Sulla

A Dictator Reconsidered

Lynda Telford

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781783030484
• eBook ISBN: 9781473834507
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military Biographies
• Index: History

Lucius Cornelius Sulla is one of the central figures of the late Roman Republic. Indeed, he is often considered a major catalyst in the death of the republican system. the ambitious general whose feud with a rival (Marius) led to his marching on Rome with an army at his back, leading to civil war and the terrible internecine bloodletting of the proscriptions. In these things, and in his appropriation of the title of dictator with absolute power, he set a dangerous precedent to be followed by Julius Caesar a generation later. Lynda Telford believes Sulla's portrayal as a monstrous, brutal tyrant is unjustified. While accepting that he was responsible for much bloodshed, she contends that he was no more brutal than many of his contemporaries who have received a kinder press. Moreover, even his harshest measures were motivated not by selfish ambition but by genuine desire to do what he believed best for Rome. The author believes the bias of the surviving sources, and modern biographers, has exaggerated the ill-feeling towards Sulla in his lifetime. After all, he voluntarily laid aside dictatorial power and enjoyed a peaceful retirement without fear of assassination. The contrast to Caesar is obvious. Lynda Telford gives a long overdue reappraisal of this significant personality, considering such factors as the effect of his disfiguring illness. The portrait that emerges is a subtle and nuanced one; her Sulla is very much a human, not a monster.

Chapter One

Born in Rome in 138 BC to a faded branch of a Patrician family, Lucius Cornelius Sulla’s prospects did not appear particularly promising. He grew up, however, with a great determination to somehow live the kind of life to which his aristocratic birth entitled him, even if his lack of fortune seemed always to be in the way to prevent him from doing so. His life and rise to prominence was a series of struggles to achieve the position which, for other men, came easily and almost automatically.

For Sulla, everything he was to do was fraught with controversy and opposition. He always fought the opposition and often courted the controversy, forging a path for himself which sometimes had to ride roughshod over the opinions and interests of others. He never lost sight of the final goal, however, which was not only to have for himself the approbation and appreciation he felt deprived of, but to bring Rome herself back from the brink upon which she tottered. He always intended to try to make her strong, rich and all-powerful again, after the series of wars and disasters, which had all but bankrupted and destroyed her. Sulla’s struggles and achievements, in order to be fully understood, need firstly to be seen against the background of the Rome into which he was born.

It needs to be remembered that Rome had finally taken over the whole Mediterranean area by the time of Sulla’s birth and if the Mediterranean Sea was not yet called the ‘Mare Nostrum’ or Our Sea, the principle was already clear. The few states still retaining apparent independence from Rome only did so under Rome’s sufferance.

This enviable situation had not, however, been achieved easily. The final stage of the Punic Wars had only been completed in 146 BC and had lasted, overall, for 118 years!

This lengthy conflict had caused Rome a world of loss and pain. For, prior to this time, it was Carthage, not Rome, who ruled the Middle Sea. It was Carthage who had built up a maritime and commercial empire able to spread its tentacles across the whole area, when Rome was nothing more than a struggling town surrounded by a muddy marsh.

Carthage was founded in 814 BC, traditionally by Dido, the daughter of a King of Tyre. It formed one of a series of Phoenician settlements stretching from Asia to Spain, but, although it became extensive, it was not aggressive. It was a trading, rather than a military, empire. Carthage took tribute from all the colonies around the Mediterranean, including, initially, Rome. Eventually, that great Phoenician society decided that its trading and mercantile families were too valuable economically to be risked in warfare, and it put its defence into the hands of mercenaries. The ruling class of Carthage were opposed to militarism, fearing that arming its citizens, or even its mercenaries, was dangerous, leading inevitably to democracy or a military coup. Therefore, they treated even their successful generals with little favour.

Carthage and Rome were, therefore, not strangers when they began their first conflict in 264 BC. Treaties had been negotiated and they show not only that Carthage was not really interested in anything but commerce, but that Rome was indifferent to it. When Rome, that little town on the Tiber, began to stretch her wings and look around her for conquests, Carthage was standing in her way. Unfortunately for Carthage, Rome was to prove to be very aggressive indeed.

