of fortune, and brought on the Romans the greatest misery
and the most formidable dangers, Marius by his inability to accomplish
anything of importance showed that military excellence requires bodily
vigour and strength: but Sulla by his great exploits obtained among
his own citizens the reputation of a great commander, among his
friends the reputation of the very greatest, and among his enemies too
the reputation of the most fortunate of generals. Sulla did not behave
like Timotheus[179] the son of Konon, whose success was attributed by
his enemies to fortune, and they had paintings made in which he was
represented asleep while Fortune was throwing a net over the cities,
all which he took in a very boorish way, and got into a passion with
his enemies, as if they were thus attempting to deprive him of the
honour due to his exploits; and on one occasion, returning from a
successful expedition, he said to the people, "Well, Fortune has had
no share in this campaign, at least, Athenians." Now, as the story
goes, Fortune[180] showed her spite to Timotheus in return for his
arrogance, and he never did anything great afterwards, but failing in
all his undertakings and becoming odious to the people, he was at last
banished from the city. But Sulla by gladly accepting such
felicitations on his prosperity and such admiration, and even
contributing to strengthen these notions and to invest them with
somewhat of a sacred character, made all his exploits depend on
Fortune; whether it was that he did this for the sake of display, or
because he really had such opinions of the deity. Indeed he has
recorded in his memoirs, that the actions which he resolved upon
without deliberation, and on the spur of the moment, turned out more
successfully than those which appeared to have been best considered.
And again, from the passage in which he says that he was made more for
fortune than for war, he appears to attribute more to fortune than to
his merit, and to consider himself completely as the creature of the
daemon;[181] nay, he cites as a proof of good fortune due to the
favour of the gods his harmony with Metellus, a man of the same rank
with himself, and his father-in-law, for he expected that Metellus
would cause him a good deal of trouble, whereas he was a most
accommodating colleague.[182] Further, in his memoirs which he
dedicated to Lucullus, he advises him to think nothing so safe as what
the daemon enjoins during the night. When h