Sulla's (138-78 BCE) long-term attachment to Metrobius is here
noted along with his other passions and loves.
"Sylla is a mulberry sprinkled o'er with meal." Nor
is it out of place to make use of marks of character like these,
in the case of one who was by nature so addicted to raillery,
that in his youthful obscure years he would converse freely with
players and professed jesters, and join them in all their low
pleasures. And when supreme master of all, he was often wont to
muster together the most impudent players and stage-followers
of the town, and to drink and bandy jests with them without regard
to his age or the dignity of his place, and to the prejudice of
important affairs that required his attention. When he was once
at table, it was not in Sylla's nature to admit of anything that
was serious, and whereas at other times he was a man of business
and austere of countenance, he underwent all of a sudden, at his
first entrance upon wine and good-fellowship, a total revolution,
and was gentle and tractable with common singers and dancers,
and ready to oblige any one that spoke with him. It seems to have
been a sort of diseased result of this laxity that he was so prone
to amorous pleasures, and yielded without resistance to any temptation
of voluptuousness, from which even in his old age he could not
refrain. He had a long attachment for Metrobius, a player. In
his first amours, it happened that he made court to a common but
rich lady, Nicopolis by name, and what by the air of his youth,
and what by long intimacy, won so far on her affections, that
she rather than he was the lover, and at her death she bequeathed
him her whole property. He likewise inherited the estate of a
step-mother who loved him as her own son. By these means he had
pretty well advanced his fortunes.
[…….]
Some few months after, at a show of gladiators, when men and women
sat promiscuously in the theatre, no distinct places being as
yet appointed, there sat down by Sylla a beautiful woman of high
birth, by name Valeria, daughter of Messala, and sister to Hortensius
the orator. Now it happened that she had been lately divorced
from her husband. Passing along behind Sylla, she leaned on him
with her hand, and plucking a bit of wool from his garment, so
proceeded to her seat. And on Sylla looking up and wondering what
it meant, "What harm, mighty sir," said she, "if
I also was desirous to partake a little in your felicity?"
It appeared at once that Sylla was not displeased, but even tickled
in his fancy, for he sent out to inquire her name, her birth,
and past life. From this time there passed between them many side
glances, each continually turning round to look at the other,
and frequently interchanging smiles. In the end, overtures were
made, and a marriage concluded on. All which was innocent, perhaps,
on the lady's side, but, though she had been never so modest and
virtuous, it was scarcely a temperate and worthy occasion of marriage
on the part of Sylla, to take fire, as a boy might, at a face
and a bold look, incentives not seldom to the most disorderly
and shameless passions.
Notwithstanding this marriage, he kept company with actresses,
musicians, and dancers, drinking with them on couches night and
day. His chief favourites were Roscius the comedian, Sorex the
arch mime, and Metrobius the player, for whom, though past his
prime, he still professed a passionate fondness. By these courses
he encouraged a disease which had begun from unimportant cause;
and for a long time he failed to observe that his bowels were
ulcerated, till at length the corrupted flesh broke out into lice.
Many were employed day and night in destroying them, but the work
so multiplied under their hands, that not only his clothes, baths,
basins, but his very meat was polluted with that flux and contagion,
they came swarming out in such numbers. He went frequently by
day into the bath to scour and cleanse his body, but all in vain;
the evil generated too rapidly and too abundantly for any ablutions
to overcome it. There died of this disease, amongst those of the
most ancient times, Acastus, the son of Pelias; of later date,
Alcman the poet, Pherecydes the theologian, Callisthenes the Olynthian,
in the time of his imprisonment, as also Mucius the lawyer; and
if we may mention ignoble, but notorious names, Eunus the fugitive,
who stirred up the slaves of Sicily to rebel against their masters,
after he was brought captive to Rome, died of this creeping sickness.
Sylla not only foresaw his end, but may be also said to have
written of it. For in the two-and-twentieth book of his Memoirs,
which he finished two days before his death, he writes that the
Chaldeans foretold him, that after he had led a life of honour,
he should conclude it in fulness of prosperity. He declares, moreover,
that in a vision he had seen his son, who had died not long before
Metella, stand by in mourning attire, and beseech his father to
cast off further care, and come along with him to his mother Metella,
there to live at ease and quietness with her. However, he could
not refrain from intermeddling in public affairs. For, ten days
before his decease, he composed the differences of the people
of Dicaearchia, and prescribed laws for their better government.
And the very day before his end, it being told him that the magistrate
Granius deferred the payment of a public debt, in expectation
of his death, he sent for him to his house, and placing his attendants
about him, caused him to be strangled; but through the straining
of his voice and body, the imposthume breaking, he lost a great
quantity of blood. Upon this, his strength failing him, after
spending a troublesome night, he died, leaving behind him two
young children by Metella. Valeria was afterwards delivered of
a daughter, named Posthuma; for so the Romans call those who are
born after the father's death.
Many ran tumultuously together, and joined with Lepidus to deprive
the corpse of the accustomed solemnities; but Pompey, though offended
at Sylla (for he alone of all his friends was not mentioned in
his will), having kept off some by his interest and entreaty,
others by menaces, conveyed the body to Rome, and gave it a secure
and honourable burial. It is said that the Roman ladies contributed
such vast heaps of spices, that besides what was carried on two
hundred and ten litters, there was sufficient to form a large
figure of Sylla himself, and another representing a lictor, out
of the costly frankincense and cinnamon. The day being cloudy
in the morning, they deferred carrying forth the corpse till about
three in the afternoon, expecting it would rain. But a strong
wind blowing full upon the funeral pile, and setting it all in
a bright flame, the body was consumed so exactly in good time,
that the pyre had begun to smoulder, and the fire was upon the
point of expiring, when a violent rain came down, which continued
till night. So that his good fortune was firm even to the last,
and did as it were officiate at his funeral. His monument stands
in the Campus Martius, with an epitaph of his own writing; the
substance of it being, that he had not been outdone by any of
his friends in doing good turns, nor by any of his foes in doing
bad.
Source.
From: Plutarch: The Life of Sulla
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