rdly have intended that imperial power should be maintained
by dividing it among them. He certainly contemplated no follower to
himself, no heir to his power, as Caesar did. When he had been
practically Dictator about three years--though he did not continue the
use of the objectionable name--he resigned his rule and walked down, as
it were, from his throne into private life. I know nothing in history
more remarkable than Sulla's resignation; and yet the writers who have
dealt with his name give no explanation of it. Plutarch, his biographer,
expresses wonder that he should have been willing to descend to private
life, and that he who made so many enemies should have been able to do
so with security. Cicero says nothing of it. He had probably left Rome
before it occurred, and did not return till after Sulla's death. It
seems to have been accepted as being in no especial way remarkable.[57]
At his own demand, the plenary power of Dictator had been given to
him--power to do all as he liked, without reference either to the Senate
or to the people, and with an added proviso that he should keep it as
long as he thought fit, and lay it down when it pleased him. He did lay
it down, flattering himself, probably, that, as he had done his work, he
would walk out from his dictatorship like some Camillus of old. There
had been no Dictator in Rome for more than a century and a quarter--not
since the time of Hannibal's great victories; and the old dictatorships
lasted but for a few months or weeks, after which the Dictator, having
accomplished the special task, threw up his office. Sulla now affected
to do the same; and Rome, after the interval of three years, accepted
the resignation in the old spirit. It was natural to them, though only
by tradition, that a Dictator should resign--so natural that it required
no special wonder. The salt of the Roman Constitution was gone, but the
remembrance of the savor of it was still sweet to the minds of the
Romans.

It seems certain that no attempt was made to injure Sulla when he ceased
to be nominally at the head of the army, but it is probable that he did
not so completely divest himself of power as to be without protection.
In the year after his abdication he died, at the age of sixty-one,
apparently strong as regards general health, but, if Plutarch's story be
true, affected with a terrible cutaneous disease. Modern writers have
spoken of Sulla as though they would fain have praised him if t