No one was more to blame for the failure of the Sullan constitution than Sulla himself. The facts of Sulla’s career spoke louder than his constitutional musings. As a young man he had flouted traditional rules of loyalty and deference to spread his own fame. When insulted, he marched legions on Rome. While abroad, he ran his own military campaigns and conducted his own diplomacy. When challenged back in Rome, he launched a civil war, declared himself dictator, killed his enemies, and then retired to get drunk in splendid luxury. The biography of Sulla drowned out the constitution of Sulla, and
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