Plutarch · a new plain-English translation from the original language
One might especially call Lucullus fortunate in the manner of his end, because before the change of fate which was already being fashioned against the constitution by the civil wars, he died first and laid down his life while his country was sick, yet still free. And this at least is the point of closest kinship between him and Cimon.
For Cimon too died before Greek affairs had yet fallen into confusion, while they were still at their height — and he died on campaign, in command, not worn out nor wandering aimlessly, nor treating arms and generalships and trophies as a prize to be spent on feasting and drinking, the way Plato mocks the followers of Orpheus for claiming that an eternal drunkenness in Hades is stored up as a reward for those who have lived well.
Now leisure and quiet and the spending of time on discourse that affords a certain pleasure and contemplation is a most fitting consolation for an old man who has ceased from wars and public life; but to turn to pleasure as one's final end, and having concluded one's noble deeds, thereafter to spend the rest of one's life keeping festivals of Aphrodite in place of wars and generalships, playing and living softly — this is unworthy of the fair Academy, and does not befit one who emulates Xenocrates, but one who has inclined toward Epicurus.
And this is remarkable indeed: for in a manner quite the reverse, the youth of the one seems to have been blameworthy and unrestrained, while that of the other was disciplined and self-controlled. He, then, is the better man in whom the change is toward the better; for that nature is the more excellent in which the worse part grows old while the better flourishes still more. And indeed, though they became wealthy in similar fashion, they did not dispose of their wealth in similar fashion.
For it is not fitting to compare the chambers in Naples and the sea-girt vistas which Lucullus built up from barbarian spoils to the Acropolis's south wall, whose completion was funded by money Cimon had brought home; nor to set beside Cimon's table that of Lucullus — the one democratic and generous, the other extravagant and satrapal.
For the one, at small expense, fed many every day, while the other, from great wealth, provided for a few who lived luxuriously — unless indeed, by Zeus, time itself made the difference in these matters; for it is unclear whether Cimon too, had he let himself go from deeds and generalships into a warless and politically inactive old age, would not have made even greater use of an ostentatious mode of life given over to pleasure. For he was indeed fond of drink and of festive gatherings, and, as has been said before, was slandered in regard to women.
But successes in deeds and contests, holding pleasures of another kind than the baser desires, produce in natures inclined to public life and to honor a preoccupation and forgetfulness of those desires. If, then, Lucullus too had died while still contending and commanding, I do not think even the most censorious and fault-finding critic could have found grounds for slander against him. So much, then, concerning their manner of life.
In matters of war, it is clear that both men proved themselves good contenders on both land and sea. But just as among athletes those who are crowned in wrestling and the pancratium on one and the same day are called, by a certain custom, paradoxonikai — extraordinary victors — so Cimon, having crowned Greece in a single day with a trophy of both an infantry battle and a sea battle at once, deserves to hold a certain precedence among generals.
Moreover, it was his country that conferred hegemony upon Lucullus, whereas it was Cimon who conferred hegemony upon his country. And the one, while his country already ruled, added further to it the possessions of the enemy; the other, taking his country as one that followed others, brought it about that it should both rule over its allies and prevail over its enemies at the same time — forcing the Persians, once defeated, to withdraw from the sea, and persuading the Lacedaemonians to yield willingly.
Now if the greatest achievement of a leader is to produce ready obedience through goodwill, then Lucullus was held in contempt by his soldiers, while Cimon was admired by his allies: from the one men revolted, while to the other men transferred their allegiance. And the one, having gone out in command of certain forces, returned abandoned by them; the other, having been sent out along with allies to carry out what others commanded, sailed back home himself giving the commands to those very allies — having accomplished, all at once for his city, the three most difficult things of all: peace with the enemy, hegemony from the allies, and concord with the Lacedaemonians.
Both, then, having undertaken to overthrow great empires and to subdue the whole of Asia, fell short in the completion of their undertakings — the one utterly, through fortune, for he died while still commanding and in the midst of success; but from the other one could not entirely remove blame attaching to himself, whether he failed to perceive, or failed to attend to, the disputes and grievances within the army, from which he came to such great enmities.
Or rather, this too is common ground with Cimon: for the citizens brought him too to trial, and in the end ostracized him, so that, as Plato puts it, a whole decade went by in which his voice went unheard by them. Natures inclined toward aristocracy rarely suit the crowd or give it much delight; but by forcing much upon them in the course of setting them straight, they cause distress to those being twisted back into shape, just as the bandages of physicians, though they bring dislocations back into their natural state, are painful. Each of the two, then, should perhaps be acquitted of this charge.
Yet Lucullus went far beyond in the war — the first to cross the Taurus with a Roman army, and to cross the Tigris, and, in full view of the kings themselves, to take and burn the royal seats of Asia: Tigranocerta, Cabira, Sinope, and Nisibis,
and to subdue under his rule every region northward up to the Phasis, eastward up to Media, and southward, by way of the Arabian kings, all the way to the Red Sea — shattering the forces of the kings, and falling short only of capturing their persons, since they fled like wild beasts into deserts and pathless, untrodden woods.
A great proof of this: the Persians, as though they had suffered nothing serious at the hands of Cimon, immediately drew up again against the Greeks, and even lost most of their own troops despite winning in Egypt; whereas once Lucullus had finished with them, neither Tigranes nor Mithridates managed anything further — the one, already weakened and shattered by the earlier contests, did not even once dare to show his forces to Pompey outside his entrenchments, but fled down into the Bosporus and there met his end;
Tigranes himself, carrying himself naked and unarmed, flung himself down before Pompey, and taking the diadem from his head set it before his feet — flattering not Pompey's own achievements but those celebrated in Lucullus's triumph. At any rate he was content to receive back the symbols of kingship, as one who had previously been deprived of them. The greater general, then, like the greater athlete, is the one who hands over his opponent weaker to the one who comes after him.
Furthermore, Cimon found the king's power already shattered and the pride of the Persians already brought low by heavy losses and a string of defeats dealt by Themistocles, Pausanias, and Leotychidas, and fell upon men whose bodies were easily overcome because their spirits had already given way and been defeated beforehand; whereas Tigranes, undefeated through many contests and greatly proud, met Lucullus in full strength.
In numbers, indeed, those overcome by Cimon are not even worthy of comparison with those who gathered against Lucullus. So that, taking everything into account, the judgment is difficult to render, since the divine power too seems to have been favorable to both alike, forewarning the one what he must accomplish and the other what he must guard against, so that the vote of the gods too stands in favor of both, as men good and divine in nature.