1.4
And afterwards, when he had at last become absolute in power, and was putting many to death, a freedman, who was thought to be concealing one of the proscribed, and was therefore to be thrown down the Tarpeian rock, cast it in his teeth that they had long lived together in one lodging house, himself renting the upper rooms at two thousand sesterces, and Sulla the lower rooms at three thousand. The difference in their fortunes, therefore, was only a thousand sesterces,In Sulla’s time the sestertius was a silver coin worth between two and three pence, or about five cents. The Attic drachma was a silver coin worth about eight pence, or twenty cents. which are equivalent to two hundred and fifty Attic drachmas. Such, then, is the account we find of Sulla’s earlier fortune.
2.1
His personal appearance, in general, is given by his statues; but the gleam of his gray eyes, which was terribly sharp and powerful, was rendered even more fearful by the complexion of his face. This was covered with coarse blotches of red, interspersed with white. For this reason, they say, his surname was given him because of his complexion, and it was in allusion to this that a scurrilous jester at Athens made the verse:—Sulla is a mulberry sprinkled o’er with meal.
