Lucius Licinius Lucullus

Lucullus destroyed Mithridates' armies, was denied the credit, and spent his retirement on dinners so extravagant that his name became a synonym for luxury. Born around 118 BC into a patrician family, he served under Sulla in the Social War and the first war against Mithridates, and was one of the few officers who stayed loyal when Sulla marched on Rome. He was consul in 74 BC and was given the eastern command against Mithridates VI of Pontus. He conducted it brilliantly. He relieved Cyzicus by cutting the besiegers' supplies rather than fighting, destroying an army far larger than his own through starvation; he drove Mithridates out of Pontus, pursued him into Armenia, and at Tigranocerta in 69 BC defeated Tigranes the Great's much larger force with about ten thousand men. He also reformed the province of Asia, which Roman tax farmers had ruined. He capped interest rates, cancelled compound interest, limited repayment to a quarter of a debtor's income, and cleared the debt within four years. The provincials were grateful, and the equestrian financiers he had cost were his permanent enemies in Rome. His troops, exhausted and encouraged by his own brother-in-law Publius Clodius, mutinied and refused to advance further. The command was transferred to Pompey in 66 BC, who finished the war and took the triumph and the reputation. He was kept waiting three years for his own triumph. He then withdrew from politics into gardens, libraries open to Greek scholars, fishponds and legendary dinners — dining alone, he told a servant that Lucullus dines with Lucullus. He died around 56 BC.

MyHistorian
A causal knowledge graph of history