Sallustius Lucullus
Encyclopedia
Sallustius Lucullus was a governor of Roman Britain
during the late 1st century, holding office after Gnaeus Julius Agricola
although it is unclear whether he directly inherited the post or if there was another unknown governor in between. From epigraphic evidence it is possible he was of British descent.
that Emperor Domitian
put him to death for naming a new lance
after himself. This story may mask another reason for Sallustius' execution; the possibility that he took part in the conspiracy of Lucius Antonius Saturninus
, legate of Germania Superior
, which was put down in the spring of 89.
It is possible that he may be identified with the Lucius Lucullus who was proconsul
of Hispania Baetica
, and a student of marine life, at the time Pliny the Elder
wrote his Natural History
(c. 77). This Lucullus would have been of appropriate rank to be appointed governor of Britain at the right date.
Dr. Miles Russell of Bournemouth University
has suggested another possibility. An inscription from Chichester
, recorded by Samuel Woodford in his Inscriptionum Romano-Britannicarum Conllectio (1658) but since lost, refers to Sallustius Lucullus, giving his praenomen as Gaius and describing him as a propraetorian legate of the emperor Domitian. Another inscription from Chichester, discovered in 1923, refers to a "Lucullus, son of Amminus". Russell suggests that this is the same Lucullus, and that his father was the native British prince Amminus
, son of Cunobelinus
, who fled to Rome c. 40. He also argues that Fishbourne Roman Palace
, near Chichester, was built for Sallustius Lucullus as governor, rather than, as is often argued, for the client king Tiberius Claudius Cogidubnus
. Although other archaeologists have dated the construction of the palace to c. 73, Russell's reinterpretation of the ground plan and finds leads him to date the palace after 92, which would be consistent with Lucullus rather than Cogidubnus as its occupant. However, other scholars argue against Russell's identification of the Lucullus of the 1923 inscription with the Roman governor. Woodford's missing inscription was dismissed as a fake by R. G. Collinwood and R. P. Wright in their Roman Inscriptions of Britain (1965): its mention of Domitian, whose name was removed from public inscriptions following his damnatio memoriae
, argues for its inauthenticity, and the governors of Britain were proconsuls, not propraetors. The second inscription does not follow Roman naming conventions, meaning it is unlikely to refer to a Roman citizen, but rather the conventions of Latin text occurring on Celtic coins circulating in Britain just prior to the 43 invasion, suggesting a British aristocrat writing for an audience familiar with the conventions of Celtic coinage.
Russell has argued that it would be too much of a coincidence to have two inscriptions made at the same time in the same town citing two separate individuals with the same name, especially as the name ‘Lucullus’ does not appear anywhere else in the British Isles during the Roman period. The position of the altar, at the political centre of Roman Chichester, would further emphasise the importance of the donor for only a major local dignitary would have had the authority to place such piece here. The discovery of the altar citing Lucullus further validates the inscription found by Woodford. Had the discoveries been made the other way round, Woodford’s find following the recovery of the Lion Street Altar in 1923, then doubts would have certainly arisen concerning the authenticity of the latter piece. The reality is that the monumental dedication to Domitian and recorded by Woodford naming Lucullus as governor was recorded well before the Lion Street altar and thus both pieces would appear to be genuine.
dates to his rule. Forts at Ardoch
and Dalswinton
in southern Scotland, which Agricola had built, were extensively rebuilt in the late 80s and evidence of improvements of other military installations in the region points to a strong presence in the Scots Lowlands.
Inchtuthil
was abandoned around this time as well however and it is likely that demands for troops elsewhere in the empire denied Sallustius enough manpower to continue to hold the far north. There is archaeological evidence that some of the Roman watchtowers in northern Scotland remained occupied until 90, however.
All in all, it is likely that troop shortages forced Sallustius to withdraw from northern Scotland but still permitted him to occupy the south.
Roman Britain
Roman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...
during the late 1st century, holding office after Gnaeus Julius Agricola
Gnaeus Julius Agricola
Gnaeus Julius Agricola was a Roman general responsible for much of the Roman conquest of Britain. His biography, the De vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae, was the first published work of his son-in-law, the historian Tacitus, and is the source for most of what is known about him.Born to a noted...
although it is unclear whether he directly inherited the post or if there was another unknown governor in between. From epigraphic evidence it is possible he was of British descent.
