Sulla

Plutarch

Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives, Vol. IV. Perrin, Bernadotte, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1916.

Many now joined themselves eagerly to Lepidus, purposing to deprive Sulla’s body of the usual burial honours; but Pompey, although offended at Sulla (for he alone, of all his friends, was not mentioned in his will), diverted some from their purpose by his kindly influence and entreaties, and others by his threats, and then conveyed the body to Rome, and secured for it an honourable as well as a safe interment.

And it is said that the women contributed such a vast quantity of spices for it, that, apart from what was carried on two hundred and ten litters, a large image of Sulla himself, and another image of a victor, was moulded out of costly frankincense and cinnamon. The day was cloudy in the morning, and the expectation was that it would rain, but at last, at the ninth hour,[*](I.e. in the middle of the afternoon.) the corpse was placed upon the funeral pyre.