Lucullus

As for his works on the seashore and in the vicinity of Neapolis, where he suspended hills over vast tunnels, girdled his residences with zones of sea and with streams for the breeding of fish, and built dwellings in the sea,—when Tubero the Stoic saw them, he called him Xerxes in a toga.

He had also country establishments near Tusculum, with observatories, and extensive open banqueting halls and cloisters. Pompey once visited these, and chided Lucullus because he had arranged his country seat in the best possible way for summer, but had made it uninhabitable in winter. Whereupon Lucullus burst out laughing and said: Do you suppose, then, that I have less sense than cranes and storks, and do not change residences according to the seasons?

A praetor was once making ambitious plans for a public spectacle, and asked of him some purple cloaks for the adornment of a chorus. Lucullus replied that he would investigate, and if he had any, would give them to him. The next day he asked the praetor how many he wanted, and on his replying that a hundred would suffice, bade him take twice that number. The poet Flaccus[*](Epist. i. 6, 45 f.) alluded to this when he said that he did not regard a house as wealthy in which the treasures that were overlooked and unobserved were not more than those which met the eye.

The daily repasts of Lucullus were such as the newly rich affect. Not only with his dyed coverlets, and beakers set with precious stones, and choruses and dramatic recitations, but also with his arrays of all sorts of meats and daintily prepared dishes, did he make himself the envy of the vulgar.

A saying of Pompey’s, when he was ill, was certainly very popular. His physicians had prescribed a thrush for him to eat, and his servants said that a thrush could not be found anywhere in the summer season except where Lucullus kept them fattening. Pompey, however, would not suffer them to get one from there, but bade them prepare something else that was easily to be had, remarking as he did so to his physician, What! must a Pompey have died if a Lucullus were not luxurious?

And Cato, who was a friend of his, and a relation by marriage, was nevertheless much offended by his life and habits. Once when a youthful senator had delivered a tedious and lengthy discourse, all out of season, on frugality and temperance, Cato rose and said; Stop there! you get wealth like Crassus, you live like Lucullus, but you talk like Cato. Some, however, while they say that these words were actually uttered, do not say that they were spoken by Cato.