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This is the first biography in English of Lucullus, one of Rome's greatest soldiers, traditionally considered a degenerate. Paring back the legends and misconceptions surrounding his name, the book examines Lucullus as a soldier, politician and aesthete. Inheritor of the ideals of his friend Sulla, his career spans the last years of the Roman republic when it was governed under the constitution the dictator had devised. Through the eyes of Lucullus, the failure of that constitution is depicted.
- Sales Rank: #1819896 in eBooks
- Published on: 2013-01-11
- Released on: 2013-01-11
- Format: Kindle eBook
Review
"Fully documented, clearly written, and forcefully argued, Keaveney's controversial biography, the only one in English, will interest students and scholars alike."
-"Choice
About the Author
Arthur Keaveney is Lecturer in Classics at the University of Kent.
Most helpful customer reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful.
The Roman Republic's Forgotten Hero
By Octavius
When people think about the great generals of the Late Roman Republic, most immediately think of Caesar and Pompey The Great; but there were other contemporaries who were equally great in their military prowess yet they were either denigrated by their contemporaries and/or surpassed in reputation by Caesar and Pompey. Arthur Keaveney is one of the first historians to present a thorough analysis of Lucius Licinius Lucullus, a great Roman leader who has been largely ignored by contemporary historians as an unimportant political player in the Late Republic. Arthur Keaveney reevaluates ancient sources to flush out a more accurate/less biased interpretation of this Roman hero.
Lucius Licinius Lucullus (c. 118-56 B.C.E.) was a plebeian noble who would come to have close ties with Sulla and his entourage. He was an ardent optimate and the cousin of Marcus Licinius Crassus, the triumvir. Sulla would become his mentor and keep him as his confidant: he made him the legal guardian of his son Faustus after his death in 77 B.C.E. The peak of his career came after his consulship in 74 B.C.E. when he embarked on the Mithridatic War in the East which had resurged. He would spend almost ten years fighting in Asia Minor against Mithridates and Tigranes until he was supplanted by Pompey's popular politics and Clodius' agitations among his men. As with Crassus, Lucullus was a bitter enemy of Pompey The Great commenting that he was like a carrion bird that feasted on prey killed by others. Returning for a triumph in 64 B.C.E. he retired from public life and became a great patron of Greek culture with an extensive library which he kept open for the public. An epicurean, he tended to follow a life of aesthetic pleasure with banquets and poetic recitals. He died around 56 B.C. One could perhaps call him the most honorable Roman of his times as, in addition to his remarkable military service, he was one of the few men who chose not to abase themselves to the populist politics and demagogueries of his day such as those of Caesar, Pompey, or even those of Cicero: he chose to retire from the chaotic politics of Rome to live a mostly private life instead.
Arthur Keaveney seeks to reevaluate Lucullus as a person and to account for the discrepancies in the classical sources. Plutarch is one of the main sources and treats him very positively but he is writing from a much later period when knowledge of Roman republican institutions was fading and where enough time had passed to allow for whitewashing. Contemporary sources such as Cicero are mixed in how they treat him. Although Cicero comments on his mastery of Greek and his competence in oratory and writing, he also critizes his epicurean ideals and love of Greek culture. Keaveney does a good job at explaining the sources of these biases and how they arose in the context of Roman values of the Late Republic. He shows that Hellenism in Rome was still rather new and that metaphysical subjects were generally treated with suspicion. Keaveney also reminds the reader that Cicero, although generally an optimate, favored Pompey who had no love for Lucullus. Keaveney also emphasizes that Lucullus did not completely remove himself from politics after his retirement but that he remained active in the optimate circles against Pompey and the First Triumvirate. These are general examples on how Keaveney deconstructs and reconstructs the classical sources on this facinating man.
This is a great book on the life of Lucullus. This is actually the only book in print on the subject while those that are out of print are either extremely hard to find or exhorbitantly expensive. This is a great book for those in classical studies giving additional insight on the characters of the great men of the Late Roman Republic and their dispositions. I wouldn't recommend this book for beginners as the subject would already require significant knowledge about antiquity and the Late Roman Republic. A good companion to this book would be Arthur Keaveney's book on Sulla. Together, both books provide a full picture of the lives of both men as mentor and apprentice.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
Quite a bit more than Sulla’s right-hand man
By JPS
This book is a biography of Lucius Licininius Lucullus, a plebeian Roman noble and faithful right-hand man that is little known nowadays and largely eclipsed by his mentor (Sulla), but also by his adversaries (Marius, Pompey and Caesar).
Perhaps the main merit of this book is to show why he essentially failed to preserve Sulla’s heritage, despite his qualities and his military victories and why he can be seen as one of the last Roman Republicans. As he did for his biography of Sulla, the reasons for this are, according to the author, partly to be found in the character of Lucullus which he attempts to reconstruct through a rather fascinating discussion of the ancient sources. For Arthur Keaveney, Lucullus was essentially a decent man, but neither as unscrupulous not as ruthless as his opponents. He also seems to have been both haughty and arrogant, with none of the charisma or “common touch” that some of his rivals (Caesar, in particular) could display to make themselves so beloved by their troops.
Lucullus ultimately failed. He tried to defend Sulla’s revised and oligarchic constitution after his mentor’s death, but failed to prevent the efforts of his political enemies (Pompey, then Caesar, and number of other colourful and ambitious characters such as Clodius) from restoring the powers of the tribunes of the plebs which they then used to their own advantage. After loyally serving Sulla as one of his staff during the first Mithridatic war, he succeeded in defeating Mithridates during the second war, but failed to capture him. He also started a war against Tigrane, King of Armenia and son-in-law of Mithridates, whom he defeated several times, but was stripped of his command and humiliated by Pompey who stole his victory from him before he could finish this war.
