an account of his conduct while in office. This voluntary abdication by Sulla of the sovereignty of the Roman world has excited the astonishment and admiration of both ancient and modern writers. But it is evident, as has been already remarked, that Sulla never contemplated, like Julius Caesar, the establishment of a monarchical form of government; and it must be recollected that he could retire into a private station without any fear that attempts would be made against his life or his institutions. The ten thousand Cornelii at Rome and his veterans stationed throughout Italy, as well as the whole strength of the aristocratical party, secured him against all danger. Even in his retirement his will was law, and shortly before his death, he ordered his slaves to strangle a magistrate of one of the towns in Italy, because he was a public defaulter.
After resigning his dictatorship, Sulla retired to his estate at Puteoli, and there surrounded by the beauties of nature and art he passed the remainder of his life in those literary and sensual enjoyments in which he had always taken so much pleasure. His dissolute mode of life hastened his death. A dream warned him of his approaching end. Thereupon he made his testament, in which he left L. Lucullus the guardian of his son. Only two days before his death, he finished the twenty-second book of his memoirs, in which, foreseeing his end, he was able to boast of the prediction of the Chaldaeans, that it was his fate to die after a happy life in the very height of his prosperity. He died in b. c. 78, in the sixtieth year of his age. The immediate cause of his death was the rupture of a blood-vessel, but some time before he had been suffering from the disgusting disease, which is known in modern times by the name of Morbus Pediculosus or Phthiriasis. Appian (B. C. i. 105) simply relates that he died of a fever. Zachariae, in his life of Sulla, considers the story of his suffering from phthiriasis as a fabrication of his enemies, and probably of the Athenians whom he had handled so severely; but Appian 's statement does not contradict the common account, which is attested by too many ancient writers to be rejected on the slender reasons that Zachariae alleges (Plut. Sull. 36; Plin. H. N. vii. 43. s. 44, xi. 33. s. 39, xxvi. 13. s. 86; Paus. i. 20. §7; Aurel. Vict. de Vir. Ill. 75). The senate, faithful to Sulla to the last, resolved to give him the honour of a public funeral. This was however opposed by the consul Lepidus, who had resolved to attempt the repeal of Sulla's laws; but Sulla's power continued unshaken even after his death. The veterans were summoned from their colonies, and Q. Catulus, L. Lucullus, and Cn. Pompey, placed themselves at their head. Lepidus was obliged to give way and allowed the funeral to take place without interruption. It was a gorgeous pageant. The magistrates, the senate, the equites, the priests, and the Vestal virgins, as well as the veterans, accompanied the funeral procession to the Campus Martins, where the corpse was burnt according to Sulla's own wish, who feared that his enemies might insult his remains, as he had done those of Marius, which had been taken out of the grave and thrown into the Anio at his command. It had been previously the custom of the Cornelia gens to bury and not burn their dead. A monument was erected to Sulla in the Campus Martius, the inscription on which he is said to have composed himself. It stated that none of his friends ever did him a kindness, and none of his enemies a wrong, without being fully repaid.
Sulla was married five times: — 1. To Ilia, for which name we ought perhaps to read Julia (Plut. Sull. 6). She bore Sulla a daughter, who was married to Q. Pompeius Rufus, the son of Sulla's colleague in the consulship in b. c. 88. [Pompeius, No. 8.] 2. To Aelia. 3. To Coelia, whom he divorced on the pretext of barrenness, but in reality in order to marry Caecilia Metella. 4. To Caecilia Metella, who bore him a son, who died before Sulla [see below, No. 6], and likewise twins, a son and a daughter. [No. 7.] 5. Valeria, who bore him a daughter after his death. [Valeria.]
Sulla's love of literature has been repeatedly mentioned in the preceding sketch of his life. He wrote a history of his own life and times, which is called Ὑπομνήματα or Memoirs by Plutarch, who has made great use of it in his life of Sulla, as well as in his biographies of Marius, Sertorius, and Lucullus. It was dedicated to L. Lucullus, and extended to twenty-two books, the last of which was finished by Sulla a few days before his death, as has been already related. This did not however complete the work, which was brought to a conclusion by his freedman Cornelius Epicadus, probably at the request of his son Faustus. (Plut. Sull. 6, 37, Lucull. 1; Suet. de Ill. Gramm. 12.) From the quotations in A. Gellius (i. 12, xx. 6) it appears that Sulla's work was written in Latin, and not in Greek, as Heeren maintains (Heeren, De Fontibus Plutarchi, p. 151, &c.; Krause, Vitae et Fragmenta Hist. Roman. p. 290, &c.) Sulla also wrote Fabulae Atellanae (Athen. vi. p. 261, c), and the Greek Anthology contains a short epigram which is ascribed to him. (Brunck, Lect. p. 267; Jacobs, Anth. Gr. vol. ii. p. 66, Anth. Pal. App. 91, vol. ii. p. 788.)
The chief ancient authority for Sulla's life is Plutarch's biography, which has been translated by G. Long, with some useful notes, London, 1844, where the reader will find references to most of the passages in Appian and other ancient writers who speak of Sulla. The passages in Sallust and Cicero, in which Sulla is mentioned, are given by Orelli in his Onomasticon Tullianum, pt. ii. p. 192. The two modern writers, who have written Sulla's life with most accuracy, are Zachariae, in his work entitled L. Cornelius Sulla, genannt der Glückliche, als Ordner des Römischen Freystaates, Heidelberg, 1834, and Drumann, in his Geschichte Roms, vol. ii. p. 429, &c. The latter writer gives the more impartial account of Sulla's life and character; the former falls into the common fault of biographers in attempting to apologise for the vices and crimes of the subject of his biography.
THE LEGISLATION OF SULLA.
All the reforms of Sulla were effected by means of Leges, which were proposed by him in the comitia centuriata and enacted by the votes of the people. It is true that the votes of the people were a mere form, but it was a form essential to the preservation of his work, and was maintained by Augustus in his legislation. The laws proposed by Sulla are called by the general name of Leges Corneliae, and particular laws are designated by the name of the particular subject to which they relate, as Lex Cornelia de Falsis, Lex Cornelia de Sicariis, &c.
