Down to the present time, L. Sylla is the only man who has claimed to himself the surname of “Happy;”[1206] a name which he derived, forsooth, from the bloodshed of the citizens and the oppression of his country! But what claim had he on which to found his title to this happiness? Was it the power which he had of proscribing and massacreing so many thousands of his fellow-citizens? Oh interpretation most disgraceful, and which must stamp him as “Unhappy”[1207] to all future time! Were not the men who perished in those times, of the two, to be looked upon as the more fortunate—seeing that with them we sympathize, while there is no one who does not detest Sylla? And then, besides, was not the close of his life more horrible than the sufferings which had been experienced by any of those who had been proscribed by him? his very flesh eating into itself, and so engendering his own punishment.[1208] And this, although he may have thought proper to gloss it over by that last dream of his,[1209] in the very midst of which he may be said, in some measure, to have died; and in which, as he pretended, he was told that his glory alone had risen superior to all envy; though at the same time, he confessed that it was still wanting to his supreme happiness, that he had not dedicated the Capitol.[1210] CHAP. 45.—TEN VERY FORTUNATE CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH HAVE HAPPENED TO THE SAME PERSON. Q. Metellus, in the funeral oration which he made in praise of his father, L. Metellus, who had been pontiff, twice consul,[1211] dictator, master of the horse, one of the quindecemvirs for dividing the lands,[1212] and the first who had elephants in his triumphal procession,[1213] the same having been taken in the first Punic war, has left it written to the effect that his father had attained the ten greatest and best things, in the search after which wise men have spent all their lives. For, as he states, he was anxious to become the first warrior, the best orator, the bravest general, that the most important of all business should be entrusted to his charge, that he should enjoy the very highest honours, that he should possess consummate wisdom, that he should be regarded as the most distinguished senator, that he should by honourable means acquire a large fortune, that he should leave behind him many children, and that he should be the most illustrious person in the state. To refute this assertion, would be tedious and indeed unnecessary, seeing that it is contradicted more than sufficiently by the single fact, that Metellus passed his old age, deprived of his sight, which he had lost in a fire, while rescuing the Palladium from the temple of Vesta;[1214] a glorious action, no doubt, although the result was unhappy: on which account it is, that although he ought not to be called unfortunate, still he cannot be called fortunate. The Roman people, however, granted him a privilege which no one else had ever obtained since the foundation of the city, that of