Sources
Little is known of him other than the story recorded by SuetoniusLives of the Twelve Caesars
De vita Caesarum commonly known as The Twelve Caesars, is a set of twelve biographies of Julius Caesar and the first 11 emperors of the Roman Empire written by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus.The work, written in AD 121 during the reign of the emperor Hadrian, was the most popular work of Suetonius,...
that Emperor Domitian
Domitian
Domitian was Roman Emperor from 81 to 96. Domitian was the third and last emperor of the Flavian dynasty.Domitian's youth and early career were largely spent in the shadow of his brother Titus, who gained military renown during the First Jewish-Roman War...
put him to death for naming a new lance
Lance
A Lance is a pole weapon or spear designed to be used by a mounted warrior. The lance is longer, stout and heavier than an infantry spear, and unsuited for throwing, or for rapid thrusting. Lances did not have tips designed to intentionally break off or bend, unlike many throwing weapons of the...
after himself. This story may mask another reason for Sallustius' execution; the possibility that he took part in the conspiracy of Lucius Antonius Saturninus
Lucius Antonius Saturninus
Lucius Antonius Saturninus was the Roman governor of the province Germania Superior during the reign of the Emperor Domitian. In the spring of 89, motivated by a personal grudge against the Emperor, he led a rebellion known as the Revolt of Saturninus, involving the legions Legio XIV Gemina and...
, legate of Germania Superior
Germania Superior
Germania Superior , so called for the reason that it lay upstream of Germania Inferior, was a province of the Roman Empire. It comprised an area of western Switzerland, the French Jura and Alsace regions, and southwestern Germany...
, which was put down in the spring of 89.
It is possible that he may be identified with the Lucius Lucullus who was proconsul
Proconsul
A proconsul was a governor of a province in the Roman Republic appointed for one year by the senate. In modern usage, the title has been used for a person from one country ruling another country or bluntly interfering in another country's internal affairs.-Ancient Rome:In the Roman Republic, a...
of Hispania Baetica
Hispania Baetica
Hispania Baetica was one of three Imperial Roman provinces in Hispania, . Hispania Baetica was bordered to the west by Lusitania, and to the northeast by Hispania Tarraconensis. Baetica was part of Al-Andalus under the Moors in the 8th century and approximately corresponds to modern Andalucia...
, and a student of marine life, at the time Pliny the Elder
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
wrote his Natural History
Naturalis Historia
The Natural History is an encyclopedia published circa AD 77–79 by Pliny the Elder. It is one of the largest single works to have survived from the Roman Empire to the modern day and purports to cover the entire field of ancient knowledge, based on the best authorities available to Pliny...
(c. 77). This Lucullus would have been of appropriate rank to be appointed governor of Britain at the right date.
Dr. Miles Russell of Bournemouth University
Bournemouth University
Bournemouth University is a university in and around the large south coast town of Bournemouth, UK...
has suggested another possibility. An inscription from Chichester
Chichester
Chichester is a cathedral city in West Sussex, within the historic County of Sussex, South-East England. It has a long history as a settlement; its Roman past and its subsequent importance in Anglo-Saxon times are only its beginnings...
, recorded by Samuel Woodford in his Inscriptionum Romano-Britannicarum Conllectio (1658) but since lost, refers to Sallustius Lucullus, giving his praenomen as Gaius and describing him as a propraetorian legate of the emperor Domitian. Another inscription from Chichester, discovered in 1923, refers to a "Lucullus, son of Amminus". Russell suggests that this is the same Lucullus, and that his father was the native British prince Amminus
Adminius
Adminius, Amminius or Amminus was a son of Cunobelinus, ruler of the Catuvellauni, a tribe of Iron Age Britain. His name can be interpreted as Celtic *ad-mindios, "to be crowned"....
, son of Cunobelinus
Cunobelinus
Cunobeline or Cunobelinus was a historical king in pre-Roman Britain, known from passing mentions by classical historians Suetonius and Dio Cassius, and from his many inscribed coins...
, who fled to Rome c. 40. He also argues that Fishbourne Roman Palace
Fishbourne Roman Palace
Fishbourne Roman Palace is in the village of Fishbourne in West Sussex. The large palace was built in the 1st century AD, around thirty years after the Roman conquest of Britain on the site of a Roman army supply base established at the Claudian invasion in 43 AD. The rectangular palace surrounded...
