Lucullus Read online

  Students of military history might well cite the settlement of 84 BC – the so-called Peace of Dardanus – as a good example of what happens when martial and political problems are left less than perfectly resolved.22 Dardanus allowed Mithridates to remain as King of Pontus. Admittedly he would surrender Asia to the Romans, and both Bithynia and Cappadocia would be ruled by their own kings – but even at what the historian Memnon (chapter 25) fixes as the cost of eighty triremes and 3,000 talents, he would keep his kingdom (and his head).23

  Mithridates would indeed live to fight yet more wars against his inveterate Roman foe, so it is no surprise that some have criticized Lucullus for his refusal to join forces with Fimbria in destroying the king once and for all. As we have noted, one can only speculate on what siding with Fimbria against Sulla would have meant for Roman republican history. We do well to remember that nobody could have foreseen clearly in 84 BC how long and drawn-out affairs in the East would become; how Mithridates would eventually join forces with his son-in-law, Tigranes of Armenia, and pose an even greater threat to Roman interests than he had in the days of the First Mithridatic War. Sulla may well have been eager to leave the East and return to the pressing problems in Italy, but he could not be faulted for leaving Lucullus to manage his foreign affairs. The alternative to the Peace of Dardanus would have been to pursue the king as far as he wanted to flee – and the time for that sort of frustrating game would come soon enough, for the man who was now Sulla’s loyal and competent manager.

  Financial Administration

  Lucullus was responsible for overseeing the safe passage of Sulla’s forces from Europe into Asia. He had proven his success at naval warfare, and now he was able to enjoy a moment of satisfaction at overseeing the triumphal march, as it were, of his commander into Asia. Soon enough Lucullus was compelled to make the transition from military officer to occupation force administrator. Having already proven his acumen in financial affairs in his service as quaestor, he was now entrusted with the oversight of the settlement that Sulla arranged for Asia Minor. Plutarch notes that Mithridates sailed off into the Euxine (today’s Black Sea); Rome would soon enough hear from him again. Sulla needed money, and quickly; the indemnities and other fines and taxes he levied on Asia – and for which he trusted Lucullus to assist in collecting – would be essential for his success in the forthcoming challenges he faced in Rome.24 In the immediate moment, Sulla needed a financial administrator more than he needed a military conqueror. The uncertainties of domestic affairs in Rome no doubt weighed more heavily on his mind than the fact that the King of Pontus was soon to be ensconced once again in his kingdom, nursing a grudge and dreams of revenge against Rome. Sulla would never again meet any of Mithridates’ forces in battle, although Lucullus would have more than ample opportunity to reacquaint himself with the king and his armies. Lucullus was reliable and trustworthy, and no doubt Sulla heard all about the Fimbrian plan to trap Mithridates. We can be certain that Sulla would have been pleased with his subordinate’s filial loyalty to the Sullan cause and optimate refusal to side with such a man as the Marian Fimbria.25

  If Lucullus had met his end in 84 BC, he might have been remembered as a military figure of moderate competence and reasonable success, a subordinate commander whose ultimate capabilities and potential were left untested and unproven. The complicated events that surrounded a major chapter in the decline and fall of the Roman Republic would soon provide a more than ample staging ground for the optimate plebeian to demonstrate his talents in the political arena. And the survival of Mithridates to fight another day would offer yet more opportunities for displays of military prowess and exceptionally versatile skills.

  Chapter 3

  The Aftermath of War

  If Sulla acquired a reputation for severity and harsh treatment of his opponents, Lucullus’ management of Roman affairs in Sulla’s name redounded to his credit – at least for a time. Plutarch does well to remind us that the task that confronted Lucullus was inherently unappealing and liable to cause discontent. What was impressive was that Lucullus managed to calm the resentful, near rebellious spirit of his Asian charges and establish a modicum of peace in the wake of the travails of war. Sulla departed from Asia in 84 BC (he had some six years left to live), and Lucius Licinius Murena was made governor of Asia (he had already been governor in Cilicia, and his appointment in Asia was a direct result of the Fimbria fiasco). Murena would become famous not only for war against the Cilician pirates, but also for the brief, so-called Second Mithridatic War – a conflict that started because of the alleged efforts of Mithridates to rearm and prepare for renewed action against the Romans (83–81 BC). Lucullus was not involved in these engagements. Murena invaded Pontus, though some might say the progress of the war was rather desultory (it would eventually end when Sulla ordered his governor to cease further strikes against the king). By all accounts, Lucullus enjoyed a respite of calm government and management of civilian affairs. Later in life, however, Lucullus’ devotion to Sulla would be remembered. He would forever be associated with the reactionary forces that had for a relatively brief moment secured the peace in Rome by brutal, unprecedented means. Lucullus may have kept his hands free of the blood, but the stain of Sullan association would remain. And some would say that the Peace of Dardanus was little more than a pause in a conflict that never really ended.