A close examination of his campaigns shows the extent of his generalship. As the author shows rather well, he seems to have excelled in sieges and was capable of winning a war of attrition, as he did against the numerically superior Pontic armies. He was however also capable of waging war where speed and bold campaigning would force Tigrane into battle to defend his capital only to be defeated in the field. This he did when time was running out for him and as his many political enemies were trying to strip him of his Asiatic command. The author contrasts his generalship with that of the more impatient Sulla. Although Keaveney does not expressly mention this, the overall impression you get is that of a methodical – as opposed to a rash and lucky - general who leaves little to chance.
Another interesting feature of this book is to show how Lucullus’ combined decency and arrogance played against him, made him enemies and contributed to his downfall. What the author ascribes to his philhellenism lead to initially deny his troops from sacking Hellenistic cities, making his soldiers resentful and earning himself a “bad” reputation of being stingy. He also, as Governor of Asia, curbed the well-described excesses of the publicans and other Roman moneylenders, earning him the enduring hostility of many equestrians once back in Rome. While he certainly was a philhellene, as the author demonstrates, I was not entirely convinced that this was his only or even his real motivation for being merciful to Hellenistic cities while allowing his troops a free rein to pillage, sack and destroy those that were supposedly not (in the Kingdom of Armenia, in particular). A much more pragmatic reason to do so was that the Hellenistic cities were either part of the Province of Asia or his allies from which he could expect and obtain supplies and contributions whereas the others were conquests.
Whatever the motivations for his selective mercifulness, this cost him the support of his troops which he had driven in a series of hard campaigns and which threatened rebellion several times. Pompey’s success in stripping him of his command and replacing him would not have been possible had Lucullus been able to secure his army’s personal loyalty, as the less scrupulous Sulla, Pompey and Caesar managed to do so successfully.
A third merit of this book is to show to what extent the portrait drawn of Lucullus during his last years has been distorted by hostile sources. As shown by Arthur Keaveney, he did not throw the towel in after his return from Asia, although his military campaigns were the peak of his career and perhaps the best time of his life, when he was far and away from the sordid political squabbles and power plays taking place in Rome. His political enemies managed to prevent him (and a couple of other leading “Optimates”) from obtaining their respective triumphs. Lucullus had to wait three years to stage his. From his return in 66 BC to 60 BC, he was still active in Rome’s political life but left others to take the lead in defending the cause Of the Optimates to which he belonged against the growing influence of Pompey and Caesar. While perhaps not making the point as explicitly as he could have, the author seems to suggest that Lucullus may have lost his self-confidence. He may even have doubted his abilities and his leadership capabilities although he had enough of these left to prove a major problem for Pompey and push him into the so-called “First Triumvirate”, which heralded the end of the Republic.
He was an aesthete and a patron of Greek culture. He collected and built one of the most extensive libraries of Greek works for instance, and spent part of the fortune he made in the East on his various properties, including famous gardens that survived him for centuries. He may not have been the archetype of the degenerate Roman senator that some hostile sources have made him out to be. Instead, the author contends, perhaps not always very convincingly, that he was a sophisticated senator living in sophisticated times and for whom money was not an issue. He was, however, given a national funeral after his death in BC 57 or 56, showing that his contemporaries at least had not forgotten his achievements and believed they were worth such a distinction.
As in his remarkable biography of Sulla, the author does not entirely hide his sympathies for his subject character. In both cases, however, the portrait he draws is mostly a very convincing one and his interpretations and speculations, because there are some, are at least credible. Particularly convincing is Arthur Keaveney’s contention that he was a servant of the Republic and a “decent” man who lacked the ruthlessness and over-bearing ambition to be the first man in Rome that some of his competitors shared. In other words, he seems to not have been as “power-hungry” as a Pompey or a Caesar, and perhaps not as self-righteous and self-confident as his mentor Sulla. Unlike them, and in the increasingly ruthless world of Roman politics, he may indeed not have been ready to do “whatever it took”…
Five stars.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
A unique view of late Republican Life
By Jason Gacek
This book was certainly not as good as his book on Sulla, but it was still a very good book. Here we are taken through the life of Sulla's chief lieutenant. It is fascinating to look at a person who did not quite have the political or military talent and will of a Sulla or a Caesar. We see Lucullus impotence as one by one, almost all the reforms Sulla put in place to safeguard the Republic are eliminated. Lucullus emerges as a good politician, but not a great politician; a good general, but not a great general. He is unable to finish his war against Tigranes and Mithradates largely because he was unable to build the esprit de corps among his troops in the way Caesar is famous for. The coup de grace of a war he largely won is left for his arch enemy Pompey.
Keaveney paints an excellent picture of the treacherous political wrangling that characterizes the late Republic (better than any soap opera;-) He was a man not just motivated by personal gain, he believed in the optimate cause and the reforms Sulla implemented. He was just out maneuvered by his opponents. In the end we see that Sulla's example of seizing power with military force was by far his greatest legacy. None of the laws Sulla put in place to keep people (Caesar) from doing exactly what he did had any effect.
With a lifetime of political and military work coming to nothing, Lucullus gives up and retires. All he became known for by later generations is his lavish displays of wealth and sumptuous banquets. Lucullus apparently gets Alzheimer's and dies mentally feeble in the care of his loyal brother Marcus.
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