He made himself useful to the
Dictator by his genius for finance, and in return he was enabled to amass
an enormous fortune for himself out of the proscriptions. His eye for
business reached over the whole Roman Empire. He was banker, speculator,
contractor, merchant. He lent money to the spendthrift young lords, but
with sound securities and at usurious interest. He had an army of slaves,
but these slaves were not ignorant field-hands; they were skilled workmen
in all arts and trades, whose labors he turned to profit in building
streets and palaces. Thus all that he touched turned to gold. He was the
wealthiest single individual in the whole Empire, the acknowledged head of
the business world of Rome.
The last person who need be noted was Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, the father
of the future colleague of Augustus and Antony. Lepidus, too, had been an
officer of Sylla's. He had been rewarded for his services by the
government of Sicily, and when Sylla died was the second consul with
Catulus. It was said against him that, like so many other governors, he
had enriched himself by tyrannizing over his Sicilian subjects. His
extortions had been notorious; he was threatened with prosecution as soon
as his consulship should expire; and the adventure to which he was about
to commit himself was undertaken, so the aristocrats afterward maintained,
in despair of an acquittal.
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