but when it is out of the Forum is

     “Dry, and for want of true discipline half dead”—­

but he cultivated the appropriate and so-called liberal sciences, with a view to self-improvement, from his early youth.  When he was more advanced in years he let his mind, as it were, after so many troubles, find tranquillity and repose in philosophy, rousing to activity the contemplative portion of his nature, and seasonably terminating and cutting short his ambitious aspirations after his difference with Pompeius.  Now, as to his love of learning, this also is reported, in addition to what has been mentioned:  when he was a young man, in a conversation with Hortensius,[319] the orator, and Sisenna,[320] the historian, which began in jest, but ended in a serious proposition, he agreed that if they would propose a poem and a history, Greek and Roman, he would treat the subject of the Marsic war in whichsoever of these two languages the lot should decide; and it seems that the lot resulted in a Greek history, for there is still extant a Greek history of the Marsic war by Lucullus.[321] Of his affection to his brother Marcus[322] there were many proofs, but the Romans speak most of the first; being older than his brother, he did not choose to hold a magistracy by himself, but he waited till his brother was of the proper age, and so far gained the public favour that his brother in his absence was elected aedile jointly with him.

II.  Though he was a young man during the Marsic war, he gave many proofs of courage and prudence; but it was rather on account of the solidity of his character and the mildness of his temper that Sulla attached Lucullus to himself, and from the beginning he constantly employed him in affairs of the greatest importance; one of which was the matter relating to the coinage.  It was Lucullus who superintended the coining of most of the money in the Peloponnesus during the Mithridatic war, and it was named Lucullean after him, and continued for a long time to have a ready circulation, in consequence of the demands of the war.  Afterwards, Sulla, who was in possession of the country about Athens,[323] but was shut out from supplies by sea by the enemy, who had the command of it, sent Lucullus to Egypt and Libya to get ships there.  It was now the depth of winter, but still he set sail with three Greek piratical ships, and the same number of Rhodian biremes, exposing himself to a wide sea and to hostile vessels, which, owing to their having the superiority, were cruising about in great numbers and in all directions.  However, he landed at Crete, and made the people friendly to his cause; and, finding the Cyrenaeans in a state of confusion, owing to continual tyrannies and wars, he tranquillised and settled the state, by reminding the citizens of a certain expression of Plato, which the philosopher had addressed to them in a prophetic spirit.  They asked him, as it appears, to draw up laws for them, and to settle their democracy after