Cicero tells us that there were three Punic Wars. The first was separated from the second by twenty-three years and the second from the third by fifty-two years, but they were still all a part of one struggle. At the end of the first, and longest, of these conflicts, and despite maritime disasters that practically bankrupted the emergent Rome, the Romans still built a new navy, albeit on Phoenician lines, when their first had been destroyed. This was in itself an achievement, for Rome was never primarily a naval power. The Consuls for that year – 242 to 241 BC – were Gaius Lutatius Catulus and Appius Postumius Albinus. The latter was not only Junior Consul for that year, but also Flamen Martialis, the head of the cult of Mars, the god of war, and he was forbidden to leave the city, so the command was entrusted to Gaius Lutatius Catulus.

Carthage belatedly realized her danger when an enormous convoy – 700 transports – descended on the coast near Lilybaeum in Sicily. Rome did not often need to be told anything twice, and was to prove to be the most efficient power ever known at learning from mistakes, before rapidly turning them to its advantage. Finally, in 241 BC a victory off the Aegates Islands allowed Rome to annex Sicily and make her very important grain-producing area the first Roman Province.

In 238 BC both Sardinia and Corsica were also annexed – in effect safeguarding Rome’s back door and making it perfectly clear to the Carthaginians (if they still needed reminding), that Rome was here to stay. They were obliged to stand by and watch Sardinia and Corsica become Roman possessions.

In 223 BC successful Roman campaigns in Cisalpine Gaul led to colonies also being formed there and by 219 BC Hannibal, the son of the Carthaginian general Hamilcar Borca, took some new territory in Spain, at Saguntum. This action led, in the following year, to the start of the Second Punic War.

Before the ending of 217 BC Hannibal had crossed the Alps along with his thirty-seven elephants. His skill, along with a certain amount of Roman amateurishness, led to three defeats for Rome – at Ticinus and at Trebbia, culminating in the horrendous defeat at Cannae in 216 BC. Despite these victories and also despite Philip of Macedonia forming an alliance with Hannibal, few of Rome’s allies decided to abandon her at that time, as might well have been expected. We know that Capua, Tarento and Syracuse did change sides, but Hannibal did not manage to capture Rome herself, even though at one time he was close enough to actually ride around the walls!

Keeping its head and showing immense courage, the Senate sent an army into Spain, to attack Hannibal’s base there. After some defeats, Cornelius Scipio landed in 210 BC and by 206 BC had managed to oust the Carthaginians. Spain itself now became a Roman possession and was divided into two provinces.

Back in Italy, Rome was forced to institute a scorched-earth policy in order to deny Hannibal resources, and although this naturally caused a good deal of suffering and homelessness for the Italians caught up in it, the action succeeded in its objective. This displacement of farmers from their lands was, however, to cause further contention for Rome some time later. The then vacant areas were to be subsequently snapped up, not by the farmers and smallholders who had previously worked them for generations, but by rich families who were easily able to stock them with slave workers. This was eventually to lead to the conflict with the Brothers Gracchi and their supporters, who strenuously objected to the displacement of the farmers and their replacement by gangs designed only to enrich the new landholders.

In 204 BC Scipio landed in Africa, and Carthage was forced to recall Hannibal. At the battle of Zama in 202 BC Scipio defeated Hannibal and Carthage was obliged to suffer humiliation at the hands of Rome and see the end of its overseas power for good. This period, with the ending of the Second Punic War, was the most momentous in Rome’s history. It now became obvious that Rome would rule the entire Mediterranean.

Rome had by now moved to the East, to fight Philip of Macedonia, who had joined forces with Carthage back in 214 BC when Rome had appeared to be doomed to failure. But by 205 BC, after almost nine years, the first Macedonian war petered out. However, Rome was to move against Philip again, five years later, when it was feared that he was regaining too much power. He was finally beaten decisively in 197 BC. In 191 BC Cisalpine Gaul was conquered by Rome and the following year the Seleucid King, Antiochus of Syria, was defeated at Magnesia and expelled. In l68 BC Perseus of Macedonia was defeated at Pydna and Macedonia also became a Roman dependency.

