But, such as he was, this Don Juan of politics was a man of one mould.  His whole life attests the internal equilibrium of his nature; in the most diverse situations Sulla remained unchangeably the same.  It was the same temper, which after the brilliant successes in Africa made him seek once more the idleness of the capital, and after the full possession of absolute power made him find rest and refreshment in his Cuman villa.  In his mouth the saying, that public affairs were a burden which he threw off so soon as he might and could, was no mere phrase.  After his resignation he remained entirely like himself, without peevishness and without affectation, glad to be rid of public affairs and yet interfering now and then when opportunity offered.  Hunting and fishing and the composition of his memoirs occupied his leisure hours; by way of interlude he arranged, at the request of the discordant citizens, the internal affairs of the neighbouring colony of Puteoli as confidently and speedily as he had formerly arranged those of the capital.  His last action on his sickbed had reference to the collection of a contribution for the rebuilding of the Capitoline temple, of which he was not allowed to witness the completion.

Death of Sulla

Little more than a year after his retirement, in the sixtieth year of his life, while yet vigorous in body and mind, he was overtaken by death; after a brief confinement to a sick-bed—­he was writing at his autobiography two days even before his death—­the rupture of a blood-vessel(55) carried him off (676).  His faithful fortune did not desert him even in death.  He could have no wish to be drawn once more into the disagreeable vortex of party struggles, and to be obliged to lead his old warriors once more against a new revolution; yet such was the state of matters at his death in Spain and in Italy, that he could hardly have been spared this task had his life been prolonged.  Even now when it was suggested that he should have a public funeral in the capital, numerous voices there, which had been silent in his lifetime, were raised against the last honour which it was proposed to show to the tyrant.  But his memory was still too fresh and the dread of his old soldiers too vivid:  it was resolved that the body should be conveyed to the capital and that the obsequies should be celebrated there.

His Funeral

Italy never witnessed a grander funeral solemnity.  In every place through which the deceased was borne in regal attire, with his well-known standards and fasces before him, the inhabitants and above all his old soldiers joined the mourning train:  it seemed as if the whole army would once more meet round the hero in death, who had in life led it so often and never except to victory.  So the endless funeral procession reached the capital, where the courts kept holiday and all business was suspended, and two thousand golden chaplets awaited the dead—­the last