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Bohlin
i
Christopher Bohlin
Mrs. Bergen
English 10
12 October 2010
Lucius Cornelius Sulla
I. Introduction
A. Lucius Cornelius Sulla believed a prophecy early in his career that the gods favored
him, so he took the agnomen Felix, which means "the Fortunate."
B. Although Sulla was raised in relative poverty, he grew to become a strong and
powerful general who would change the course of Roman history.
II. Main Points
A. Early days
"We only know that Sulla was a poor man of aristocratic descent, who lived in obscure lodgings
while laying the first foundations of his career" (Baker 31).
1. Family
2. Inheritance
"It was not until he was approaching thirty that two purely fortuitous events, and not his own
efforts, lifted Sulla out of this poverty and enabled him at last to embark on his career. His
wealthy stepmother, who doted on him as if he was her own son, died and left him all her money.
Then his mistress Nicopolis died as well. She, too, was a woman of means and she also left her
property to Sulla" (Keaveney 10).
B. First service to Rome
1. Gaius Marius (107 BCE)
a. War against Jugurtha, King of Numidia
b. Start of long dispute
2. Praetor (97 BCE)
3. Proconsul
a. Cilicia and King Cappadocia
b. Prophesy by Parthian embassy
4. Social War (90-89 BCE)
C. Consulship (88 BCE)
1. War against Mithradates VI of Pontus
a. Command given to Gaius Marius
b. Sulla's attack on Rome
"Sulla's impact on the Republic is often discussed from a constitutional point of view; but more
important, perhaps, than his overhaul of the Roman body politic was the psychological damage
he caused by his march on Rome in 88, his even more brutal conquest of the city in 82, and his
subsequent proscriptions, confiscations, and disenfranchisements. In fact, the fifteen years after
Sulla's first march on Rome (from 88 to 72) were crucial to the fate of the Republic. For this
period was, in effect, the school (with Sulla as headmaster) where the major figures of the next
generation acquired the personal and political hatreds, the cynicism, and the contempt for the
unwritten rules of the Republic that led them to destroy it in the 40s" (Spann xiii).
Bohlin ii
"Sulla's march on Rome in 88 inaugurated a new age in the history of the Roman Republic: the
last... Sulla had acted on his own... He had used a client army of proletarii, dependent on their
commander for their fortunate and their future, to invade the city and destroy his enemies. His
retaliation was so different in degree that it was different in kind. After this ne plus ultra of
political violence, no Roman politician could ever again be certain that his opponents would
respect the traditional and unwritten restraint necessary for government by consensus" (Spann
28).
For the first time a Roman general had turned the swords of his soldiers against the country and
against the government, and for the first time the army had overruled the decision of the forum
(Marsh 47).
c. Rome ruled by Marius, Cinna, and Carbo and Sulla's laws were repealed
d. Conquered most of Greece, including Athens (88-86 BCE)
e. Peace treaty with Mithradates (85) BCE)
f. Lived in Athens awhile
2. Return to Rome (83 BCE)
a. Defeated armies of opponents
b. Battle of Colline Gates ended war (civil war)
i. Prisoners massacred
ii. Proscriptions (killed or property confiscated
"Internal struggle within the aristocracy had reached a peak in the 80s. Sulla punished
intransigent goes mercilessly. Proscriptions and confiscations lopped off many wealthy
adversaries; there were rich spoils for the dictator's loyal supporters and for shrew speculators"
(Gruen 7).
D. Dictatorship and constitutional reforms (82-79 BCE)
"He proclaimed himself dictator, reviving this particular office after a lapse of a hundred and
twenty years. Moreover, an act was passed granting him immunity for all his past acts, and for
the future, power of life and death, of confiscation, of colonization, of founding or demolishing
cities, and of taking away or bestowing kingdoms at his pleasure" (Plutarch P433).
1. Had legislative, military, and judicial power
2. Length of dictatorship not limited
3. Gave himself the name Felix (81 BCE)
4. Let Caesar go (82 BCE)
"When the civil war came and the victor once again had to have a position beyond challenge,
Caesar found that the only office which he could devise was precisely the monster invented by
Sulla. Sulla had, however, allowed to escape his clutches the one who presented the greatest
danger to his new order. No one did more to destroy its very foundations than Caesar, although
that was to be almost thirty years after the dictator's death" (Ridley 229).
5. Strengthened power of Senate (many reforms did last until end of republic)
"Sulla's work was dictated by the need to reinforce the Senate's authority. This explains the
measures to limit the power of the tribunes and to ensure that every bill submitted either to the
comitia centuriata or the tribal assemblies should carry the auctoritas partum" (Gabba 135).
"Now Sulla thought that all the troubles of the times came from the fact that neither Senate nor
people had full sovereignty; and, as a consistent oligarch and a conscientious party-man, he was
determined to put the balance of power to an end, by conferring complete autocratic authority on
his own senatorial order" (Oman 147).
Bohlin iii
a. Senate approval needed for plebian assembly laws
b. Only Senators could serve as judges
c. Senate controlled commanders
"The Sullan system did not enforce total harmony. Its purpose was to assure that political fights
would stop short of producing alienated social reformers or ambitious military men who se
allegiance and appeal could threaten the establishment. The senatorial class had undergone such
threats in the previous half-century" (Gruen 9).
6. Senate filled with Sulla's friends
7. Friends rewarded and enemies treated harshly
8. Took land and redistributed it to veterans
E. Final Days
1. Retired in 79 BCE
2. Partied with actors
3. Began memoirs
4. Died in 78 BCE
"His monument was erected in the Campus Martius, with the epitaph, composed by himself, that
no man had excelled him in doing a good turn to his friends or a bad one to his foes" (294 Baker)
F. Sulla's Legacy
III. Conclusion
Bohlin iv
Works Cited
Baker, G.P. Sulla the Fortunate. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1967. Print.
Gruen, Erich S. The Last Generation of the Roman Republic. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1974. Print.
Keaveney, Arthur. The Last Republican. New York: Routledge, 2005. Print.
Marsh, Frank Burr. The Founding of the Roman Empire. Austin: The University of Texas, 1922.
Print.
Oman, C.W.C. Seven Roman Statesmen. London: Arnold, 1902. Print.
Plutarch. "The Life of Sulla." Parallel Lives. 5 Sept. 2007. Web. 5 Oct. 2010.
Ridley, Ronald T. "The Dictator's Mistake: Caesar's Escape from Sulla." Historia: Zeitschrift für
Alte Geschichte. 49. 2 (2nd Qtr., 2000): 211-29. Print.