or some reason
which we do not know. [Sidenote: Story of Roscius.] One case has been
made memorable by the fact that Cicero was the counsel for one of the
sufferers. Two men named Roscius procured the assassination of a
third of the same name by Sulla's favourite freedman, Chrysogonus,
who then got the name of Roscius put on the proscription list, and,
seizing on his property, expelled the man's son from it. He having
friends at Rome fled to them, and made the assassins fear that they
might be compelled to disgorge. So they suddenly charged the son with
having killed his father. The most frightful circumstance about the
case is not the piteous injustice suffered by the son, but the abject
way in which Cicero speaks of Sulla, comparing him to Jupiter who,
despite his universal beneficence, sometimes permits destruction, not
on purpose but because his sway is so world-wide, and scouting the
idea of its being possible for him to share personally in such wrongs.
It has been well said, 'We almost touch the tyrant with our finger.'
Cicero soon afterwards left Rome, probably from fear of Sulla.

[Sidenote: Wholesale punishment of towns.] It is said that the names
of 4,700 persons were entered on the public records as having fallen
in the proscriptions, besides many more who were assassinated for
private reasons. Whole towns were put up for auction, says one writer,
such as Spoletum, Praeneste, Interamna, and Florentia. By this we may
understand that they lost all their land, their privileges, and
public buildings, perhaps even the houses themselves. Others, such as
Volaterrae and Arretium, were deprived of all privileges except that
of Commercium or the right of trade.

[Sidenote: Sulla rewards his soldiers and establishes a permanent
party.] Sulla's friends attended such auctions and made large
fortunes. One of his centurions, named Luscius, bought an estate for
10,000,000 sesterces, or 88,540_l_. of our money. One of his freedmen
bought for 20_l_. 12_s_. an estate worth 61,000_l_. Crassus, Verres,
and Sulla's wife, Metella, became in this way infamously rich. In
spite of such nominal prices, the sale of confiscated estates produced
350,000,000 sesterces, or nearly 3,000,000_l_. of our money. Sulla
approved of such purchases, for they bound the buyers to his
interests, and ensured their wishing to uphold his acts after his
death. With the same view of creating a permanent Sullan party in
Italy, and at the same time to fulfi