b. The “Lucullus."

The day after the discussion narrated in the Catulus, during which Lucullus had been merely a looker-on, the whole party left the Cuman villa of Catulus early in the morning, and came to that of Hortensius at Bauli[277].  In the evening, if the wind favoured, Lucullus was to leave for his villa at Neapolis, Cicero for his at Pompeii[278].  Bauli was a little place on the gulf of Baiae, close to Cimmerium, round which so many legends lingered[279].  The scenery in view was magnificent[280].  As the party were seated in the xystus with its polished floor and lines of statues, the waves rippled at their feet, and the sea away to the horizon glistened and quivered under the bright sun, and changed colour under the freshening breeze.  Within sight lay the Cuman shore and Puteoli, thirty stadia distant[281].

Cicero strove to give vividness to the dialogue and to keep it perfectly free from anachronisms.  Diodotus is spoken of as still living, although when the words were written he had been dead for many years[282].  The surprise of Hortensius, who is but a learner in philosophy, at the wisdom of Lucullus, is very dramatic[283].  The many political and private troubles which were pressing upon Cicero when he wrote the work are kept carefully out of sight.  Still we can catch here and there traces of thoughts and plans which were actively employing the author’s mind at Astura.  His intention to visit Tusculum has left its mark on the last section of the book, while in the last but one the De Finibus, the De Natura Deorum and other works are shadowed forth[284].  In another passage the design of the Tusculan Disputations, which was carried out immediately after the publication of the Academica and De Finibus, is clearly to be seen[285].

Hortensius and Catulus now sink to a secondary position in the conversation, which is resumed by Lucullus.  His speech is especially acknowledged by Cicero to be drawn from the works of Antiochus[286].  Nearly all that is known of the learning of Lucullus is told in Cicero’s dialogue, and the passages already quoted from the letters.  He seems at least to have dallied with culture, although his chief energy, as a private citizen, was directed to the care of his fish-ponds[287].  In his train when he went to Sicily was the poet Archias, and during the whole of his residence in the East he sought to attach learned men to his person.  At Alexandria he was found in the company of Antiochus, Aristus, Heraclitus Tyrius, Tetrilius Rogus and the Selii, all men of philosophic tastes[288].  He is several times mentioned by Pliny in the Natural History as the patron of Greek artists.  Yet, as we have already seen, Cicero acknowledged in his letters to Atticus that Lucullus was no philosopher.  He has to be propped up, like Catulus, by the authority of another person.  All his arguments are explicitly stated to be derived from a discussion in which he had heard Antiochus engage.  The speech of Lucullus was, as I have said, mainly a reply to that of Cicero in the Catulus.  Any closer examination of its contents must be postponed till I come to annotate its actual text.  The same may be said of Cicero’s answer.