83 Facts About Sulla

Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix, commonly known as Sulla, was a Roman general and statesman.

Sulla won the first large-scale civil war in Roman history and became the first man of the Republic to seize power through force.

Sulla had the distinction of holding the office of consul twice, as well as reviving the dictatorship.

Sulla rose to prominence during the war against the Numidian king Jugurtha, whom he captured as a result of Jugurtha's betrayal by the king's allies, although his superior Gaius Marius took credit for ending the war.

Sulla then fought successfully against Germanic tribes during the Cimbrian War, and Italian allies during the Social War.

Sulla was awarded the Grass Crown for his bravery at the Battle of Nola.

Sulla played an important role in the long political struggle between the optimates and populares factions at Rome.

Sulla was a leader of the optimates, which sought to maintain senatorial supremacy against the populist reforms advocated by the populares, headed by Marius.

Sulla then revived the office of dictator, which had been inactive since the Second Punic War, over a century before.

Sulla used his powers to purge his opponents, and reform Roman constitutional laws, to restore the primacy of the Senate and limit the power of the tribunes of the plebs.

Sulla might have been disinherited, though it was "more likely" that his father simply had nothing to bequeath.

Regardless, by the standards of the Roman political class, Sulla was a very poor man.

Sulla had one child from this union, before his first wife's death.

Sulla married again, with a woman called Aelia, of which nothing is known other than her name.

The means by which Sulla attained the fortune which later would enable him to ascend the ladder of Roman politics are not clear; Plutarch refers to two inheritances, one from his stepmother and the other from his mistress Nicopolis.

Sulla was then assigned by lot to serve under the consul Gaius Marius.

Sulla was popular with the men, charming and benign, he built up a healthy rapport while winning popularity with other officers, including Marius.

Sulla then served as legate under his former commander and, in that stead, successfully subdued a Gallic tribe which revolted in the aftermath of a previous Roman defeat.

The next year, Sulla was elected military tribune and served under Marius, and assigned to treat with the Marsi, part of the Germanic invaders, he was able to negotiate their defection from the Cimbri and Teutones.

Catulus, with Sulla, moved to block their advance; the two men likely cooperated well.

Sulla's troops were sufficiently impressed by his leadership that they hailed him imperator.

Sulla was the first Roman magistrate to meet a Parthian ambassador.

At this meeting, Sulla was told by a Chaldean seer that he would die at the height of his fame and fortune.

Sulla was regarded to have done well in the east: he had restored Ariobarzanes to the throne, been hailed imperator by his men, and was the first Roman to treat successfully with the Parthians.

Sulla served as one of the legates in the southern theatre assigned to consul Lucius Julius Caesar.

Late in the year, Sulla cooperated with Marius in the northern part of southern Italy to defeat the Marsi: Marius defeated the Marsi, sending them headlong into Sulla's waiting forces.

Sulla attempted to assist Lucius' relief of the city of Aesernia, which was under siege, but both men were unsuccessful.

Pompeii was taken some time during the year, along with Stabiae and Aeclanum; with the capture of Aeclanum, Sulla forced the Hirpini to surrender.

Sulla then attacked the Samnites and routed one of their armies near Aesernia before capturing the new Italian capital at Bovianum Undecimanorum.

Sulla divorced his then-wife Cloelia and married Metella, widow of the recently-deceased Marcus Aemilius Scaurus.

Sulla became embroiled in a political fight against one of the plebeian tribunes, Publius Sulpicius Rufus, on the matter of how the new Italian citizens were to be distributed into the Roman tribes for purposes of voting.

Sulla then left for Capua before joining an army near Nola in southern Italy.

Sulla hinted to them that Marius would find other men to fight Mithridates, forcing them to give up opportunities to plunder the East, claims which were "surely false".

Almost breaking before Marius' makeshift forces, Sulla then stationed troops all over the city before summoning the Senate and inducing it to outlaw Marius, Marius' son, Sulpicius, and nine others.

Sulla then had Sulpicius' legislation invalidated on the grounds that they had been passed by force.

Sulla sent his army back to Capua and then conducted the elections for that year, which yielded a resounding rejection of him and his allies.

Sulla then left Italy with his troops without delay, ignoring legal summons and taking over command from a legate in Macedonia.

In need of resources, Sulla sacked the temples of Epidaurus, Delphi, and Olympia; after a battle with the Pontic general Archelaus outside Piraeus, Sulla's forces forced the Pontic garrison to withdraw by sea.

Sulla declined battle with Pontus at the hill Philoboetus near Chaeronea before manoeuvring to capture higher ground and build earthworks.

Sulla had officially been declared an outlaw and in the eyes of the Cinnan regime, Flaccus was to take command of an army without a legal commander.

Sulla moved to intercept Flaccus' army in Thessaly, but turned around when Pontic forces reoccupied Boetia.

Sulla's troops prepared the ground by starting to dig a series of three trenches, which successfully contained Pontic cavalry.

