He lived for a year
after his retirement, and died 78 B.C., being occupied at the moment in
writing his memoirs, which have been unfortunately lost. He was buried
gorgeously in the Campus Martius, among the old kings of Rome. The
aristocrats breathed freely when delivered from his overpowering presence,
and the constitution which he had set upon its feet was now to be tried.
[1] "Nigris vegetisque oculis."--Suetonius.
[2] "Ac primum illud tempus familiaritatis et consuetudinis, quae mihi cum
illo, quae fratri meo, quae Caio Varroni, consobrino nostro, ab omnium
nostrum adolescentia fuit, praetermitto."--Cicero, _De Provinciis
Consularibus_, 17. Cicero was certainly speaking of a time which
preceded Sylla's dictatorship, for Caesar left Rome immediately after
it, and when he came back he attached himself to the political party
to which Cicero was most opposed.
[3] On the Adriatic, between Anconia and Pescara.
[4] See, for the story of Oppianicus, the remarkable speech of Cicero,
_Pro Cluentio_.
[5] Appian, on the other hand, says that the courts of the equites had
been more corrupt than the senatorial courts.--_De Bello Civili,
i_. 22. Cicero was perhaps prejudiced in favor of his own order,
but a contemporary statement thus publicly made is far more likely to
be trustworthy.
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