  Mytilene

  Peace was certainly not to reign everywhere in the East. Mytilene – the capital of the island of Lesbos – had sheltered Mithridates when he escaped from Fimbria’s grasp. The island was not exactly ready to surrender to Sulla; it was a lone pocket of resistance to Roman domination in the north-eastern Aegean (at least if by ‘Roman’ we mean ‘Sullan’). We are not sure of the exact chronology, but it seems that the Mytilenean rebellion lasted for some time, perhaps as long as two years.1 If Plutarch can be trusted, Lucullus was at first quite patient in dealing with the Lesbians, until finally even the magnanimous commander’s tolerance of insurrection was tested too far.

  Lucullus launched an attack on Mytilene, defeating their military units in a pitched battle before the walls of the city. Forced inside their fortifications, the Lesbians were compelled to undergo the hazards of a siege – always a costly and time-consuming endeavour for the attacker.2 We have no details on the tactics by which Lucullus won his ground battle victory, but we do know that he once again displayed his talent for playing tricks on his enemies. Lucullus pretended that he was giving up the whole business of laying siege to the city – many commanders would have abandoned such a thankless task after all – and he sailed away. The Mytileneans opened their gates and proceeded to plunder the remnants of the Roman camp. Right on cue, Lucullus returned and defeated the Lesbians in another ground engagement, this time a far more decisive victory. We are told that 500 of the enemy were killed, with 6,000 sold into slavery – not to mention the fact that it was now Lucullus who was able to plunder the wealth of the island’s capital.3

  Lucullus had displayed calm and reasonable patience in the face of resistance; when pushed beyond his limits, he demonstrated amply that he could seize an island city and subjugate it in short order at minimal risk to his own forces. The diplomat was still a ready and able military presence. Some have argued that Lucullus did not, in fact, actually subdue Mytilene. If this is true, then he merely won a skirmish of sorts before the walls of the city, and then withdrew again and left the city to continue its resistance. But did Mytilene really lose 6,500 people to death or slavery and still manage to hold out?4 Were there in fact two sieges of Mytilene, the first an inconclusive one under Lucullus, and the second the decisive victory?

  The so-called ‘Siege of Mytilene’ is famous to history for another reason. It was at this time that Gaius Julius Caesar was serving in Asia and had his first taste of military combat.5 The biographer Suetonius reports that Marcus Minucius Thermus awarded Caesar the corona civica, or ‘civic crown’, for his performance during the siege.6 The crown was the second highest
decoration in the Roman military box of honours. As the name indicates, it was awarded for the salvation of a fellow citizen in battle. Caesar is said to have proceeded to Cilicia for further service; he would return to Rome after the death of Sulla in 78 BC. Caesar had been the subject of gossip and criticism for his conduct at the court of Bithynia (where he was accused of being involved in a homosexual liaison with King Nicomedes), but his performance at Mytilene did much to salvage his reputation and establish his name as a respectable young Roman patrician of his age. Suetonius is our only source for the part played by Thermus in the siege. Is it possible that his attack was conducted in concert with Lucullus, as part of the same general sequence of events? Arthur Keaveney argues that Lucullus’ siege of Mytilene occurred in 82 BC, and that Lucullus returned to Rome with Murena in 80 (in this chronology, he would have left Asia in 81 or even 82). In 79 BC, Thermus arrived as governor and completed the work of reducing Mytilene. Caesar would have been present for this second, successful siege – and not the unfinished Lucullan one.7 It is arguably improbable that Lucullus won so sizeable a victory over Mytilene as Plutarch records, only to leave the city in a state of continued resistance that would be quelled definitively only three years later. The evidence we have does not seem to permit a definitive conclusion; certainly Plutarch seems to credit Lucullus with the defeat of Mytilene.

  What is clear and deserving of emphasis here is that the available evidence supports the view that Lucullus was exceedingly patient and tolerant of the peoples Sulla had entrusted to his oversight. Lucullus was scrupulous to avoid crippling financial sanctions and impossible burdens on defeated populations – so scrupulous, in fact, that he would suffer grievously for his reasonable disposition. Mytilene was a significant headache for Lucullus, though not one, it would seem, that would cause lasting harm to his career. We may note in passing that like so many other places that Lucullus visited in these years, Lesbos was associated with literature, specifically Greek lyric poetry. Mytilene was the home of the seventh-sixth-century BC poet Alcaeus, and Lesbos was famous as the birthplace of the celebrated poet Sappho.

  Return to Rome

  Plutarch notes too that it was to Lucullus’ great advantage that he was in Asia at exactly the time when Sulla and Marius were subjecting Rome to the horrors of civil strife and atrocity.8 Indeed, an important theme of Plutarch’s treatment of Lucullus is the question of fortune and luck in the timing of certain events in his life. The first hint of trouble for the hitherto successful young Roman comes when the biographer notes that Sulla preferred Lucullus to Pompey in the matter of the guardianship of his son Faustus and daughter Fausta in his will. Plutarch notes that both Lucullus and Pompey were eager for fame, and that the death of Sulla and the reading of his will occasioned the start of the jealousy and resentment that was to plague their subsequent relationship. Lucullus had been something of ‘the Long Quaestor’, serving for longer than the norm no matter what Asian chronology one prefers. One can easily imagine that on his return to Rome, he was eager to advance to political distinction and achievement.

