When the Assembly returned Sulla as consul for 79, he declined to serve. He accepted an almost honorary proconsulship in Cisalpine Gaul but never visited the province. Instead, he moved down to a country villa in Campania. There he lived at the center of a country court that signaled a freewheeling embrace of his old carefree ways. He hosted his old friends in the theater community, intellectuals from across the Mediterranean, and the political elite from across the known world. Sulla never stopped paying close attention to Roman politics—and Roman politics never stopped paying attention to
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