Plutarch's life of the Roman general Lucius Licinius Lucullus, who conquered Mithridates and Tigranes in the East and then retired to a legendary life of wealth, learning, and luxury.
This Life traces Lucius Licinius Lucullus from an aristocratic but shadowed upbringing — his father convicted of embezzlement, his mother disreputable — through a youth marked early by a bold prosecution of his father's accuser, into a military and administrative career under Sulla and then in his own right against King Mithridates VI of Pontus and his ally Tigranes of Armenia. Plutarch shows Lucullus as unusually cultivated for a Roman commander, fluent in Greek learning and rhetoric, a friend to philosophers, and a general capable of daring naval and land tactics even when badly outnumbered.
The narrative follows his eastern campaigns in close, almost novelistic detail: naval battles against Mithridates's fleets, the harrowing sieges and pursuits across Pontus and Armenia, the destruction of Tigranes's grand new capital, and Lucullus's ambition to press on against the Parthians and topple three kings in succession. But success in the field did not translate into political security at home. Enemies in Rome — soldiers weary of prolonged campaigning, politicians eager to discredit him, and rivals maneuvering for command — undermined him, and he was gradually stripped of authority and replaced, most famously by Pompey, before he could finish the war.
The Life matters historically both as a source for the Third Mithridatic War and Rome's decisive entanglement with the Hellenistic East, and as a case study Plutarch uses to explore the relationship between military virtue and political fortune. Lucullus's later years, spent in extravagant retirement — his name became proverbial for luxurious dining — round out a portrait of a man who mastered war and scholarship alike but could not master Roman politics, making the Life a meditation on the limits of merit against envy and faction.
“Lucullus's grandfather had been consul, and his mother's brother was Metellus, called Numidicus. Of his parents, his father was convicted of embezzlement, and his mother Caecilia had a bad reputation for not having lived a chaste life.”
— Lucullus
“Lucullus had trained himself to speak both languages competently, so that even Sulla, in composing his memoirs, chose to inscribe them to Lucullus, judging him more capable of arranging and shaping the narrative.”
— Lucullus
“he decided to pass over both Tigranes and Mithridates as antagonists already worn out, and instead to test the strength of the Parthians and march against them, thinking it a fine thing, in one single onrush of war, to throw down three kings in succession like an athlete”
— Lucullus
“convinced them not to grant him a triumph.”
— Lucullus
“he had, unbeknownst to them, played a clever trick; for each dining-room, it seems, had a fixed cost of dinner assigned to it, and each had its own equipment and preparation”
— Lucullus
Lucius Licinius Lucullus was a Roman general of the late Republic best known for commanding Rome's forces against King Mithridates VI of Pontus and King Tigranes of Armenia. Plutarch presents him as unusually learned for a Roman commander, fluent in Greek and skilled enough in rhetoric that Sulla asked him to help shape his memoirs. After his military career he became equally famous for a life of extravagant retirement.
The bulk of the narrative covers the Third Mithridatic War, including major naval engagements, the pursuit of Mithridates and Tigranes across Pontus and Armenia, and the fall of Tigranes's new capital. Lucullus also aims his campaign toward the Parthian empire, hoping to defeat three kings in a single sustained run of conquest, though political developments at Rome cut this ambition short.
According to Plutarch, war-weary soldiers and political rivals at Rome, especially Gaius Memmius, turned public opinion against him by accusing him of embezzlement and of deliberately prolonging the war. This campaign of discrediting led to Lucullus being denied a triumph for a time and eventually being replaced in his command, most notably by Pompey.
After being sidelined politically, Lucullus turned to a famously lavish domestic life, including dinners in rooms with fixed budgets and names, such as one called 'the Apollo.' Plutarch records how each dining-room had its own preset cost and preparation, illustrating the meticulous extravagance that made 'Lucullan' a byword for opulence.
Plutarch opens by noting that Lucullus's father was convicted of embezzlement and his mother had a poor reputation, framing his subsequent public prosecution of his father's accuser as an early act of vindication. His close relationship with his brother Marcus also runs through the narrative, including their loyalty to each other near the end of Lucullus's life.
Lucullus is depicted as genuinely devoted to Greek learning, not merely using it for political display; Plutarch notes he cultivated it 'for its own beauty even while still a young man' and turned more fully to philosophy as he aged, treating it as a form of rest after his military contests.
Yes. Plutarch's Parallel Lives typically pairs a Greek and a Roman figure for comparison, and Lucullus is paired with a Greek statesman as part of that broader structural scheme, though this guide covers the Lucullus narrative itself.
Lucullus's plan to move against the Parthians after defeating Mithridates and Tigranes shows his appetite for conquest on an imperial scale, described as wanting to overthrow three kings in succession 'like an athlete.' The plan was never completed because political opposition at Rome led to his replacement before he could carry it out.
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