Lucullus
Lucius Licinius Lucullus was a Roman general and statesman, closely connected with Lucius Cornelius Sulla. In culmination of over 20 years of almost continuous military and government service, he conquered the eastern kingdoms in the course of the Third Mithridatic War, exhibiting extraordinary generalship in diverse situations, most famously during the Siege of Cyzicus in 73–72 BC, and at the Battle of Tigranocerta in Armenian Arzanene in 69 BC. His command style received unusually favourable attention from ancient military experts, and his campaigns appear to have been studied as examples of skillful generalship.
Lucullus returned to Rome from the East with so much captured booty that the vast sums of treasure, jewels, priceless works of art, and slaves could not be fully accounted for. On his return Lucullus poured enormous sums into private building projects, husbandry and even aquaculture projects, which shocked and amazed his contemporaries by their magnitude. He also patronised the arts and sciences lavishly, transforming his hereditary estate in the highlands of Tusculum into a hotel-and-library complex for scholars and philosophers. He built the famous horti Lucullani on the Pincian Hill in Rome, and became a cultural innovator in the deployment of imperial wealth. His achievements led Pliny the Elder to refer to him as "Xerxes in a Toga". He died during the winter of 57–56 BC and was buried at the family estate near Tusculum.
The conquest agnomen of Ponticus is sometimes incorrectly appended to his name in modern texts. In ancient sources it is attributed only to his consular colleague Marcus Aurelius Cotta after the latter’s capture and brutal destruction of Heraclea Pontica during the Third Mithridatic War.
Contemporary sources
Lucullus was included in the biographical collections of Roman leading generals and politicians, originating in the biographical compendium of famous Romans published by his contemporary Marcus Terentius Varro. Two biographies of Lucullus survive today, Plutarch's Lucullus in the famous series of Parallel Lives, in which Lucullus is paired with the Athenian aristocratic politician and Strategos Cimon, and # 74 in the slender Latin Liber de viris illustribus, of late and unknown authorship, the main sources for which appear to go back to Varro and his most significant successor in the genre, Gaius Julius Hyginus.Family and early career
Lucullus was a member of the prominent gens Licinia, and of the family, or stirps, of the Luculli, which may have been descended from the ancient nobility of Tusculum. He was grandson of Lucius Licinius Lucullus, consul in 151 BC, and son of Lucius Licinius Lucullus, praetor in 104 BC, who was convicted for embezzlement during his Sicilian command and exiled in.The family of his mother Caecilia Metella, was a powerful nobile family at the height of its success and influence in the last quarter of the 2nd century BC when Lucullus was born. She was the youngest child of Lucius Caecilius Metellus Calvus, and half-sister of two of the most important influential senators, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Numidicus and Lucius Caecilius Metellus Dalmaticus, the latter of which was also the father of Sulla's third wife Caecilia Metella.
Lucullus possibly served as military tribune in 89 BC; Plutarch notes that he served as an officer under Sulla during the Social War before his quaestorship. He wrote a history of the war in Greek.
The longest Quaestura, 88–80 BC
Lucullus was elected Quaestor in winter of 89-88 during the same elections Sulla was chosen as Consul with his friend Quintus Pompeius Rufus.Lucullus was probably the Quaestor mentioned as the sole officer in Sulla's army who could stomach accompanying the Consul when he marched on Rome.
In autumn of the same year Sulla sent Lucullus ahead to Greece to assess the situation while he himself oversaw the embarkation of his army. Lucullus arrived in Greece and took over from Quintus Bruttius Sura who had been able to stop the Mithridatic invasion in northern Greece.
When Sulla arrived with the main army, Lucullus served him as a quaestor again; he minted money that was used during the war against Mithridates in southern Greece. The money Lucullus minted, as per Roman custom, bore his name: the so called Lucullea.
