The High Priests and several other priests had been waiting for a long time, watching the approaching crowd with complex expressions.
Some Roman citizens watched the procession in silence, some offered their tributes, and some even wept bitterly.
To protect his safety in Rome, Sulla had freed ten thousand slaves and allowed them to live in the city.
All of those slaves were grateful to Sulla, regarding him as their second father.
"Follow me," the High Priest said, ignoring the crying, and then led the priests from the various temples to the front.
"Raise the standards!" a legion commander shouted.
All the legionary standards, battalion standards, and centurions' standards were raised high, and then they marched through the city gates.
The Roman citizens watched with fear; some had even decided that it would be best to leave Rome over the next few days to avoid being caught in the crossfire.
The procession arrived at the Civic Forum, where the consuls and all the senators were already waiting in silence.
Lepidus' face remained expressionless, as though none of this concerned him.
However, his haggard appearance revealed that he had not been well during the past few days.
Then he saw several senators looking at him with contempt, and Lepidus' face turned pale.
Under the command of the military tribunes, the soldiers formed orderly ranks.
The High Priest stepped onto the platform and said, "Now Lucullus will deliver the funeral oration."
Funeral orations were usually read by the closest relatives, but since Sulla's children lacked the necessary age and authority, only their guardian, Lucullus, could read it.
In Rome, women could not serve as guardians. This meant that if the father of a Roman child died, even if the mother was still alive, the child was still considered an orphan and could be assigned another guardian.
Lucullus, dressed in a pure white toga, stepped forward and began reading the oration aloud.
Shortly afterward, dark clouds gathered in the sky, followed by the rumble of thunder.
A light rain began to fall, and Lucullus' voice echoed solemnly and respectfully throughout the rain-soaked square.
After he finished, several strong senators carried Sulla's body and departed from Rome, heading toward the Field of Mars outside the city.
The trumpeters played funeral music as they marched, with Lucullus, the senators, and the army following behind them until they reached the Field of Mars outside the city.
A great funeral pyre had already been prepared there, and the senators placed Sulla's body upon it.
"Should we cremate him?" Crassus murmured among the crowd.
"The tradition of the Cornelius clan is burial, but the Senate does not agree. When Sulla exhumed Marius' body, some said it was out of fear that his own remains might one day be desecrated, and that he should therefore be cremated before burial," a senator among the crowd said meaningfully.
Sulla had ordered Marius' remains thrown into the Tiber River, so it was quite possible that a group of scoundrels might repeat the same act in the middle of the night.
From his mansion in the region of Campania, Septimus listened to the senators' ramblings and felt a surge of contempt; Roman political struggles had reached the point of affecting even the dead.
The pyre was quickly lit, reducing Sulla's body to ashes.
He was finally buried in the central cemetery of the Field of Mars, the final resting place of the ancient emperors of Rome.
A gravestone was erected bearing Sulla's epitaph:
"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Every debt shall be repaid with interest, doubled in value."
The state funeral had ended, but an atmosphere of unease still hung over Rome. Some nobles and equestrians had already fled the city.
The more than 100,000 soldiers had not departed; some had camped in the Field of Mars, while others wandered throughout the city.
They were waiting for the assembly, where Lepidus intended to hold a vote to confiscate their lands.
The enraged soldiers vented their fury in every possible way, and all of Rome trembled beneath their anger.
Faced with this situation, the Senate convened another emergency meeting to discuss countermeasures.
Outside Lepidus' villa on the Caelian Hill, hundreds of veterans pointed toward the villa and hurled insults.
"Lepidus, who do you think you are? Trying to confiscate our lands? Let me tell you, if my land really disappears, I'll take your life sooner or later."
"You treacherous villain! How did Sulla ever promote you? And then you betrayed Sulla! I despise traitors more than anything!"
"Don't think you're the leader of the peaceful faction. Even if you were, we'll kill you sooner or later."
"..."
Hearing all kinds of vulgar insults and even death threats, Lepidus' villa remained tightly shut, without even opening its gates.
Inside the villa, Lepidus' face was pale. He knew that, from that day onward, his prestige had been shattered.
He had been openly insulted by countless people and had not dared to respond, while the nobles and senators mocked him in secret.
His greatest concern was this: he feared that Lucullus or other senators might incite the veterans to carry out a massacre or something similar.
He was certain those veterans were capable of such things. Over the years, some veterans had become terrible merchants, even gambling away their fortunes and squandering their lands in the hope of becoming rich during times of chaos. He had seen too many cases like that.
Just then, twelve guards carrying ceremonial shields escorted Catulus to the villa. Upon seeing the entourage, the veterans immediately recognized who they were.
Nevertheless, they blocked Catulus' procession without hesitation. A representative of the veterans, around thirty years old, stepped forward.
"Consul Catulus, what brings you here?" one veteran from the crowd asked.
"Fellow veterans, I have come on behalf of the Senate to persuade Lepidus to abandon his plan of convening the citizens' assembly. His ideas are misguided and have seriously harmed everyone's interests," Catulus said with a righteous expression.
"Is that true?" a veteran exclaimed in surprise.
"That's right. In fact, many senators disagree with this. The problem is that Lepidus and a few others insist on doing things their own way. I hope everyone remains calm and trusts that the Senate will handle this matter properly," Catulus said in a loud voice.
The veterans looked at him with suspicion. Rome's high-ranking officials were not known for being completely honest, and they trusted no one except a select few.
"Make way for the consul! Whether he's telling the truth or not, if anyone dares to take our lands, we'll kill him!" a centurion shouted.
"That's right! If anyone dares to take our lands, I'll kill his entire family! I'll kill his entire family!"
Catulus was deeply embarrassed by the veterans' arrogance.
Nevertheless, he maintained his composure and knocked on Lepidus' door.
Recognizing Catulus, the slaves quickly opened the gate.
When Catulus saw Lepidus again, he almost failed to recognize the consul. His eyes were bloodshot, his face was worn and exhausted, and he was gulping down a bottle of liquor from Campania—a stark contrast to the good spirits he had displayed only a few days earlier.
This made Catulus sigh inwardly. Although he and Lepidus disagreed politically, he felt a pang of pity upon seeing him in such a state.