  We know that he served as aedile in 79 BC, an office he held with his brother – again; the story goes that out of pietas he delayed his candidacy until the two could serve together (of course he was also preoccupied with affairs in the East). As for Sulla’s will, besides the fact that Lucullus was a cousin of Sulla’s wife, the fact is that he was older and more established than Pompey at the time of Sulla’s death. While there may well have been an intended slight (or at least clipping of the wings) of Pompey in Sulla’s testament, there was also a natural place for Lucullus. If Sulla had a mentee, it was Lucullus; if Sulla could count on someone’s unquestioned loyalty, it was Lucullus. It may well have been the case that Sulla did not live long enough to do all that he could to ensure a more secure political future for his protégé, though for the moment, Lucullus’ advancement was not exactly thwarted or retarded. Lucullus’ return to Rome in 80 BC was the start of a new phase in his life, a phase that in some ways would be an interlude between his foreign apprenticeship and his foreign command – and an interlude in which he would find both success and frustration. He may have been all too well aware that he left the East in a state of transition and potential disorder.

  Curule Aedile

  The fact is that we know precious little definitively about what Lucullus was doing in Rome in the last years of Sulla’s life, and our knowledge is mostly derived from general information about the work of curule aediles. The office was mostly concerned with public works and the management and organization of the Roman games. Inevitably, the job was an invitation to secure one’s popularity with the people by a lavish display of gladiatorial combats and the like. We know that Lucullus was subsequently allowed to serve as praetor in 78 BC – the year that would be most famous for the death of Sulla – even though technically he should have had to wait for a two-year period to expire before he could hold another office.

  By all accounts, it would seem clear that Lucullus performed exceptionally well in the climate of late Sullan Rome. He and his brother were apparently popular civic officials, and no doubt Lucullus’ achievements in Greece and Asia brought him significant praise and even glory. He had incurred no outstanding failures to besmirch his record, and he had no areas where by Sullan or other expectations he had failed to achieve some goal. His record might well even be favourably placed in comparison with those of other notable Romans of the same age. Some might conclude that he had shown ample evidence of great promise; if anything, his greatest asset seemed to be an ability to move equally well in foreign as well as domestic service. There can be no serious question that Lucullus was aided in his work in the cursus honorum by Sulla’s patronage. Sulla had of course arrived back in Rome first, and no doubt his faithful, loyal subordinate Lucullus was one of the men whose careers he was interested in promoting, in part as a support to his own hold on power. A Roman optimate had expectations of office, of duty and political life, and Lucullus was of a disposition to execute his obligations to the best of his ability, both for the Republic and for his family’s own reputation and honour.

  Most scholars concur that Sulla’s decision not to name Pompey in his will may have been a direct result of the dislike that most certainly seems to have arisen between Lucullus and his younger rival.9 It is possible that too much has been made of the relatively scanty evidence of the Sullan testament. Pompey and Lucullus were able to work alone in quite different theatres for many years of their careers, one in Spain and the other in Asia. In large part, whatever tensions would arise between them had more to do with when Pompey was finished with Sertorius and, later, the pirate menace – and with the respective attitudes of the two men toward senatorial prerogratives and the pursuit of their own ambitions within the republican system. But it is also possible that of all the young men of promise who were left in the wake of Sulla’s death, the old republican – the one some would call the last republican – trusted most in Lucullus. And the most trustworthy of his protégés would be the obvious choice for the enrusting of his family and the management of his estate.10 Sulla may not have realized that by favouring Lucullus over Pompey, he was setting the stage for what might admittedly have been an inevitable conflict of rivals.

  Provincial Options

  One episode from this period is cited by historians as a telling fragment of evidence about Lucullus the man. Our source is Dio Cassius’ Roman history (XXXVI.41.1–2).11 Dio notes that Lucullus was finishing his term as praetor in 78 BC when he was chosen by lot to serve as governor of the island of Sardinia. He refused the commission on the grounds that too many of those responsible for managing provincial affairs were corrupt and given to financial greed and mismanagement.12 It is possible of course that such sentiments were expressions meant to do credit to his reputation, even as he was really interested in a different or more prestigious post. Whatever the true reason, it worked to the benefit of his reputation.

  A Broken Chair

 
; Dio also indicates that when Manius Acilius Glabrio demanded that Lucullus’ chair be broken because Lucullus did not stand in respect when Glabrio (who may have been a tribune; it is uncertain what office he held, or what dignity, that required the honour of a sign of respect) passed by, Lucullus did not protest, but in all humility stood and rendered his decision with his praetorial colleagues while standing – a mark of his great willingness to admit when he was wrong, and to submit humbly to correction. It is another anecdote, another tale of the calm disposition and easygoing nature of the man – a striking contrast to Sulla, and to the young Pompey for that matter. But for those who might unfavourably compare Lucullus with Pompey, or Caesar for that matter, the anecdote might be telling. Lucullus was perhaps too enamoured of republican sensibilities and grace for an age in which it was increasingly unrealistic, if not impossible, for one man to aspire to be the champion of an ever sicker and more enfeebled Republic.