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9- I N D I V I D U A L S A N D G O D S<br />

Plutarch, Life of Sulla 34<br />

entries illustrate various ways the divine associations of Sulla were paraded.<br />

See further: Vol. 1, 131, 144; Fears (1981) 877-82*; Keaveney (1983).<br />

9.1b(i) Sulla the'Felix'<br />

Plutarch's Life of Sulla (which drew on Sulla's own autobiography) is a major<br />

source of information about Sulla's religious ideas. In this passage Plutarch dis­<br />

cusses his display of (divinely inspired) good fortune. (See also Plutarch, Life of<br />

Sulla 6; Appian, Civil Wars 1.97.)<br />

See further: Vol. 1, 131, 144 and n. 84; Balsdon (1951); Champeaux<br />

(1982-7) n.216-36; Keaveney (1982) 40-2*.<br />

His triumph however was certainly lavish because of the extravagance and originality of<br />

the king's booty; but its greatest glory and its most beautiful sight was the returned<br />

exiles. 5<br />

For the most noble and powerful of the citizens followed in the procession,<br />

wearing garlands and hailing Sulla as 'Saviour and Father', since it had been through him<br />

that they had returned to the fatherland and brought back their wives and children. Also,<br />

when the celebration had been completed, he gave an account of his actions at an<br />

assembly in which he listed examples of his good fortune with no less<br />

enthusiasm than he did those of his own merits. Moreover, he told them to call him the<br />

'fortunate' one, for that is what the name 'Felix' really means. Meanwhile, when writing<br />

to or doing business with the Greeks, he called himself 'Epaphrodkos' and on the<br />

trophies he set up amongst us , he is inscribed as: 'Lucius Cornelius Sulla<br />

Epaphroclitos'. 2<br />

"What is more, when his wife Metella bore him twins, he called the boy<br />

Faustus and the girl Fausta. For the Romans call 'faustus' what we call lucky or happy<br />

Altogether"he put his trust not in his actions but in his good fortune: for instance,<br />

although he had had many people eliminated and there had been so many revolutionary<br />

changes, he made no use of the power he held to control the consular elections without<br />

attending them himself, but rather went down into the Forum just like an ordinary<br />

citizen, offering himself to be challenged by anyone who wished to.<br />

218<br />

1. That is, the Romans who had been banished in the civil conflicts that surrounded Sulla's<br />

rise to power.<br />

2. The name 'Epaphrodkos' parades a special relationship with the goddess Aphrodite<br />

(Roman Venus), but also apparently serves as the Greek equivalent of the Latin Felix (see<br />

9.1c).<br />

9. lb(ii) Sulla's honours<br />

The coinage associated with Sulla marks an important stage in the evolution of<br />

more extreme religious honours for the individual. It was not until Julius<br />

Caesar that Roman leaders started to place their own features on coins, where<br />

only those of gods and goddesses had appeared before. But Sulla came close to<br />

representing himself by representing his statue on this aureus (minted 80 B.C.,<br />

during the period of his dictatorship). The statue itself, apparently inscribed

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