Marcus Terentius Varro Lucullus

[2] As a result of the adoption, his full official name, as quoted in inscriptions, became M(arcus) Terentius M(arci) f(ilius) Varro Lucullus.

This man had earlier functioned as the prosecutor in the trial for embezzlement (de repetundis) that sent their father, Lucius Licinius Lucullus into exile to Lucania.

[6] Probably at the suggestion of his first cousin, the Pontifex Maximus Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius, Marcus Lucullus was nominated for and elected to the Pontifical College.

[7] Membership in one of the four major priestly colleges was an honor that was considered almost equal to winning a consulship,[8] and it boded well for Marcus Lucullus' future career.

[14] As consul in 73 BC (along with Gaius Cassius Longinus), he passed a law that provided subsidized grain for indigent Roman citizens (lex Terentia et Cassia frumentaria).

[15] His name also appears on a famous inscription (IG VII, 413), a letter that informs the inhabitants of Oropus in Greece that the senate has passed a decree in their favour regarding their dispute with Roman tax farmers.

In the course of this war, he advanced to the Danube and the west coast of the Black Sea where he conquered a number of Greek cities that had been bases of Mithridates VI The Great, including Apollonia, Kallatis (Callatis), Tomi, and Istros.

[18] Earlier in the same year, 71 BC, Marcus Lucullus also played a minor role in the defeat of Spartacus' slave army.

Yet when he received the news that Marcus Lucullus and his troops had already landed in Brundisium, he turned around and faced Crassus' pursuing army for the final and decisive battle of the war.