Marcus Terentius Varro Lucullus

Marcus Terentius Varro Lucullus
Legate of the Roman Republic
In office 83 BC – 83 BC
Curule Aedile of the Roman Republic
In office 79 BC – 79 BC
Praetor Peregrinus of the Roman Republic
In office 76 BC – 76 BC
Consul of the Roman Republic
In office 73 BC – 73 BC
Preceded by	Marcus Aurelius Cotta and Lucius Licinius Lucullus
Succeeded by	Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Clodianus and Lucius Gellius Publicola
Proconsul of the Roman Republic, administering Macedonia
In office 72 BC – 72 BC
Personal details
Born	c. 116 BC Rome, Roman Republic
Died	soon after 56 BC
Political party	Optimate
Children	Tertulla (wife of Crassus)
Residence	Rome, Roman Republic

Marcus Terentius Varro Lucullus (c. 116 – soon after 56 BC), younger brother of the more famous Lucius Licinius Lucullus, was a supporter of Lucius Cornelius Sulla and consul of ancient Rome in 73 BC. As proconsul of Macedonia in 72 BC, he defeated the Bessi in Thrace and advanced to the Danube and the west coast of the Black Sea. In addition, he was marginally involved in the Third Servile War (a.k.a. Spartacus' War).

Born in Rome as Marcus Licinius Lucullus, he was later adopted by an otherwise unknown Marcus Terentius Varro (not the scholar Varro Reatinus). As a result of the adoption, his full official name, as quoted in inscriptions, became M(arcus) Terentius M(arci) f(ilius) Varro Lucullus. Literary texts usually refer to him as M. Lucullus or simply Lucullus which in the case of Appian, Civil Wars 1.120, for example, caused confusion with Marcus' more famous brother, Lucius Licinius Lucullus.

By birth, Marcus Lucullus was a member of a prominent plebeian family, the gens Licinia. He was the grandson of the consul (151 BC) Lucius Licinius Lucullus. His father, Lucius Licinius Lucullus, had reached the praetorship (104 BC) and could boast military successes in the oppression of the slaves in Lucania and Sicily during the Second Servile War. In 101 BC, however, the older Lucullus' career was cut short when he was convicted of embezzlement. The mother of Marcus and Lucius Lucullus, Caecilia Metella Calva, was closely related to two of the most influential men of his time. Lucius Cornelius Sulla, the dictator, married her niece, Caecilia Metella Dalmatica, as his fourth wife. Sulla's close ally, the pontifex maximus and consul (80 BC) Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius, was a son of Caecilia Metella Calva's brother, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Numidicus, and thus a cousin of Marcus Lucullus.

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