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37. Now when Lucullus had returned to Rome, he found, in the first place, that his brother Marcus was under prosecution by Gaius Memmius for his acts as quaestor under the administration of Sulla. Marcus, indeed, was acquitted, but Memmius then turned his attack upon Lucullus, and strove to excite the people against him. He charged him with diverting much property to his own uses, and with needlessly protracting the war, and finally persuaded the people not to grant him a triumph. [2] Lucullus strove mightily against this decision, and the foremost and most influential men mingled with the tribes, and by much entreaty and exertion at last persuaded the people to allow him to celebrate a triumph;1 not, however, like some, a triumph which was startling and tumultuous from the length of the procession and the multitude of objects displayed. Instead, he decorated the circus of Flaminius with the arms of the enemy, which were very numerous, and with the royal engines of war; and this was a great spectacle in itself, and far from contemptible. [3] But in the procession, a few of the mail-clad horsemen and ten of the scythe-bearing chariots moved along, together with sixty of the king's friends and generals. A hundred and ten bronze-beaked ships of war were also carried along, a golden statue of Mithridates himself, six feet in height, a wonderful shield adorned with precious stones, twenty litters of silver vessels, and thirty-two litters of gold beakers, armour, and money. [4] All this was carried by men. Then there were eight mules which bore golden couches, fifty-six bearing ingots of silver, and a hundred and seven more bearing something less than two million seven hundred thousand pieces of silver coin. There were also tablets with records of the sums of money already paid by Lucullus to Pompey for the war against the pirates, and to the keepers of the public treasury, as well as of the fact that each of his soldiers had received nine hundred and fifty drachmas. To crown all, Lucullus gave a magnificent feast to the city, and to the surrounding villages called Vici.

1 66 B.C.

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