Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/945

923 the Greek text and a Latin version, was by Aemilius Portus, Geneva, 1619, 2 vols, fol., and 1630, with a new title. The Latin version is said to be better than Wolf's.

The edition of L. Küster appeared at Cambridge, 1705, 3 vols, folio. The basis of this edition is not the Editio Princeps, but that of Portus. Küster corrected the text with the aid of the MSS., added numerous good notes, and improved the version of Portus. But he dealt with the Greek text rather in an arbitrary way, and rejected all that he considered to be interpolated. J. Gronovius made an attack on Küster's edition, to which Küster replied. The preface of Küster contains a dissertation on Suidas.

The edition of Suidas by T. Gaisford, in three handsome volumes folio, appeared at Oxford in 1834. The first two volumes contain the text without a Latin version, and the notes, which are chiefly selected from Küster and others. The third volume contains "Index Kusterianus Rerum et Nominum Propriorum quae extra seriem suam in Suidae Lexico occurrunt;" "Index Glossarum Personarum Verborumque notatu digniorum;" and "Index Scriptorum a Suida citatorum." In his preface Gaisford states, that he used nearly the same MSS. as Küster, but that Küster was careless in noting the readings of the MSS. Gaisford has given the various readings of the best MS., and those of the edition of Chalcondylas. Küster adopted many of the emendations of Portus without acknowledgment, and he is accused generally of borrowing without owning where he got his matter from.

The edition of G. Bernhardy, 4to. Halle, 1834, contains a Latin version. It is founded on the edition of Gaisford, as appears from the title — "Gr. & Lat. ad fidem optimorum librorum exactum, post Th. Gaisford recens. et adnot. critic, instruxit Gdf. Bernhardy."

There are said to be two unpublished extracts from an epitome of Suidas, by Thomas of Crete, and by Macarius Hieromonachus, the brother of Nicephorus Gregoras. As to the Latin translation of Suidas, said to have been made by Robert Grostete, bishop of Lincoln, who died in 1253, see Fabric. ''Bibl. Graec''. vol. vi. p. 402.

 SUI'LLIUS CAESONI'NUS. [.]

 SUI'LLIUS NERULINUS. [.]

 SUI'LLIUS RUFUS. [.]

 SULCA, Q. BAE'BIUS, one of the Roman ambassadors, sent to Ptolemy in Egypt, in 173. (Liv. xlii. 6.)

 SULLA, the name of a patrician family of the Cornelia gens. This family was originally called Rufinus [], and the first member of it who obtained the name of Sulla was P. Cornelius Sulla, who was flamen dialis and praetor in the second Punic war. [See below, No. 1.] This was stated by the dictator Sulla, in the second book of his Commentaries (Gell. i. 12), and is corroborated by Livy and other authorities. Plutarch therefore has made a mistake in saying that the dictator Sulla had this name given to him from a personal peculiarity. (Plut. Sull. 2.) The origin of the name is uncertain. Drumann, and most modem writers, suppose that it is a word of the same signification as Rufus or Rufinus, and refers simply to the red colour of the hair or the complexion; and Plutarch appears to have understood the word to have this meaning, since he relates (l. c.) that the dictator received the name of Sulla in consequence of his face being spotted with rough red blotches interspersed with the white. Macrobius (Sat. i. 17) gives quite a different explanation, and derives the word from Sibylla, which he says was given to P. Cornelius Rufinus, because he was the first to introduce the celebration of the Ludi Apollinares in accordance with the commands of the Sibylline books, and that this surname Sibylla was afterwards shortened into Sylla. This explanation of the word is repeated by Charisius (Inst. Gram. i. 20); but, independent of other objections, it must be rejected on the authority of Quintilian (i. 4. §25), who classes Sulla with other cognomens, which owed their origin to certain bodily peculiarities. Some modern writers, such as Cortius (ad Sall. Catil. 5), regard Sulla as a diminutive of Sura, which was a cognomen in several Roman gentes [], and we are disposed to accept this as the most probable explanation of the word. It would be formed from Sura on the same analogy as puella from puera, and tenellus from tener (comp. Schneider, Elementarlehre der lateinischen Sprache, vol. i. p. 47, &c.). There is no authority for writing the word Sylla, as is done by many modern writers. On coins and inscriptions we always find Sula or Sulla, never Sylla.

 1., the great-grandfather of the dictator Sulla, and the grandson of P. Cornelius Rufinus, who was twice consul in the Samnite wars. [] His father is not mentioned. He was, as has been already mentioned, the first of the family who bore the surname of Sulla. He was flamen dialis, and likewise praetor urbanus and peregrinus in 212. The praetor of the preceding year, M. Attilius, had handed over to him certain sacred verses of the seer Marcius, partly referring to the past and partly to the future, and which commanded the Romans, among other things, to institute an annual festival in honour of Apollo. Upon this the senate ordered the decemviri to consult the Sibylline books, and as these gave the same command, Sulla presided over the first Ludi Apollinares, which were celebrated this year in the circus maximus. (Liv. xxv. 2, 3, 12, 15, 32, 41.)

 2., the son of No. 1, and the grandfather of the dictator Sulla, was praetor in 186, when he obtained Sicily as his province. (Liv. xxxix. 6, 8.)

<section end="Sulla 2." /> <section begin="Sulla 3." />3., the brother of No. 2, was one of the ten commissioners, who was sent by the senate into Macedonia, in 167, after the conquest of Perseus, in order to arrange the affairs of that country, in conjunction with L. Aemilius Paulus. (Liv. xlv. 17.)

<section end="Sulla 3." /> <section begin="Sulla 4." />4., the son of No. 2, and the father of the dictator Sulla, lived in obscurity, and left his son only a slender fortune. (Plut. Sull. 1).

<section end="Sulla 4." /> <section begin="Sulla 5." />5., the dictator, was born in 138. Like most other great men, he was the architect of his own fortunes. He possessed neither of the two great advantages which secured for the Roman nobles easy access to the honours of the commonwealth, an illustrious ancestry and hereditary wealth. His father had left him so small a property that he paid for his lodgings very little more than a freedman who lived in the same house with him. But still his means were sufficient to secure for him a good <section end="Sulla 5." />