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Sulla

Latin nameLucius Cornelius Sulla

The first to march an army into Rome, and the dictator who gave power back of his own accord

Soul of the Legions · Commanders

ProscriptionDictatorCivil war

Who they are

Sulla came from a fallen patrician family, first serving as Marius’s lieutenant (it was he who lured and captured Jugurtha), later his mortal enemy. In 88 BC, when the popular assembly transferred his eastern command to Marius, Sulla did the unprecedented: he marched six legions to take Rome by force — four hundred years of the Republic’s red line voided in a night. Returning in triumph from his campaign against Mithridates in the East, he marched into Rome a second time, made himself dictator for an unlimited term, and invented the "proscription": a list was published, and anyone on it could be killed by anyone, their property confiscated, the killer rewarded — thousands of senators and equestrians died in this legalized purge. He then issued constitutional reforms strengthening the Senate, and did the most baffling thing of all: he resigned of his own accord, disbanded his guard, walked about Rome as a private citizen, and died of illness the next year. Caesar later remarked, "Sulla did not know even the ABC of politics — he actually gave up the dictatorship."

Key stories

The proscription list

White notices went up in the forum, and to have your name on them was to be a "public enemy": anyone could kill you for a reward, those who sheltered you shared the crime, your descendants were barred from office. The list grew and grew — some added for politics, more for their property. The young Crassus bought up the dead men’s estates cheap in this purge, amassing the first pot of what would make him "the richest man in Rome"; the eighteen-year-old Caesar, on the list as a relative by marriage of Marius, escaped through others’ pleas. Letting him go, Sulla said his famous line: "In this boy there are many Mariuses."

The death of Felix

Sulla styled himself "Felix" (the Fortunate), believing himself favored by Venus. After handing back power he retired to the country to write his memoirs and keep actors, and died in 78 BC — some say of a disease of lice, his flesh rotting. His funeral was lavish, and his epitaph is said to be self-written: "No friend ever did me a kindness, and no enemy a wrong, whom I did not repay in full." His life proved two things: the rules of the Republic could be crushed by an army; and once crushed, even when the dictator himself wanted to put power back, the rules could not go back — the Caesars queued up behind the breach he had torn open.