[292] Plinius (H.N. 33, c. 5) speaks of this triumph: it lasted two days. In the first day Sulla exhibited in the procession 15,000 pounds weight of gold and 115,000 pounds of silver, the produce of his foreign victories: on the second, 13,000 pounds weight of gold and 6000 pounds of silver which the younger Marius had carried off to Præneste after the conflagration of the Capitol and from the robbery of the other Roman temples.
[293] The term Felix appears on the coins of Sulla. Epaphroditus signifies a favourite of Aphrodite or Venus. (Eckhel, Doctrina Num. Vet. v. 190.) Eckhel infers from the guttus and lituus on one of Sulla's coins that he was an Augur.
[294] Sulla abdicated the dictatorship B.C. 79 in the consulship of P. Servilius Vatia Isauricus and Appius Claudius Pulcher. Appian (Civil Wars, i. 103, &c.) speaks of the abdication. He made no attempt to secure to his family the power that he had acquired. It may be that he had no desire to perpetuate the power in his family; and it is certain that this could not have been accomplished. Sulla had only one son, and he was now a child. But it is certainly a striking trait in this man's character that he descended to a private station from the possession of unlimited power, and after, as Appian observes, having caused the death of more than one hundred thousand men in his Italian wars, besides ninety senators, fifteen consuls, and two thousand six hundred equites, not to mention those who were banished and whose property was confiscated, and the many Italian cities whose fortifications he had destroyed and whose lands and privileges he had taken away. Sulla's character was a compound of arrogance, self-confidence, and contempt of all mankind, which have seldom been united. But his ruling character was love of sensual pleasures. He was weary of his life of turmoil, and he returned to his property in the neighbourhood of Cumæ on the pleasant shore of Campania, where he spent his time on the sea, in fishing, and in sensual enjoyments. But he had nothing to fear; there were in Italy one hundred and twenty thousand men who had served under him, to whom he had given money and land; there was a great number of persons at Rome who had shared in his cruelties and the profits of them, and whose safely consisted in maintaining the safety of their leader. Besides this, he had manumitted above ten thousand vigorous men, once the slaves of masters who had been murdered by his orders, and made them Roman citizens under the name of Cornelii. These men were always in readiness to execute his orders. With these precautions, this blood-stained man retired to enjoy the sensual gratifications that he had indulged in from his youth upwards, glorying in his happy fortune and despising all mankind. No attempt to assassinate him is recorded, nor any apprehension of his on that score. He lived and died Sulla the Fortunate.
[295] M. Æmilius Lepidus and Q. Lutatius Catulus were consuls B.C. 78, the year of Sulla's death. Lepidus attempted to overthrow Sulla's constitution after Sulla's death. He was driven from Rome by Q. Catulus and Cn. Pompeius Magnus, and died B.C. 77 in Sardinia. This Lepidus was the father of M. Lepidus the associate of Cæsar Octavianus and M. Antonius in the triumvirate. (See the Life of M. Antonius.)
Catulus was the son of Lutatius Catulus who was once the colleague of C. Marius in the consulship. He has received great praise from Cicero. Sallustius calls him a defender of the aristocratical party, and C. Licinius Macer, as quoted by Sallustius in his History, says that he was more cruel than Sulla. We cannot trust Cicero's unqualified praise of this aristocrat nor the censure of Sallustius. What would Cicero's character be, if we had it from some one who belonged to the party of Catiline? and what is it as we know it from his own writings? Insincere, changing with the times, timid, revengeful, and, when he was under the influence of fear, cruel.
[296] The Greek word (θέατρον) from which came the Roman Theatrum and our word Theatre, means a place for an exhibition or spectacle. The Roman word for dramatic representations is properly Scena. I do not know when the men and women had separate seats assigned to them in the theatres. A law of the tribune L. Roscius Otho B.C. 68 fixed the places in the theatres for the different classes, and it may have assigned separate seats to the women.
[297] Valeria was the daughter of M. Valerius Messala. She could not be the sister of Hortensius, for in that case her name would be Hortensia. The sister of the orator Hortensius married a Valerius Messala.
[298] Plutarch has translated the Roman word Imperator by the Greek Autocrator (Αὐτοκράτωρ), "one who has absolute power;" the title Autocrator under the Empire is the Greek equivalent of the Roman Imperator, but hardly an equivalent at this time. (See the Life of Cæsar.)
[299] This was the Quintus Roscius whom Cicero has so often mentioned and in defence of whom he made a speech which is extant. The subject of the action against Roscius is not easy to state in a few words. (See the Argument of P. Manutius, and the Essay of Unterholzner in Savigny's Zeitschrift, &c. i. p. 248.) Roscius is called Comœdus in the title of Cicero's oration and by Plutarch, but he seems to have acted tragedy also, as we may collect from some passages in Cicero. The general name at Rome for an actor was histrio; but the histrio is also contrasted by Cicero (Pro Q. Roscio, c. 10) with the comœdus, as the inferior compared with the higher professor of the art. Yet Roscius is sometimes called a histrio. Roscius was a perfect master of his art, according to Cicero; and his name became proverbial among the Romans to express a perfect master of any art. (Cicero, De Oratore, i. 28.) Cicero was intimate with Roscius, and learned much from him that was useful to him as an orator. Roscius wrote a work in which he compared oratory and acting. His professional gains were immense; and he had a sharp eye after his own interest, as the speech of Cicero shows.
[300] The original is λυσιοδός, which is explained by Aristoxenus, quoted by Athenæus (p. 620), as I have translated it.