Lucullus, second livre des Académiques Passage 2

idque eo fuit mirabilius quod ab eo laus imperatoria non admodum expectabatur, qui adulescentiam in forensi opera, quaesturae diuturnum tempus Murena bellum in Ponto gerente in Asiae pace consumpserat. sed incredibilis quaedam ingenii magnitude non desideravit indocilem usus disciplinam. itaque cum totum iter et navigationem consumpsisset partim in percontando a peritis partim in rebus gestis legendis, in Asiam factus imperator venit, cum esset Roma profectus rei militaris rudis. habuit enim divinam quandam memoriam rerum - verborum maiorem Horten- sius; sed quo plus in negotiis gerendis res quaint verba prosunt, hoc erat memoria illa praestantior. quam fuisse in Themistocle, quem facile Graeciae principem ponimus, singularem ferunt; qui quidem etiam pollicenti cuidam se artem ei memoriae, quae tum primum proferebatur, traditurum respondisse dicitur oblivisci se malle discere, credo quod haerebant in memorial quaecumque audierat et viderat. tali ingenio praeditus Lucullus adiunxerat etiam illam quam Themistocles spreverat disciplinam; itaque ut litteris consignamus quae monimentis mandare volumus sic ille in animo res insculptas habebat.

This was all the more remarkable because no great distinction as a commander had been expected from a man who had spent his youth in work at the forum, and the long period of his quaestorship in peaceful Asia while Murena conducted the war in Pontus. But the extraordinary greatness of his intellect had no need of the unteachable training supplied by experience. Accordingly, after spending his entire journey by land and sea partly in questioning experts and partly in reading accounts of military achievements, he arrived in Asia as a commander, although he had left Rome ignorant of warfare. He possessed an almost divine memory for facts, while Hortensius had the greater memory for words. But in proportion as facts are more useful than words in conducting affairs, Lucullus’s kind of memory was the more excellent. They say that Themistocles, whom we readily rank as the foremost man of Greece, possessed such a memory to an exceptional degree. Indeed, when someone promised to teach him the art of memory, which was then being introduced for the first time, he is said to have replied that he would prefer to learn how to forget, because, I suppose, everything he had heard and seen clung to his memory. To natural ability of this kind Lucullus had also added the discipline that Themistocles had rejected. Thus, just as we commit to writing what we wish to entrust to monuments, so he kept facts engraved upon his mind.

et cela fut d’autant plus admirable que l’on n’attendait guère de qualités militaires chez un homme qui avait consacré sa jeunesse aux travaux du forum et les longues années de sa questure à la paix de l’Asie, tandis que Murena faisait la guerre dans le Pont. Mais l’incroyable grandeur de son intelligence n’eut pas besoin de la formation lente que donne l’expérience. Aussi, après avoir consacré tout son trajet et toute sa navigation, d’une part à interroger les hommes compétents, d’autre part à lire le récit des hauts faits, il arriva en Asie comme général, alors qu’il avait quitté Rome sans expérience militaire. Il possédait en effet une mémoire presque divine des faits. Celle d’Hortensius était plus grande pour les mots ; mais, puisque dans la conduite des affaires les faits servent davantage que les mots, la mémoire de Lucullus était d’autant supérieure. On rapporte que cette faculté fut exceptionnelle chez Thémistocle, que nous plaçons volontiers au premier rang des Grecs. À quelqu’un qui lui promettait de lui enseigner l’art de la mémoire, alors nouvellement divulgué, il aurait répondu qu’il préférait apprendre à oublier, sans doute parce que tout ce qu’il avait entendu et vu restait fixé dans sa mémoire. À ce talent naturel, Lucullus avait encore ajouté la discipline que Thémistocle avait dédaignée. Ainsi, de même que nous confions à l’écriture ce que nous voulons remettre à des monuments, lui gardait les faits gravés dans son esprit.