XXXVIII.  Now many flocked to Lepidus and combined with him to prevent the body of Sulla from receiving the usual interment.  But Pompeius, though he had ground of complaint against Sulla, for he was the only friend whom Sulla had passed over in his will,[304] turning some from their purpose by his influence and entreaties, and others by threats, had the body conveyed to Rome, and secured it a safe and honourable interment.  It is said that the women contributed so great a quantity of aromatics for Sulla’s funeral,[305] that without including what was conveyed in two hundred and ten litters, there was enough to make a large figure of Sulla, and also to make a lictor out of costly frankincense and cinnamon.  The day was cloudy in the morning, and as rain was expected they did not bring the body out till the ninth hour.  However, a strong wind came down on the funeral pile and raised a great flame, and they had just time to collect the ashes as the pile was sinking and the fire going out, when a heavy rain poured down and lasted till night; so Sulla’s good fortune seemed to follow him to his funeral, and to stay with him to the last.  His monument is in the Campus Martius.  The inscription, which they say he wrote and left behind him, says in substance, that none of his friends ever did him a kindness, and none of his enemies ever did him a wrong, without being fully repaid.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 162:  Many distinguished families belonged to the Cornelii, as the Scipiones, Lentuli, Dolabellae, and others.  The Patricians were the old Roman noble families, whom Plutarch compares with the Athenian Eupatridae, or men of noble family, who formed in the older periods of Athenian history the first class in the State.

The origin of the word Sulla is uncertain.  This Sulla was not the first who bore it.  P. Cornelius Rufinus, Praetor B.C. 212, the grandfather of this Sulla, also bore the name.  The various conjectures on the origin of the name Sulla are given by Drumann, Geschichte Roms, ii. p. 426.  The name should be written Sulla, not Sylla.  The coins have always Sulla or Sula. (Rasche, Lex Rei Numariae; Eckhel, Doctrina Num.  Vet. v. 189.) L. Cornelius Sulla was the son of L. Cornelius Sulla, and born B.C. 138.]

[Footnote 163:  P. Cornelius Rufinus was consul B.C. 290.  He was also Dictator, but in what year is uncertain.  He was ejected from the Senate by the Censor C. Fabricius B.C. 275 for violating one of the sumptuary laws of Rome, or those which limited expense.  The story is mentioned by Gellius (iv. 8; xvii. 21).  Plutarch has translated the Latin word Librae by the Greek Litrae.