Lucullus

We are focusing our attention on what is labeled as 18, in which the Stoic Lusullus is concluding his arguments against academic skepticism.

And last week, we spent much of our attention on Lucullus' references to Democritus and how the academic skeptics were willing to use Democritus for their own argument about the difficulty or, in fact, impossibility of knowledge.

Enlisting Democritus's position that the universe is infinite and that there are infinite numbers of the same thing throughout the universe, leading to the skeptics being willing to say that, well, if there's all sorts of things that are truly identical in the universe, then you have no way of knowing true from false.

If a particular thing can be identical with another, you can never be confident that you're not mistaken because your senses are certainly not going to be able to distinguish between two things that are identical.

He is really, he is, he doesn't have any rivals, except in the east.

There was a general called Lucullus, who was the favorite of the Senate, and he controlled the eastern region.

Um, and he essentially had been battling Mithridates for a year, n- years out there, becoming fabulously wealthy.

But although he had severely weakened Mithridates, who was the great bogeyman of Rome.

It was Nor- northern Turkey is where it, is where it was.

Exactly.

Um, so Pompey connived with his friends in the Senate to recall Lucullus, uh, to bring him back almost in shame- Yeah ...

so that he could replace him.

Not to be a bed after midnight is to be up betimes [laughs].

And the Lucullo's surgery thou knowest.

Nay, by my troth, I know not.

But I know to be up late is to be up late.

He was made to abdicate in legal form in 476 and the Roman Senate at the dictation of Odoacer officially signified to the Eastern Emperor Zeno their resolution that the separate Western Empire should cease and their recognition of the one emperor at Constantinople who should be supreme over West and East.

Amid the ruin of the empire and the state, the dethroned emperor passed his days in such luxurious ease as the times allowed at the villa of Lucullus at Misenum and Odoacer taking the Teutonic title of king sent to the emperor at Constantinople the imperial crown and robe which were to be worn no more at Rome or Ravenna for more than three hundred years.

Thus in the year 476 ended the Roman Empire or rather the line of Roman emperors in the West.

Thus it had become clear that the foundations of human life and society which had seemed under the first emperors eternal had given way.

As we've been discussing, the Stoics reacted strongly against that because they are gonna be defending virtue as the goal with even greater intensity than the academic skeptics are willing to do to the extent that they're willing to advocate anything.

And so the Stoics are taking the position, as Lucullus has been arguing here in the section that we've been reading, that knowledge is possible.

And he's going through a number of important arguments that give us significant information about the Epicurean point of view.

Last week, we ended up reading section 17, and though there are some continuing issues that we are gonna have to double back and cover as we go further, especially in terms of the meaning of the Stoic view of assent and, of course, the continuing issues of what is meant by a cataleptic impression, we concluded last week in reading section 17, where Lucullus said to the academic skeptic argument, "You guys can quote Democritus that there are countless identical worlds that cannot be distinguished from each other, and you can use Democritus if you like to argue that nothing therefore can be known.

But I'm not gonna, first of all, grant you that Democritus knows what he's talking about in terms of his atomism, and I'm certainly not gonna grant that Democritus is right in concluding that nothing is knowable." So Democritus was held in very high regard by Epicurus, but not necessarily in this aspect of his views of atomism because Epicurus ended up taking some significantly different positions that allowed him to conclude, in contrast to Democritus, that knowledge certainly is possible and not to take a position that it's at the bottom of a dark well and end up being as skeptical as Democritus apparently was.

And of course, I always say apparently because our direct knowledge of Democritus is much less firm than we would like it to be, and we have to just go on what other people are quoting from Democritus.

I'm now gonna turn it over to Joshua to continue and then move us into 18.

So Joshua, whenever you're ready.

However, chroniclers all tell of the Romans' keen interest in sea treasures.

"The sea is the element which cost the most to man's stomach through its preparations, its dishes, and its delicacies." This observation by the writer Pliny the Elder may have been made by Lucius Lucullus.

We hardly remember that this general, who later became a senator, conquered Asia Minor.

But history informs us that he was one of the first great gourmets.

Cato blocked him on principle because he believed no extraordinary honors should stand.

Lucullus did it out of jealousy because Pompey had taken his command and his glory.

Metellus Celer, the consul, was nursing a family grudge because Pompey had divorced his half-sister.

And Crassus worked against him out of rivalry, a man with plenty of money who wanted respect to go with it all.