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And now enter this precious year! It was inaugurated by the suspension of the annual rites of Iuventas; for Memmius initiated M. Lucullus's wife in some rites of his own! Our Menelaus, being annoyed at that, divorced his wife. Yet the old Idæan shepherd had only injured Menelaus; our Roman Paris thought Agamemnon as proper an object of injury as Menelaus.
Still less can we compare the generous and popular hospitality of Kimon with the Eastern profusion and extravagance of Lucullus's table; for Kimon, at a small expense, fed many of his countrymen daily, while the other spent enormous sums to provide luxuries for a small circle of friends.
Among the captives was Marius, the commander sent by Sertorius, who had but one eye. And it was Lucullus's strict command to his men before the engagement, that they should kill no man who had but one eye, that he might rather die under disgrace and reproach.
Besides these evils, that which most of all prejudiced Lucullus, was Publius Clodius, an insolent man, very vicious and bold, brother to Lucullus's wife, a woman of bad conduct, with whom Clodius was himself suspected of criminal intercourse. These were those whom Fimbria before had persuaded to kill the consul Flaccus, and choose him their leader.
The first messenger that gave notice of Lucullus's coming was so far from pleasing Tigranes, that he had his head cut off for his pains; and no man daring to bring further information, without any intelligence at all, Tigranes sat while war was already blazing around him, giving ear only to those who flattered him, by saying that Lucullus would show himself a great commander, if he ventured to wait for Tigranes at Ephesus, and did not at once fly out of Asia, at the mere sight of the many thousands that were come against him.
Lucullus's daily entertainments were ostentatiously extravagant, not only with purple coverlets, and plate adorned with precious stones, and dancings, and interludes, but with the greatest diversity of dishes and the most elaborate cookery, for the vulgar to admire and envy.
I wrote you a letter in a rather unbrotherly spirit, which I dashed off in a fit of anger and now wish to recall, having been irritated by what Lucullus's freedman told me, immediately after hearing of the bargain. For this letter, which was not expressed in a brotherly way, you ought to have brotherly feeling enough to make allowance.
And as Pompey's laurels were withered with passing through hot and droughty countries, Lucullus's lictors courteously gave Pompey's some of the fresh and green ones which they had, which Pompey's friends counted a good omen, as indeed of a truth, Lucullus's actions furnished the honors of Pompey's command.
A great proof of the completeness of Lucullus's success is to be found in the fact that the Persians soon after Kimon's death, attacked the Greeks as vigorously as if they had never been defeated by Kimon at all, and defeated a large Greek army in Egypt; while Tigranes and Mithridates never recovered from the overthrow they sustained from Lucullus.
I heard a consular senator say that, in consequence of the present alarming state of affairs, he would probably be recalled from the command assigned to him by the Manilian law." "Let him come, the pupil of Sylla's butcheries, the gleaner of Lucullus's trophies, the thief-taker of the Senate." "For Heaven's sake, Caius! if you knew what the Consul said" "Something about himself, no doubt.
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