equivalent to two hundred
and fifty Attic drachmae. This is what is recorded of Sulla's early
condition.

II. As for his person, we may judge of it by his statues, except his
eyes and complexion. His eyes were an uncommonly pure and piercing
blue, which the colour of his face rendered still more terrific,
being spotted with rough red blotches, interspersed with the white;
from which circumstance, it is said, he got his name Sulla, which had
reference to his complexion; and one of the Athenian satirists[164] in
derision made the following verse in allusion to it:

"Sulla is a mulberry besprinkled with meal."

It is not out of place to avail ourselves of such traits of a man who
is said to have had so strong a natural love of buffoonery, that when
he was still young and of no repute, he spent his time and indulged
himself among mimi[165] and jesters; and when he was at the head of
the state, he daily got together from the scena and the theatre the
lewdest persons, with whom he would drink and enter into a contest of
coarse witticisms, in which he had no regard to his age, and, besides
degrading the dignity of his office, he neglected many matters that
required attention. It was not Sulla's habit when he was at table to
trouble himself about anything serious, but though he was energetic
and rather morose at other times, he underwent a complete change as
soon as he went into company and was seated at an entertainment, for
he was then exceedingly complaisant to singers of mimi and dancers,
and easy of access and affable. This habit of relaxation seems to have
produced in him the vice of being exceedingly addicted to women and
that passion for enjoyment which stuck to him to his old age. In his
youth he was for a long time attached to one Metrobius,[166] an
actor. The following incident also happened to him:--He formed an
attachment to a woman named Nicopolis, who was of mean condition, but
rich, and from long familiarity and the favour which he found on
account of his youth, he came to be considered as a lover, and when
the woman died she left him her heir. He also succeeded to the
inheritance of his step-mother, who loved him as her own son; and in
this way he acquired a moderate fortune.

III. On being appointed Quaestor to Marius in his first consulship, he
sailed with him to Libya, to prosecute the war against Jugurtha.[167]
In this campaign he showed himself a man of merit, and by availing
himself of a favoura