Lucullus

118 BCE–58 BCE

Lucullus was a Roman general and statesman best known for campaigns against Mithridates VI during the Third Mithridatic War. He later became famous for wealth, luxury and cultured retirement, giving his name to the idea of Lucullan splendour.

Lucullus was born in Ancient Rome. Lucullus also held the offices or ranks of quaestor, aedile, Roman consul, and praetor. Lucullus belonged to the Licinii Luculli and operated within Ancient Rome.

Alfred Duggan’s He Died Old places the three Mithridatic Wars within the unstable politics of Asia Minor and the late Roman Republic. Sulla, Lucullus and Pompey successively confront Mithridates, while shifting alliances, massacres, sieges and family rebellions narrow his options until his final resistance in the Bosporan kingdom. In Steven Saylor’s A Gladiator Dies Only Once, Historical figures including Quintus Sertorius and Lucullus appear as the collection moves through the Sertorian conflict, the Third Servile War and the Mithridatic era. In Michael Curtis Ford’s The Last King, A gifted linguist, strategist and experimenter with poisons, Mithridates expands his influence around the Black Sea and presents himself as the defender of the Greek East against Roman taxation and political domination. His ambitions lead to three prolonged wars with the Roman Republic and confrontations with commanders including Sulla, Lucullus and Pompey.

Periods

Periods linked to Lucullus

Mithridatic Wars88–63 BCE

Series

Historical novels and book series featuring Lucullus (1 series)

Roma Sub Rosa in Order

by Steven Saylor 13 books 4.1(53,315)

The Roma Sub Rosa series follows Gordianus the Finder through the last generation of the Roman Republic. His investigations begin in the aftermath of Sulla’s dictatorship and continue through slave revolt, aristocratic trials, Catiline’s conspiracy, Caesar’s civil war and the assassination of Julius Caesar. The series uses murder…