Pompeius there was some difference, arising out of the affair of the command in the Mithridatic war, and yet they were accustomed to associate and talk together frequently in a friendly manner.  Accordingly, Cicero saluted him, and asked him how he was disposed to receive visitors, to which Lucullus replied, “Exceedingly well,” and invited them to pay him a visit.  “We wish,” said Cicero, “to sup with you to-day, just in the same way as if preparation were made for yourself only.”  Lucullus began to make some difficulty, and to ask them to allow him to name another day; but they said they would not, nor would they let him speak to his servants, that he might not have the opportunity of ordering anything more than what was preparing for himself.  However, at his request, they allowed him just to tell one of his slaves in their presence, that he would sup on that day in the Apollo; for this was the name of one of his costly apartments.  This trick of Lucullus was not understood by his guests; for it is said that to every banqueting-room there was assigned the cost of the feast there, and every room had its peculiar style of preparation and entertainment, so that when the slaves heard in which room their master intended to sup, they also knew what was to be the cost of the supper and the kind of decoration and arrangement.  Now, Lucullus was accustomed to sup in the Apollo at the cost of fifty thousand drachmas, and this being the cost of the entertainment on the present occasion, Pompeius and Cicero were surprised at the rapidity with which the banquet had been got ready and the costliness of the entertainment.  In this way, then, Lucullus used his wealth, capriciously, just as if it were a captive slave and a barbarian.

XLII.  What he did as to his collection of books is worth notice and mention.  He got together a great number of books which were well transcribed, and the mode in which they were used was more honourable to him than the acquisition of them; for the libraries were open to all, and the walking-places which surrounded them, and the reading rooms were accessible to the Greeks without any restriction, and they went there as to an abode of the Muses, and spent the day there in company with one another, gladly betaking themselves to the libraries from their other occupations.  Lucullus himself often spent some time there with the visitors, walking about in the ambulatories, and he used to talk there with men engaged in public affairs on such matters as they might choose; and altogether his house was a home and a Greek prytaneum[435] to those who came to Rome.  He was fond of philosophy generally, and well disposed to every sect, and friendly to them all; but from the first he particularly admired and loved the Academy,[436] not that which is called the New Academy, though the sect was then flourishing by the propagation of the doctrines of Karneades by Philo, but Old Academy, which at that time had for its head a persuasive man and a powerful speaker,