined land and sea forces of the two Romans. Lucullus, however, would in no way consent to assisting such a man as Fimbria. There was the question of loyalty to Sulla, to be sure – but also of Fimbria’s fomenting of revolt and the death of the governor Flaccus. Lucullus was perfectly willing for Mithridates to escape, rather than to have his honour sacrificed by participating in a joint action with the murderous rebel Fimbria.18 It may be significant that in Plutarch’s account of Fimbria’s overtures to Lucullus, the rebel general noted that if the two of them were to defeat Mithridates, the victories of Sulla would be eclipsed in fame and glory. If Fimbria hoped to persuade Lucullus to turn traitor, he had no sense of the best way to achieve his goal. Again, it was a matter of pietas; for Lucullus, Fimbria had demonstrated that he lacked this cardinal virtue. The fact that Mithridates was almost certainly doomed if Lucullus joined forces with Fimbria was of less account than Lucullus’ no doubt natural recoiling from the idea of allying with such a man.

  Naval Engagements and Tenedos

  Although Lucullus was not interested in the proposed ‘alliance’, he did engage with the king’s naval forces off Cape Lecton (Latin, Lectum) in the Troad (modern Baba Burnu in western Anatolia). Lucullus won another naval victory, which would prove to be a mere prelude to a greater marine achievement. Mithridates had another naval force near the island of Tenedos, larger and posing more of a threat. It seems that Lucullus himself was in a vessel that was under the command of an experienced Rhodian sailor, one Damagoras; bravely and memorably, the Rhodian ship sailed forth against Mithridates’ commander, Neoptolemus, who sought to ram Lucullus’ ship in a head-on attack. Damagoras skillfully avoided the deadly blow, and was able to orchestrate a successful victory over the Mithridatic vessels, which soon found themselves in flight from a conquering Lucullan navy. Mithridates’ naval forces in the Aegean were now in full retreat, scattered and disorganized. There was no longer a serious threat to Roman interests in the eastern Mediterranean from any projection of Pontic power over the waters. One imagines that the literate, eminently cultured Lucullus was more than aware of the significance of the waters in which he was doing battle with the forces of the Asian king; this was the vicinity of Troy, and these the waves off the coast where Danaan heroes had advanced against Priam’s Trojan and allied hosts. It would not be the last time that Roman naval units would engage with the king’s vessels in these waters.

  The Price of Pietas

  Fimbria lost his one great chance to enter the annals of lasting fame; Lucullus would not help him, and Mithridates would escape. Fimbria’s own eventual death by suicide would serve only to highlight the hazards of living a reckless political life.

  Some have seen in Lucullus’ decision not to associate with Fimbria and cooperate in destroying Mithridates a delict approaching the level even of maiestas or treason.19 The degree to which one accepts such a verdict on Lucullus is in part a measure of exactly the same question of the premium to be placed on pietas that would prove so central to Lucullus’ own navigation of the realities of his contemporary Rome.20 Of course one might find ready criticism of Lucullus in those who were opposed to the principles and actions of Sulla. To the degree to which one was hostile to the mentor, one would be eager to indict the loyal pupil.

  Geographically, at least, the spirit of Troy, in any case, was everywhere in the air – not least in how Fimbria was noted for having massacred the inhabitants of Ilium as part of his general practice of slaughtering or at least severely mistreating those who either rebelled from Rome or sided with Sulla. But in Lucullus’ present, Roman reality, Mithridates had escaped to fight another day, and indeed he would fight both long and hard for years to come, engaging Roman forces again and again in what at times would come close to seeming a rabbit chase. Ultimately, the great loss of Lucullus’ career would be his failure to resolve the Mithridatic problem. One imagines that in hindsight Lucullus must have occasionally wondered what would have happened had he sided with Fimbria – but one also can reasonably conclude that Lucullus’ sense of honour and Roman pietas would never have allowed him to sacrifice principle for expediency, even if the expedient might have spelled a very different and better future for both Lucullus and the Roman Republic. His enemies would have much to criticize in hindsight, yet his friends would expect nothing less of the man.

  Taking Stock

  Lucullus had spent the better part of two years in mostly naval enterprises, with a balance sheet that on the whole showed a positive set of gains for his Roman cause. He had proven his absolute devotion to Sulla, a gesture that would have endeared him to some at Rome even as it would have enraged others in a time of tense civil strife. He had acquitted himself well in the matter of luxury and succumbing to decadence, and had proven himself capable both of bravery and of creative trickery and subterfuge. We have no clear sense of what communi
cation might have been possible between Lucullus and Sulla in this period, but there is every reason to believe that the two men would not have been able to be in touch about events in their respective theatres.

  The so-called ‘Valerian’ legionaries who had served under Lucius Valerius Flaccus, later under Fimbria and at last under Lucullus, are a good example of the problem faced by commanders who expected their legionaries to serve more than the normal six-year minimum period.21 By the end of their service, the Valerian/Fimbrian legionaries must have been among the most experienced soldiers in the Roman Army, and they had also seen more than their fair share of treachery and mutiny. Disloyal to Flaccus; untrustworthy with Fimbria; unreliable and mutinous with Lucullus – it was a sordid history for a military unit in the Roman Army, and a good example of the hazards of keeping men in arms in distant lands for too long. It was also a case study in the potential problems attendant on the development of a professional armed force.

  Reunion with Sulla

  Lucullus found Sulla in the Chersonesus, the modern Gallipoli of military fame. We have no clear sense of why Lucullus headed there; perhaps he had received word that this was to be the point of rendezvous to meet with his commander. It was now 84 BC, and both men no doubt had much to share with the other about the adventures of the preceding year and a half. We do well to remember that we have no definitive information about how much contact was exchanged between mentor and mentee during the long months of the Lucullan naval operations. Sulla had vanquished Mithridates’ ground forces in Europe and was preparing to cross into Asia, as so many military commanders had dared or dreamed to do down the course of the ages. An agreement had been reached that Sulla would meet with Mithridates to discuss the terms of a settlement. The defeated king had escaped the Troad and made it to Mytilene on the island of Lesbos; he would now return to the Asian mainland and have a parley with Sulla. Militarily, it would seem that Lucullus had little now to do, the original purpose of his long voyage to Africa and the islands having become obsolete. There were significant problems brewing in Italy, and Sulla had no time to spare in a lengthy Asian campaign. There was no consensus on the Roman side as to what exactly should happen in the wake of what history has come to call the First Mithridatic War. As had happened with Carthage in the wake of the First Punic War, the Romans had achieved success, but no satisfactory resolution. The mid-80s BC were years of serious domestic as well as foreign troubles for Rome, and Sulla was squarely in the unenviable position of having to balance the two conflicting arenas of Roman endeavour.