er in favour of the doctrine of comprehension[438] and himself
the speaker on the opposite side. The book is entitled 'Lucullus.'
Lucullus and Cicero were, as I have said, great friends, and
associated in their political views, for Lucullus had not entirely
withdrawn from public affairs, though he had immediately on his return
to Rome surrendered to Crassus and Cato the ambition and the struggle
to be the first man in the state and have the greatest power,
considering that the struggle was not free from danger and great
mortification; for those who looked with jealousy on the power of
Pompeius put Crassus and Cato at the head of their party in the
Senate, when Lucullus declined to take the lead, but Lucullus used to
go to the Forum to support his friends, and to the Senate whenever it
was necessary to put a check on any attempt or ambitious design of
Pompeius. The arrangements which Pompeius made after his conquest of
the kings, Lucullus contrived to nullify, and when Pompeius proposed a
distribution of lands[439] Lucullus with the assistance of Cato
prevented it from being made, which drew Pompeius to seek the
friendship of Crassus and Caesar, or rather to enter into a combination
with them, and by filling the city with arms and soldiers he got his
measures ratified after driving out of the Forum the partisans of Cato
and Lucullus. The nobles being indignant at these proceedings, the
party of Pompeius produced one Vettius,[440] whom, as they said, they
had detected in a design on the life of Pompeius. When Vettius was
examined before the Senate, he accused others, and before the popular
assembly he named Lucullus as the person by whom he had been suborned
to murder Pompeius. But nobody believed him, and it soon became clear
that the man had been brought forward by the partisans of Pompeius to
fabricate a false charge, and to criminate others, and the fraud was
made still more apparent, when a few days after the dead body of
Vettius was thrown out of the prison; for, though it was given out
that he died a natural death[441] there were marks of strangulation
and violence on the body, and it was the opinion that he had been put
to death by those who suborned him.

XLIII. This induced Lucullus still more to withdraw from public
affairs; and when Cicero was banished from Rome, and Cato[442] was
sent to Cyprus, he retired altogether. Before he died, it is said
that his understanding was disordered and gradually failed. Corne