For P. Sulla (73-75)

Why need I speak of the other virtues of his life? of his dignity? of his liberality? of his moderation in his own private affairs? of his splendour on public occasions? For, though in these points he has been crippled by fortune, yet the good foundations laid by nature are visible. What a house was his! what crowds frequented it daily! How great was the dignity of his behaviour to his friends! How great was their attachment to him! What a multitude of friends had he of every order of the people! These things which had been built up by long time and much labour, one single hour deprived him of; Publius Sulla, O judges, received a terrible and a mortal wound; but still it was an injury of such a sort as his way of life and his natural disposition might seem liable to be exposed to. He was judged to have too great a desire for honour and dignity. If no one else was supposed to have such desires in standing for the consulship, then he was judged to be more covetous than the rest. But if this desire for the consulship has existed in some other men also, then, perhaps, fortune was a little more unfavourable to him than to others.

But, after this misfortune, who ever saw Publius Sulla otherwise than grieving, dejected, and out of spirits? Who ever suspected that he was avoiding the sight of men and the light of day, out of hatred, and not rather out of shame? For though he had many temptations to frequent this city and the forum, by reason of the great attachment of his friends to him, the only consolation which remained to him in his misfortunes, still he kept out of your sight; and though he might have remained here as far as the law went he almost condemned himself to banishment.

I say nothing of the republic, to which Sulla has always been most devoted. Did he wish these friends of his, being such men as they are, so attached to him, by whom his prosperity had been formerly adorned, by whom his adversity is now comforted and relieved, to perish miserably, in order that he himself might be at liberty to pass a most miserable and infamous existence in company with Lentulus, and Catiline, and Cethegus, with no other prospect for the future but a disgraceful death? That suspicion is not consistent,—it is, I say, utterly at variance with such habits, with such modesty, with such a life as his, with the man himself. That sprang up, a perfectly unexampled sort of barbarity; it was an incredible and amazing insanity. The foulness of that unheard of