tes. In a speech which he delivered
to the people at the close of the gorgeous ceremony, he claimed for
himself the surname of _Felix_, as he attributed his success in life to
the favor of the gods. All ranks in Rome bowed in awe before their
master; and among other marks of distinction which were voted to him by
the obsequious Senate, a gilt equestrian statue was erected to his honor
before the Rostra, bearing the inscription "Cornelio Sullae Imperatori
Felici."

During the years B.C. 80 and 79 Sulla carried into execution his various
reforms in the constitution, of which an account is given at the end of
this chapter. At the same time he established many military colonies
throughout Italy. The inhabitants of the Italian towns which had fought
against Sulla were deprived of the full Roman franchise which had been
lately conferred upon them; their lands were confiscated and given to
the soldiers who had fought under him. A great number of these colonies
were settled in Etruria. They had the strongest interest in upholding
the institutions of Sulla, since any attempt to invalidate the latter
would have endangered their newly-acquired possessions. But, though they
were a support to the power of Sulla, they hastened the fall of the
commonwealth; an idle and licentious soldiery supplanted an industrious
agricultural population; and Catiline found nowhere more adherents than
among the military colonies of Sulla. While Sulla thus established
throughout Italy a population devoted to his interests, he created at
Rome a kind of body-guard for his protection by giving the citizenship
to a great number of slaves belonging to those who had been proscribed
by him. The slaves thus rewarded are said to have been as many as
10,000, and were called Cornelii after him as their patron.

Sulla had completed his reforms by the beginning of B.C. 79; and as he
longed for the undisturbed enjoyment of his pleasures, he resigned his
Dictatorship, and declared himself ready to render an account of his
conduct while in office. This voluntary abdication by Sulla of the
sovereignty of the Roman world has excited the astonishment and
admiration of both ancient and modern writers. But it is evident that
Sulla never contemplated, like Julius Caesar, the establishment of a
monarchical form of government; and it must be recollected that he could
retire into a private station without any fear that attempts would be
made against his life or his institutio