He showed himself in the conduct of Asiatic affairs no unworthy successor of his instructor and friend Sulla.
A Philhellene above most Romans of his time, he was not insensible to the obligation which Rome had come under when taking up the heritage of Alexander--the obligation to be the shield and sword of the Greeks in the east.

Personal motives--the wish to earn laurels also beyond the Euphrates, irritation at the fact that the great- king in a letter to him had omitted the title of Imperator--may doubtless have partly influenced Lucullus; but it is unjust to assume paltry and selfish motives for actions, which motives of duty quite suffice to explain.

The Roman governing college at any rate--timid, indolent, ill informed, and above all beset by perpetual financial embarrassments--could never be expected, without direct compulsion, to take the initiative in an expedition so vast and costly.

About the year 682 the legitimate representatives of the Seleucid dynasty, Antiochus called the Asiatic and his brother, moved by the favourable turn of the Pontic war, had gone to Rome to procure a Roman intervention in Syria, and at the same time a recognition of their hereditary claims on Egypt.
If the latter demand might not be granted, there could not, at any rate, be found a more favourable moment or occasion for beginning the war which had long been necessary against Tigranes.

But the senate, while it recognized the princes doubtless as the legitimate kings of Syria, could not make up its mind to decree the armed intervention.