Sulla was to return the kingdoms of Bithynia and Cappadocia to Nicomedes and Ariobarzanes, respectively.

Sulla would ratify Mithridates' position in Pontus and have him declared a Roman ally.

Sulla then sailed for Italy at the head of 1,200 ships.

Pompey, the son of Pompey Strabo, raised a legion from his clients in Picenum and joined Sulla; Sulla treated him with great respect and addressed him as imperator before dispatching him to raise more troops.

Sulla, buoyed by his previous looting in Asia, was able to advance quickly and largely without the ransacking of the Italian countryside.

Sulla defeated Norbanus at the Battle of Mount Tifata, forcing the consul to withdraw.

Sulla, hearing this, feigned an attack while instructing his men to fraternise with Scipio's army.

Scipio's men quickly abandoned him for Sulla; finding him almost alone in his camp, Sulla tried again to persuade Scipio to defect.

Sulla attempted to open negotiations with Norbanus, who was at Capua, but Norbanus refused to treat and withdrew to Praeneste as Sulla advanced.

Sulla left one of his allies, Quintus Lucretius Afella to maintain the siege at Praeneste and moved for Rome.

The purge did little to strengthen resolve and when Sulla arrived at Rome, the city opened its gates and his opponents fled.

Sulla had his enemies declared hostes, probably from outside the pomerium, and after assembling an assembly where he apologised for the ongoing war, left to fight Carbo in Etruria.

Sulla himself was defeated and forced to flee into his camp but his lieutenant Crassus on the right wing was victorious.

Sulla's wing fled to the gates of Rome but were met with a closed gate, forcing them to stand and fight, eventually winning in the night.

Sulla had his stepdaughter Aemilia married to Pompey, although she shortly died in childbirth.

In total control of the city and its affairs, Sulla instituted a proscription.

Sulla immediately proscribed 80 persons without communicating with any magistrate.

Possibly to protect himself from future political retribution, Sulla had the sons and grandsons of the proscribed banned from running for political office, a restriction not removed for over 30 years.

Sulla had total control of the city and Republic of Rome, except for Hispania.

Sulla, who opposed the Gracchian popularis reforms, was an optimate; though his coming to the side of the traditional Senate originally could be described as atavistic when dealing with the tribunate and legislative bodies, while more visionary when reforming the court system, governorships, and membership of the Senate.

Sulla retained his earlier reforms, which required senatorial approval before any bill could be submitted to the Plebeian Council, and which had restored the older, more aristocratic "Servian" organization to the Centuriate Assembly.

Sulla then prohibited ex-tribunes from ever holding any other office, so ambitious individuals would no longer seek election to the tribunate, since such an election would end their political career.

Finally, Sulla revoked the power of the tribunes to veto acts of the Senate, although he left intact the tribunes' power to protect individual Roman citizens.

Sulla then increased the number of magistrates elected in any given year, and required that all newly elected quaestores gain automatic membership in the Senate.

Sulla codified, and thus established definitively, the cursus honorum, which required an individual to reach a certain age and level of experience before running for any particular office.

Sulla wanted to reduce the risk that a future general might attempt to seize power, as he himself had done.

Sulla then established a system where all consuls and praetors served in Rome during their year in office, and then commanded a provincial army as a governor for the year after they left office.

Finally, in a demonstration of his absolute power, Sulla expanded the Pomerium, the sacred boundary of Rome, unchanged since the time of the kings.

Sulla disbanded his legions and, through these gestures, attempted to show the re-establishment of normal consular government.

Sulla dismissed his lictores and walked unguarded in the Forum, offering to give account of his actions to any citizen.

Sulla's body was brought into the city on a golden bier, escorted by his veteran soldiers, and funeral orations were delivered by several eminent senators, with the main oration possibly delivered by Lucius Marcius Philippus or Hortensius.

Sulla's body was cremated and his ashes placed in his tomb in the Campus Martius.

Further, Sulla failed to frame a settlement whereby the army remained loyal to the Senate, rather than to generals such as himself.

Sulla attempted to mitigate this by passing laws to limit the actions of generals in their provinces, and although these laws remained in effect well into the imperial period, they did not prevent determined generals, such as Pompey and Julius Caesar, from using their armies for personal ambition against the Senate, a danger of which Sulla was intimately aware.

Sulla's descendants continued to be prominent in Roman politics into the imperial period.

Sulla was red-blond and blue-eyed, and had a dead-white face covered with red marks.

Sulla was said to have a duality between being charming, easily approachable, and able to joke and cavort with the most simple of people, while assuming a stern demeanor when he was leading armies and as dictator.

Sulla was well versed both in Greek and Roman literature, and had a truly remarkable mind.

Sulla was devoted to pleasure but more devoted to glory.

Sulla never allowed his debaucheries to interfere with his duties but he devoted all his leisure time to them.

Sulla was both eloquent and clever, and he made friends easily.