CHAPTER XII
Sulla's Abdication--Character of Sulla--His Death, and Funeral
[
103]
The following year Sulla, although he was dictator,
undertook
the consulship a second time, with Metellus Pius for his colleague, in order
to preserve the pretence and form of democratic government. It is perhaps
from this example that the Roman emperors now make a showing of consuls to
the country and even exhibit themselves in that capacity, considering it not
unbecoming to hold the office of consul in connection with the supreme
power. The next year the people, in order to pay court to Sulla, chose him
consul again, but he refused the office and nominated Servilius Isauricus
and Claudius Pulcher for their suffrages, and voluntarily laid down the
supreme power, although nobody was troubling him. This act seems wonderful
to me--that Sulla should have been the first, and till then the only one, to
abdicate such vast power without compulsion, not to sons (like Ptolemy in
Egypt, or Ariobarzanes in Cappadocia, or Seleucus in Syria), but to the very
people over whom he had tyrannized. Almost incredible is it that after
incurring so many dangers in forcing his way to this power he should have
laid it down of his own free will after he had acquired it. Paradoxical
beyond anything is the fact that he was afraid of nothing, although more
than 100,000 young men had perished in this war, and he had destroyed of his
enemies ninety senators, fifteen consulars, and 2600 of the so-called
knights, including the banished. The property of these men had been
confiscated and many of their bodies cast out unburied. Undaunted by the
relatives of these persons at home, or by the banished abroad, or by the
cities whose
towers and walls he had thrown down and whose lands,
money,
and privileges he had swept away, Sulla now returned to private life.
[104]
So great was this man's boldness and good fortune. It is said that he made a
speech in the forum when he laid down his power in which he offered to give
the reasons for what he had done to anybody who should ask them. He
dismissed the lictors with their axes and discontinued his body-guard, and
for a long time walked to the forum with only a few friends, the multitude
looking upon him with awe even then. Once only when he was going home he was
reproached by a boy. As nobody restrained this boy he made bold to follow
Sulla to his house, railing at him, and Sulla, who had opposed the greatest
men and states with towering rage, endured his reproaches with calmness and
as he went into the house said, divining the future either by his
intelligence or by chance, "This young man will prevent any other holder of
such power from laying it down." This saying was shortly confirmed to the
Romans, for Gaius Cæsar never laid down his power. Sulla seems to
me to have been the same masterful and able man in all respects, whether
striving to reach supreme power from private life, or changing back to
private life from supreme power, or later when passing his time in rural
solitude; for he retired to his own estate at Cumæ in Italy and
there occupied his leisure in hunting and fishing. He did this not because
he was afraid to live a private life in the city, nor because he had not
sufficient bodily strength for whatever he might try to do. He was still of
virile age and sound constitution, and there were 120,000 men throughout
Italy who had recently served under him in war and had received large gifts
of money and land from him, and there were the 10,000 Cornelii ready in the
city, besides other people of his party devoted to him and still formidable
to his opponents, all of whom rested upon Sulla's safety their hopes of
impunity for what they had done in coöperation with him. But I
think that he was satiated with war, with power, with city affairs, and that
he took to rural life finally because he loved it. 1
[105]
Directly after his retirement the Romans, although
delivered
from slaughter and tyranny, began gradually to fan the flames of new
seditions. Quintus Catulus and Æmilius Lepidus were chosen
consuls, the former of the Sullan faction and the latter of the opposite
party. They hated each other bitterly and began to quarrel immediately, from
which it was plain that fresh troubles were brewing. While he was living in
the country Sulla had a dream in which he thought he saw his Genius already
calling him.
2 Early in the morning he told the dream to his
friends and in haste began writing his will, which he finished that day.
After sealing it he was taken with a fever towards evening and died the same
night. He was sixty years of age and had been the most fortunate of men even
to the very last, and realized in all respects the title he bore; that is,
if one can be considered fortunate who obtains all that he desires.
Immediately a dissension sprang up in the city over his remains, some
proposing to bring them in a procession through Italy and exhibit them in
the forum and give him a public funeral. Lepidus and his faction opposed
this, but Catulus and the Sullan party prevailed. Sulla's corpse was borne
through Italy on a golden litter with royal splendor. Musicians and horsemen
in great numbers went in advance and a great multitude of armed men followed
on foot. His fellow-soldiers flocked from all directions under arms to join
the procession, and each one was assigned his place in due order as he came.
The crowd of other people that came together was unprecedented. The
standards and the fasces that he had used while living and ruling were borne
in the procession.
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When the remains reached the city they were borne through the streets with an
enormous procession. More than 2000 golden crowns which had been made in
haste were carried in it, the gifts of cities and of the legions that he had
commanded and of individual friends. It would be impossible to describe all
the splendid things contributed to this funeral. From fear of the assembled
soldiery all the priests and priestesses escorted the remains, each in
proper costume. The entire Senate and the whole body of magistrates attended
with their insignia of office. A multitude of the Roman knights followed
with their peculiar decorations, and, in their turn, all the legions that
had fought under him. They came together with eagerness, all hastening to
join in the task, carrying gilded standards and silver-plated shields, such
as are still used on such occasions. There was a countless number of
trumpeters who by turns played the most mournful dirges. Loud cries were
raised, first by the Senate, then by the knights, then by the soldiers, and
finally by the plebeians. For some really longed for Sulla, but others were
afraid of his army and his dead body, as they had been of himself when
living. As they looked at the present spectacle and remembered what this man
had accomplished they were amazed, and agreed with their opponents that he
had been most beneficial to his own party and most formidable to themselves
even in death. The corpse was shown in the forum on the rostra, where public
speeches were usually made, and the most eloquent of the Romans then living
delivered the funeral oration, as Sulla's son, Faustus, was still very
young. Then strong men of the senators took up the litter and carried it to
the Campus Martius, where only kings were buried, and the knights and the
army coursed around the funeral pile. And this was the last of Sulla.
