But the want of Sylla’s Memoirs of his own Life, and of the affairs in which he had himself been engaged, is still more deeply to be lamented than the loss of those of Scaurus or Rutilius Rufus. These memoirs were meant to have been dedicated to Lucullus, on condition that he should arrange and correct them(179). Sylla was employed on them the evening before his death, and concluded them by relating, that on the preceding night he had seen in a dream one of his children, who had died a short while before, and who, stretching out his hand, showed to him his mother Metella, and exhorted him forthwith to leave the cares of life, and hasten to enjoy repose along with them in the bosom of eternal rest. “Thus,” adds the author, who accounted nothing so certain as what was signified to him in dreams, “I finish my days, as was predicted to me by the Chaldeans, who announced that I should surmount envy itself by my glory, and should have the good fortune to fall in the full blossom of my prosperity(180).” These memoirs were sent by Epicadus, the freedman of Sylla, to Lucullus, in order that he might put to them the finishing hand. If preserved, they would have thrown much light on the most important affairs of Roman history, as they proceeded from the person who must, of all others, have been the best informed concerning them. They are quoted by Plutarch as authority for many curious facts, as—that in the great battle by which the Cimbrian invasion was repelled, the chief execution was done in that quarter where Sylla was stationed; the main body, under Marius, having been misled by a cloud of dust, and having in consequence wandered about for a long time without finding the enemy(181). Plutarch also mentions that, in these Commentaries, the author contradicted the current story of his seeking refuge during a tumult at the commencement of the civil wars with Marius, in the house of his rival, who, it had been reported, sheltered and dismissed him in safety. Besides their importance for the history of events, the Memoirs of Sylla must have been highly interesting, as developing, in some degree, the most curious character in Roman history. “In the loss of his Memoirs,” says Blackwell, in his usual inflated style, “the strongest draught of human passions, in the highest wheels of fortune and sallies of power, is for ever vanished(182).” The character of Cæsar, though greater, was less incomprehensible than that of Sylla; and the mind of Augustus, though unfathomable to his contemporaries, has been sounded by the long line of posterity; but it is difficult to analyse the disposition which inspired the inconsistent conduct of Sylla. Gorged with power, and blood, and vengeance, he seems to have retired from what he chiefly coveted, as if surfeited; but neither this retreat, nor old age, could mollify his heart; nor could disease, or the approach of death, or the remembrance of his past life, disturb his tranquillity.