''The Trial of Lucullus'' is a short didactic radio play by the German dramatist

Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a pl ...

written in verse. It was completed in 1940. In it, the great Roman general

Lucullus Lucius Licinius Lucullus (; 118–57/56 BC) was a Roman general and statesman, closely connected with Lucius Cornelius Sulla. In culmination of over 20 years of almost continuous military and government service, he conquered the eastern kingdom ...

appears after death before a judge and jury of the underworld, who are to decide whether he should be condemned to

Hades Hades (; grc-gre, ᾍδης, Háidēs; ), in the ancient Greek religion and myth, is the god of the dead and the king of the underworld, with which his name became synonymous. Hades was the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea, although this also ...

or admitted to the Elysian fields. The jury, representing the lower classes, allows Lucullus to call as witnesses portrayed on a triumphal

frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...

. All the evidence is against Lucullus, except for the fact that he introduced the cherry tree to

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

, grieved over the destruction of books, and was possessed of a fine culinary experience. Though first conceived as an opera, the text was set to music by

Paul Dessau Paul Dessau (19 December 189428 June 1979) was a German composer and conductor. He collaborated with Bertolt Brecht and composed incidental music for his plays, and several operas based on them. Biography Dessau was born in Hamburg into a ...

. Communist authorities banned it, causing Brecht to revise scenes and changing the title to ''The Condemnation of Lucullus''. The revised version of ''The Condemnation of Lucullus'' premiered in 1951.

Bibliography

* Calabro, Tony, ''Bertolt Brecht's Art of Dissemblance'', Longwood Academic, 1990.

References

Plays by Bertolt Brecht Plays based on real people German radio dramas {{1930s-play-stub