Note 108 — THE FIRST MITHRIDATIC WAR. SYLLA RETURNS TO ROME. HIS DICTATORSHIP AND DEATH.
Havilland Le Mesurier Chepmell translation
In 1827 Niebuhr expressed himself on this point in the following manner:—
“That the result of his legislation could not have satisfied him, was in the very nature of things, and therefore he who had shed so much blood to get the government into his own hands, resigned the dictatorship two years after he had been appointed to it, as he saw the uselessness of his institutions, which he had established at the cost of so many atrocities. This is the most natural way of accounting for his resignation, which has been so much talked of: it was a mistake of very judicious people, to hunt out reasons for it which were too far-fetched.”—Germ. Edit.