o 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, Antiochus of Askalon, whom Lucullus eagerly
sought for his friend and companion, and opposed to the followers of
Philo, of whom Cicero also was one. Cicero wrote an excellent treatise
upon the doctrines of this sect, in which he made Lucullus[437] the
speak