Lucullus

Winter was then at its worst, but he sailed forth with three Greek brigantines and as many small Rhodian galleys, exposing himself not only to the high sea, but to numerous hostile ships which were cruising about everywhere in full mastery of it. However, he put in at Crete and won it over to his side. He also made Cyrené, and finding it in confusion in consequence of successive tyrannies and wars, he restored it to order, and fixed its constitution, reminding the city of a certain oracular utterance which the great Plato had once vouchsafed to them.

They asked him, it would seem, to write laws for them, and to mould their people into some form of sound government, whereupon he said that it was hard to be a lawgiver for the Cyrenaeans when they were having such good fortune. In fact, nothing is more ungovernable than a man reputed to be prosperous; and, on the other hand, nothing is more receptive of authority than a man who is humbled by misfortune. This was what made the Cyrenaeans at that time so submissive to Lucullus as their lawgiver.