Comparison of Lucullus and Cimon

Again, both attempted to subvert great empires and to subdue all Asia, and both left their work unfinished: Cimon through ill fortune pure and simple, for he died at the head of his army and at the height of his success; but Lucullus one cannot altogether acquit of blame, whether he was ignorant of, or would not attend to the grievances and complaints among his soldiery, in consequence of which he became so bitterly hated.

Or perhaps this has its counterpart in the life of Cimon, for he was brought to trial by his fellow citizens and finally ostracised, in order that for ten years, as Plato says,[*](Gorgias, p. 516.) they might not hear his voice. For aristocratic natures are little in accord with the multitude, and seldom please it, but by so often using force to rectify its aberrations, they vex and annoy it, just as physicians’ bandages vex and annoy, although they bring the dislocated members into their natural position. Perhaps, then, both come off about alike on this count.

But Lucullus was much the greater in war. He was the first Roman to cross the Taurus with an army; he passed the Tigris and captured and burned the royal cities of Asia,—Tigranocerta Cabira, Sinop—, and Nisibis, before the eyes of their kings;

he made his own the regions to the north as far as the Phasis, to the east as far as Media, and to the south as far as the Red Sea, through the assistance of the Arabian kings; he annihilated the forces of the hostile kings, and failed only in the capture of their persons, since like wild beasts they fled away into deserts and trackless and impenetrable forests.