, near Chichester, was built for Sallustius Lucullus as governor, rather than, as is often argued, for the client king Tiberius Claudius Cogidubnus
Tiberius Claudius Cogidubnus
Tiberius Claudius Cogidubnus was a 1st century king of the Regnenses or Regni tribe in early Roman Britain.Chichester and the nearby Roman villa at Fishbourne, believed by some to have been Cogidubnus' palace, were probably part of the territory of the Atrebates tribe before the Roman conquest of...
. Although other archaeologists have dated the construction of the palace to c. 73, Russell's reinterpretation of the ground plan and finds leads him to date the palace after 92, which would be consistent with Lucullus rather than Cogidubnus as its occupant. However, other scholars argue against Russell's identification of the Lucullus of the 1923 inscription with the Roman governor. Woodford's missing inscription was dismissed as a fake by R. G. Collinwood and R. P. Wright in their Roman Inscriptions of Britain (1965): its mention of Domitian, whose name was removed from public inscriptions following his damnatio memoriae
Damnatio memoriae
Damnatio memoriae is the Latin phrase literally meaning "condemnation of memory" in the sense of a judgment that a person must not be remembered. It was a form of dishonor that could be passed by the Roman Senate upon traitors or others who brought discredit to the Roman State...
, argues for its inauthenticity, and the governors of Britain were proconsuls, not propraetors. The second inscription does not follow Roman naming conventions, meaning it is unlikely to refer to a Roman citizen, but rather the conventions of Latin text occurring on Celtic coins circulating in Britain just prior to the 43 invasion, suggesting a British aristocrat writing for an audience familiar with the conventions of Celtic coinage.
Russell has argued that it would be too much of a coincidence to have two inscriptions made at the same time in the same town citing two separate individuals with the same name, especially as the name ‘Lucullus’ does not appear anywhere else in the British Isles during the Roman period. The position of the altar, at the political centre of Roman Chichester, would further emphasise the importance of the donor for only a major local dignitary would have had the authority to place such piece here. The discovery of the altar citing Lucullus further validates the inscription found by Woodford. Had the discoveries been made the other way round, Woodford’s find following the recovery of the Lion Street Altar in 1923, then doubts would have certainly arisen concerning the authenticity of the latter piece. The reality is that the monumental dedication to Domitian and recorded by Woodford naming Lucullus as governor was recorded well before the Lion Street altar and thus both pieces would appear to be genuine.
Military activity
Archaeology can tell us something of Roman military activity in the years following Agricola's recall in 84. Sallustius (or his unknown predecessor, if one existed) may have attempted to consolidate Agricola's victories in Scotland by building the Glen Forts which Peter SalwayPeter Salway
Peter Salway is a British historian, who specialises in Roman Britain. He was a tutor for the Open University and later a fellow of Sidney Sussex College Cambridge and later at All Souls College Oxford. He is the author of Roman Britain , a volume in the Oxford History of England series.-References:...
dates to his rule. Forts at Ardoch
Ardoch
Ardoch Roman Fort is an archaeological site just outside the village of Braco in Perthshire, Scotland, about 7 miles south of Crieff. At Ardoch are the remains of a Roman fort and castra which included Ardoch Tower...
and Dalswinton
Dalswinton
Dalswinton is a small village in Dumfries and Galloway in the south of Scotland. It is located about 6 miles north-north-west of Dumfries. To the east of the village a wind farm has been built...
in southern Scotland, which Agricola had built, were extensively rebuilt in the late 80s and evidence of improvements of other military installations in the region points to a strong presence in the Scots Lowlands.
Inchtuthil
Inchtuthil
Inchtuthil is the site of a Roman legionary fortress situated on a natural platform overlooking the north bank of the River Tay southwest of Blairgowrie, Perth and Kinross, Scotland.It was built in 82 or 83 AD as the advance headquarters for the forces of governor Gnaeus Julius...
was abandoned around this time as well however and it is likely that demands for troops elsewhere in the empire denied Sallustius enough manpower to continue to hold the far north. There is archaeological evidence that some of the Roman watchtowers in northern Scotland remained occupied until 90, however.
All in all, it is likely that troop shortages forced Sallustius to withdraw from northern Scotland but still permitted him to occupy the south.