Sylla hath friends and soldiers at command, That first will make the towers of Rome to shake, And force the stately capitol to dance, Ere any rob him of his just renown.

Sylla, Sylla, Marius' years have taught Him how to pluck so proud a younker's plumes; And know, these hairs, that dangle down my face, In brightness like the silver Rhodope, Shall add so haughty courage to my mind, And rest such piercing objects 'gainst thine eyes, That mask'd in folly age shall force thee stoop.

Sylla, Sylla, Marius' years have taught Him how to pluck so proud a younker's plumes; And know, these hairs, that dangle down my face, In brightness like the silver Rhodope, Shall add so haughty courage to my mind, And rest such piercing objects 'gainst thine eyes, That mask'd in folly age shall force thee stoop.

[Here let them go down, and SYLLA offers to go forth, and ANTHONY calls him back: ANTHONY.

Stay, Sylla; hear Anthony breathe forth The pleading plaints of sad declining Rome.

If they, my Sylla, brook not to have jar, What then are men, that 'gainst themselves do war?

You, Roman soldiers, fellow-mates in arms, The blindfold mistress of uncertain chance Hath turn'd these traitorous climbers from the top, And seated Sylla in the chiefest place The place beseeming Sylla and his mind.

You, Roman soldiers, fellow-mates in arms, The blindfold mistress of uncertain chance Hath turn'd these traitorous climbers from the top, And seated Sylla in the chiefest place The place beseeming Sylla and his mind.

For, were the throne, where matchless glory sits Empal'd with furies, threatening blood and death, Begirt with famine and those fatal fears, That dwell below amidst the dreadful vast, Tut, Sylla's sparkling eyes should dim with clear The burning brands of their consuming light, And master fancy with a forward mind, And mask repining fear with awful power: For men of baser metal and conceit Cannot conceive the beauty of my thought.

Sylla, my years have taught me to discern Betwixt ambitious pride and princely zeal; And from thy youth these peers of Home have mark'd A rash revenging humour in thy brain.

The wars of Cyrus and Alexander represent the passion of military glory; those of Marius, Sylla, Pompey, and Caesar, the desire of political aggrandizement; those of Constantine and Theodosius, the desire for political unity and the necessity of self-defence.

Swale, iii. Sylla, i. Sylvanus, i. Sylvius, ii. Syrinx, iv. Talus, iii.

Lentulus was wrought upon by the magnitude of his debts, and the hopes of having the government of an army and provinces, and by the presents which he expected from such princes as should receive the title of friends of the Roman people, and boasted amongst his friends, that he would be a second Sylla, to whom the supreme authority should return.

Motions were made in the senate concerning other matters; that levies should be made through all Italy; that Faustus Sylla should be sent as propraetor into Mauritania; that money should be granted to Pompey from the public treasury.

Philip, one of the tribunes, stopped [the appointment of] Sylla; the resolutions respecting the other matters passed.

After Sylla and Marius and Caesar, life as an affair of sheer individualism would not very strongly appeal to a thoughtful Roman.

Young Cicero served his first campaign, at the age of eighteen, under the father of a man whom he was to know only too well in after lifePompey the Greatand in the division of the army which was commanded by Sylla as lieutenant-general.

He was at Rome, leading a quiet student-lifehappily for himself, too young to be forced or tempted into an active partduring the bloody feuds between Sylla and the younger Marius.

The charge appears to have been a mere conspiracy, wholly unsupported by evidence; but the accuser was a favourite with Sylla, whose power was all but absolute; and the innocence of the accused was a very insufficient protection before a Roman jury of those days.

The terrible days of Marius and Sylla had passed, only to leave behind a taste for blood and licence amongst the corrupt aristocracy and turbulent commons.

Catiline was a member of a noble but impoverished family, who had borne arms under Sylla, and had served an early apprenticeship in bloodshed under that unscrupulous leader.

"My feelings prevent my saying more", he declares in his defence of Publius Sylla.

The whole city was filled with the excitement of this struggle, into which all the active and turbulent spirits of the capital plunged with the most furious zeal, while the more considerate and thoughtful of the population, remembering the days of Marius and Sylla, trembled at the impending danger.

Sylla was an exception; but his example of successful cruelty I have no disposition to imitate.

On being proscribed by Sylla, he fled from Etruria to Spain; there he became the leader of several bands of exiles, and repulsed the Roman armies sent against him.