Caecilia Metella
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.