Lucullus

Most of the country was thickly shaded, full of narrow defiles, and marshy, so that it kept the soldiers continually wet; they were covered with snow while they marched, and spent the nights uncomfortably in damp places. Accordingly, they had not followed Lucullus for many days after the battle when they began to object. At first they sent their tribunes to him with entreaties to desist, then they held more tumultuous assemblies, and shouted in their tents at night, which seems to have been characteristic of a mutinous army.

And yet Lucullus plied them with entreaties, calling upon them to possess their souls in patience until they had taken and destroyed the Armenian Carthage, the work of their most hated foe, meaning Hannibal. But since he could not persuade them, he led them back, and crossing the Taurus by another pass, descended into the country called Mygdonia, which is fertile and open to the sun, and contains a large and populous city, called Nisibis by the Barbarians, Antioch in Mygdonia by the Greeks.

The nominal defender of this city, by virtue of his rank, was Gouras, a brother of Tigranes; but its actual defender, by virtue of his experience and skill as an engineer, was Callimachus, the man who gave Lucullus most trouble at Amisus also. But Lucullus established his camp before it, laid siege to it in every way, and in a short time took the city by storm.

To Gouras, who surrendered himself into his bands, he gave kind treatment; but to Callimachus, who promised to reveal secret stores of great treasure, he would not hearken. Instead, he ordered him to be brought in chains, that he might be punished for destroying Amisus by fire, and thereby robbing Lucullus of the object of his ambition, which was to show kindness to the Greeks.

Up to this point, one might say that fortune had followed Lucullus and fought on his side; but from now on, as though a favouring breeze had failed him, he had to force every issue, and met with obstacles everywhere. He still displayed the bravery and patience of a good leader, but his undertakings brought him no new fame or favour; indeed, so ill-starred and devious was his course, that he came near losing that which he had already won.

And he himself was not least to blame for this. He was not disposed to court the favour of the common soldier, and thought that everything that was done to please one’s command only dishonoured and undermined one’s authority. Worst of all, not even with men of power and of equal rank with himself could he readily co-operate; he despised them all, and thought them of no account as compared with himself.

These bad qualities Lucullus is said to have had, but no more than these. He was tall and handsome, a powerful speaker, and equally able in the forum and the field. Well, then, Sallust says that his soldiers were ill-disposed towards him at the very beginning of the war, before Cyzicus, and again before Amisus, because they were compelled to spend two successive winters in camp.