and was putting many to death, a man of the class of Libertini, who was suspected of concealing a proscribed person, and for this offence was going to be thrown down the Tarpeian rock, reproached Sulla with the fact that they had lived together for some time in one house; that he had paid two thousand sestertii for his lodgings, which were in the upper part of the house, and Sulla three thousand for the lower rooms; and, consequently, that between their fortunes there was only the difference of a thousand sestertii, which is equivalent to two hundred and fifty Attic drachmae.  This is what is recorded of Sulla’s early condition.

II.  As for his person, we may judge of it by his statues, except his eyes and complexion.  His eyes were an uncommonly pure and piercing blue, which the colour of his face rendered still more terrific, being spotted with rough red blotches, interspersed with the white; from which circumstance, it is said, he got his name Sulla, which had reference to his complexion; and one of the Athenian satirists[164] in derision made the following verse in allusion to it: 

    “Sulla is a mulberry besprinkled with meal.”

It is not out of place to avail ourselves of such traits of a man who is said to have had so strong a natural love of buffoonery, that when he was still young and of no repute, he spent his time and indulged himself among mimi[165] and jesters; and when he was at the head of the state, he daily got together from the scena and the theatre the lewdest persons, with whom he would drink and enter into a contest of coarse witticisms, in which he had no regard to his age, and, besides degrading the dignity of his office, he neglected many matters that required attention.  It was not Sulla’s habit when he was at table to trouble himself about anything serious, but though he was energetic and rather morose at other times, he underwent a complete change as soon as he went into company and was seated at an entertainment, for he was then exceedingly complaisant to singers of mimi and dancers, and easy of access and affable.  This habit of relaxation seems to have produced in him the vice of being exceedingly addicted to women and that passion for enjoyment which stuck to him to his old age.  In his youth he was for a long time attached to one Metrobius,[166] an actor.  The following incident also happened to him:—­He formed an attachment to a woman named Nicopolis, who was of mean condition, but rich, and from long familiarity and the favour which he found on account of his youth, he came to be considered as a lover, and when the woman died she left him her heir.  He also succeeded to the inheritance of his step-mother, who loved him as her own son; and in this way he acquired a moderate fortune.