d Fortune as an
ally because of his excellence. After this event he changed so much
that one would not say his earlier and his later deeds were those of
the same person. This probably shows that he could not endure good
fortune. Acts that he censured in other persons while he was still
weak, and others, far more outrageous even, he committed: it had
presumably always been his wish to do so, but he had been hindered by
lack of opportunity. This fact produced a strong conviction in the
minds of some that bad luck has not a little to do with creating a
reputation for virtue.[69] As soon as Sulla had vanquished the
Samnites and thought he had put an end to the war (the rest of it he
held of no account) he changed his tactics and, as it were, left his
former personality behind outside the wall and in the battle, and
proceeded to surpass Cinna and Marius and all their associates
combined. Treatment that he had given to no one of the foreign peoples
that had opposed him he bestowed upon his native land, as if he had
subdued that as well. In the first place he sent forthwith the heads
of Damasippus and the members of his party stuck on poles to Praeneste,
and many of those who voluntarily surrendered he killed as if he had
caught them without their consent. The next day he ordered the
senators to assemble at the temple of Bellona, giving them the idea
that he would make some defence of his conduct, and ordered those
captured alive to meet at the so-called "public" field,[70] pretending
that he would enroll them in the lists. This last class he had other
men slay, and many persons from the city, mixed in among them,
likewise perished: to the senators he himself at the same time
addressed a most bitter speech. (Valesius, p. 654.)

[Footnote 69: Adopting Reiske's suggestion for filling out a lacuna in
the sense.]

[Footnote 70: The _villa publica_.]

2. (Par.) The massacre of the captured persons was going on even under
Sulla's direction with unabated fury, and as they were being killed
near the temple the great uproar and lamentation that they made, their
shrieks and wails, invaded the senate-house, so that the senate was
terrified for two reasons. The second of the two was that they were
not far from expecting that they themselves, also, might yet suffer
some terrible injury, so unholy were both his words and his actions:
therefore many, cut to the heart with grief at the thought of reality
and possibility, wished that they