Lucullus

Some commend him for making such a change, and thereby escaping the unhappy lot of Marius, who, after his Cimbrian victories and the large and fair successes which were so famous, was unwilling to relax his efforts and enjoy the honours won, but with an insatiate desire for glory and power, old man that he was, fought with young men in the conduct of the state, and so drove headlong into terrible deeds, and sufferings more terrible still. Cicero, say these, would have had a better old age if he had taken in sail after the affair of Catiline, and Scipio, too, if he had given himself pause after adding Numantia to Carthage;

for a political cycle, too, has a sort of natural termination, and political no less than athletic contests are absurd, after the full vigor of life has departed. Crassus and Pompey, on the other hand, ridiculed Lucullus for giving himself up to pleasure and extravagance, as if a luxurious life were not even more unsuitable to men of his years than political and military activities.

And it is true that in the life of Lucullus, as in an ancient comedy, one reads in the first part of political measures and military commands, and in the latter part of drinking bouts, and banquets, and what might pass for revel-routs, and torch-races, and all manner of frivolity.

For I must count as frivolity his costly edifices, his ambulatories and baths, and still more his paintings and statues (not to speak of his devotion to these arts), which he collected at enormous outlays, pouring out into such channels the vast and splendid wealth which he accumulated from his campaigns. Even now, when luxury has increased so much, the gardens of Lucullus are counted among the most costly of the imperial gardens.

As for his works on the seashore and in the vicinity of Neapolis, where he suspended hills over vast tunnels, girdled his residences with zones of sea and with streams for the breeding of fish, and built dwellings in the sea,—when Tubero the Stoic saw them, he called him Xerxes in a toga.

He had also country establishments near Tusculum, with observatories, and extensive open banqueting halls and cloisters. Pompey once visited these, and chided Lucullus because he had arranged his country seat in the best possible way for summer, but had made it uninhabitable in winter. Whereupon Lucullus burst out laughing and said: Do you suppose, then, that I have less sense than cranes and storks, and do not change residences according to the seasons?

A praetor was once making ambitious plans for a public spectacle, and asked of him some purple cloaks for the adornment of a chorus. Lucullus replied that he would investigate, and if he had any, would give them to him. The next day he asked the praetor how many he wanted, and on his replying that a hundred would suffice, bade him take twice that number. The poet Flaccus[*](Epist. i. 6, 45 f.) alluded to this when he said that he did not regard a house as wealthy in which the treasures that were overlooked and unobserved were not more than those which met the eye.

The daily repasts of Lucullus were such as the newly rich affect. Not only with his dyed coverlets, and beakers set with precious stones, and choruses and dramatic recitations, but also with his arrays of all sorts of meats and daintily prepared dishes, did he make himself the envy of the vulgar.