The naval venture, 86–85 BC
As the Roman siege of Athens was drawing towards a successful conclusion, Sulla's strategic attention began to focus more widely on subsequent operations against the main Pontic forces, and combating Mithridates' control of the sea lanes. He sent Lucullus to collect such a fleet as might be possible from Rome's allies along the eastern Mediterranean seaboard, first to the important but currently disturbed states of Cyrene and Ptolemaic Egypt.Lucullus set out from the Piraeus in mid winter 87-6 BC with three Greek yachts and three light Rhodian biremes, hoping to evade the prevailing sea power of the Pontic fleets and their piratic allies by speed and taking advantage of the worst sailing conditions. He initially made Crete, and is said to have won over the cities to the Roman side. From there he crossed to Cyrene where the famous Hellenic colony in Africa was in dire condition following a vicious and exhausting civil war of nearly seven years' duration. Lucullus' arrival seems to have put a belated end to this terrible conflict, as the first official Roman presence there since the departure of the proconsul Caius Claudius Pulcher, who presided over its initial administrative incorporation into the Roman Republic in 94 BC. He then sailed to Egypt to try and secure ships from king Ptolemy IX Soter II. In Alexandria, Ptolemaic Egypt's capital, he was well received, but there would be no aid or help. Ptolemy had decided to sail a safe course between Rome and Pontus. From Alexandria Lucullus sailed to Cyprus; evading the Cilician pirates, he went to Rhodos. The Rhodians supplied him with additional ships. Rhodos was famous for its naval strength and the marine acumen of its sailors; the Rhodian contingent would turn out to be a most welcome aid. In the waters near Rhodos Lucullus' fleet defeated a Mithridatic contingent. He then secured Cnidus and Cos, drove the Mithridatic military from Chios, and attacked Samos. From there he would work his way North. Lucullus won another victory off Cape Lecton. From Lecton Lucullus sailed to Tenedos where the Mithridatic fleet lay in wait.
After Lucullus had defeated the Mithridatic admiral Neoptolemus in the Battle of Tenedos, he helped Sulla cross the Aegean to Asia. After a peace had been agreed, Lucullus stayed in Asia and collected the financial penalty Sulla imposed upon the province for its revolt. Lucullus, however, tried to lessen the burden that these impositions created.
The aftermath of the First Mithridatic War
Lucullus is noted for his magnanimous administration of Asia province; he managed to calm Rome's resentful, near rebellious, Asian subjects and establish a modicum of peace. When Asia's Roman governor, Lucius Licinius Murena, started and fought the brief, so-called Second Mithridatic War, Lucullus was not involved.Mytilene, capital of the island of Lesbos, rebelled during Lucullus administration of Asia. Lucullus tried to solve the conflict through diplomacy, but eventually he launched an attack on the city state, defeated her militia in a pitched battle in front of her walls and started a siege. After some time Lucullus pretended to give up on the siege and sailed away. When the Mytileneans entered the remnants of his camp, Lucullus ambushed them, killing 500 of the enemy and enslaving 6,000.
Return to the west, 80–74 BC
Lucullus returned in 80 BC and was elected curule aedile for 79, along with his brother Marcus Terentius Varro Lucullus, and gave splendid games.The most obscure part of Lucullus' public career is the year he spent as praetor in Rome, followed by his governorship of Roman Africa, which probably lasted the usual two-year span for this province in the post-Sullan period. Plutarch's biography entirely ignores this period, 78 BC to 75 BC, jumping from Sulla's death to Lucullus' consulate. However Cicero briefly mentions his praetorship followed by the African command, while the surviving Latin biography, far briefer but more even as biography than Plutarch, comments that he "ruled Africa with the highest degree of justice". This command is significant in showing Lucullus performing the regular, less glamorous, administrative duties of a public career in the customary sequence and, given his renown as a Philhellene, for the regard he showed for subject peoples who were not Greek.
In these respects his early career demonstrates a generous and just nature, but also his political traditionalism in contrast to contemporaries such as Cicero and Pompey, the former of whom was always eager to avoid administrative responsibilities of any sort in the provinces, while Pompey rejected every aspect of a normal career, seeking great military commands at every opportunity which suited him, while refusing to undertake normal duties in peaceful provinces.
Two other notable transactions took place in 76 or 75 BC following Lucullus' return from Africa: his marriage to Claudia, the youngest daughter of Appius Claudius Pulcher, and his purchase of the Marian hilltop villa at Cape Misenum from Sulla's eldest daughter Cornelia.
Sulla dedicated his memoirs to Lucullus, and upon his death made him guardian of his son Faustus and daughter Fausta, preferring Lucullus over Pompey.
Consulship
In 74 BC, Lucullus served as consul along with Marcus Aurelius Cotta, the half-brother of Aurelia the mother of Julius Caesar. During his consulship he defended Sulla's constitution from the efforts of Lucius Quinctius to undermine it. He supported a plea from Pompey, campaigning against the rebel Sertorius on the Iberian Peninsula, for funds and reinforcements. He was probably also involved in the decision to make Cyrene into a Roman province.Initially, he drew Cisalpine Gaul as his proconsular command in the lots, but he got himself appointed governor of Cilicia after its governor died, reputedly by recommendation from Praecia. He also got himself the command of the Third Mithridatic War against Mithridates VI of Pontus. This was a highly sought after command for Mithridates ruled very rich lands.