Plutarch's object in writing
these Lives, which was to exhibit character, it is as good as any of
his Lives, and it has great merit. Whether his anecdotes are always
authentic is a difficult matter to determine. Sulla had many enemies,
and it is probable that his character in private life has been made
worse than it was. The acts of his public life are well ascertained.
Plutarch has nearly omitted all mention of him as a Reformer of the
Roman Constitution and as a Legislator. Sulla's enactments were not
like the imperial constitutions of a later day, the mere act of one
who held the sovereign power: they were laws (leges) duly passed by
the popular assembly. Yet they were Sulla's work, and the legislative
body merely gave them the formal sanction. The object of Sulla's
constitutional measures was to give an aristocratical character to the
Roman constitution, to restore it to something of its pristine state,
and to weaken the popular party by curtailing the power of the
tribunes. The whole subject has often been treated, but at the
greatest length by Zachariae, _Lucius Cornelius Sulla, &c._,
Heidelberg, 1834. Zachariae has drawn the character of Sulla in an
apologetical tone. I think the character of Sulla is drawn better by
Plutarch, and that he has represented him as near to the life as a
biographer can do. Whatever discrepancies there may he between
Plutarch and other authorities, whatever Plutarch may have omitted
which other authorities give, still he has shown us enough to justify
his delineation of the most prominent man in the Republican Period of
Rome, with the exception of the Dictator Caesar. But to complete the
view of his intellectual character, a survey of Sulla's legislation is
necessary. Sulla was an educated man: he was not a mere soldier like
Marius; he was not only a general; he was a man of letters, a lover of
the arts, a keen discriminator of men and times, a legislator, and a
statesman. He remodelled and reformed the whole criminal law of the
Romans. His constitutional measures were not permanent, but it may
truly be said that he prepared the way for the temporary usurpation of
Caesar and the permanent establishment of the Roman State under
Augustus. I propose to treat of the Legislation of Sulla in an
Appendix to a future volume.]

COMPARISON OF LYSANDER AND SULLA

Now that we have completed the second of these men's lives, let us
proceed to compare them with one another. Both rose to gre