However, despite these obvious achievements the Third Punic War flared up in 149 BC and was to last until the final total destruction of Carthage in 146 BC. Also at this time, the sack of Corinth, which was at that time the richest port in Greece, showed all too plainly that there was a new and worrying determination, and even a taste for brutality, becoming apparent in Rome’s imperial expansion policy.

Rome’s nobles were, of course, by now making vast fortunes. Many were returning from military triumphs or provincial governorships with huge amounts of booty, which had always been considered to be an acceptable perquisite of the job, or with shiploads of slaves for sale, the profits of which would help to extend their own family’s affluence and influence. The destruction of Epirus alone had brought in 150,000 slaves to be sold in the markets of Rome. Many of these captives were well-educated people of decent background, and their arrival actually did a good deal for Roman society, in helping to spread a knowledge and appreciation of Greek culture.

However, on the other hand, it did nothing at all for the tens of thousands of newly impoverished Romans who had been forced off their ancestral lands during the Punic Wars. They now faced a very bleak future indeed, being not only homeless and unemployed in Rome, but becoming aware that the newly arrived Greek slaves were about to take from under their noses what work was still available.

The years 136 to 132 BC were to see the first Sicilian slave war. Also during this time, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus fought his private battle over the distribution of the ager publicus. This public land, originally leased to small farmers and worked by their families, had gradually been taken over by the rich landowners who found it far easier and more profitable to have it worked by slave gangs. These unfortunates would be kept in squalid conditions and worked to death in order to increase the profits of their owner. It was far more cost effective to simply replace slaves who proved unable to continue than to allow the land to be restored to the small farmers who had previously leased it and had to wait for the smaller profits. However, the small farmers, while living and working on the leased land, had provided Rome with more than meat and vegetables. They also provided her with their children. With daughters able to marry and breed further generations and sons not only to farm the land but also to man the Legions. This had, for generations, been the backbone of Rome’s prosperity and the Roman still entertained a sentimental attachment to the idea of the simple country life. It did not, however, stop him from profiting hugely from the suffering of the poor farmers who were now enduring the poverty and humiliation of being unable to find work to feed their families.

Tiberius Gracchus had become disgusted by this process and had determined that the ager publicus should be returned to those families who had always worked it. Of course, by setting himself up as a champion of land reform in this way, he naturally faced great opposition from the money-men who liked things just as they were, and saw no reason at all to change back to the old ways. His campaign over the latifundia eventually became a battle against the Senate over their foreign policy and turned most of the conservative minded senators against him to such an extent that he and 300 of his supporters were finally killed. Unfortunately, his younger brother, Gaius Sempronius Gracchus, nine years his junior, was to take up his elder brother’s cause in his turn, and was also to lose his life in that struggle in 122 BC.

It is a curious example of the Roman psyche that, although these young men were both killed, along with their supporters, while in opposition to the status quo, their names were not reviled. Indeed, they became a kind of symbol of the Roman spirit. Their mother, Cornelia, went down in Roman history as the perfect example of the Roman matron, due to her ability to withstand and surmount the agony of losing her two fine sons in that way. Of course, she was a Patrician and she was also still very rich. This naturally meant that Cornelia, ‘Mother of the Gracchi’, would always have an enviable place in Society, and an enormous amount of respect, so long as she exhibited the correct dignity and stoicism considered suitable to the noble women of a military race.

During these upheavals, in Rome, in 138 BC, only eight years after the end of the Third and final Punic War, and two years before the beginning of the Sicilian slave war, was born Lucius Cornelius Sulla.

He was born into a Patrician family, which had previously provided Rome with a Dictator (Publius Cornelius Rufinus way back in 334 BC) and whose son, Publius Cornelius Rufus, became Consul in 290 and was prominent in the Samnite Wars. Around 285 BC he had become Dictator, like his father, and was then Consul again in 277. Despite a good military record, his career came to an abrupt end in 276 BC when he was found to be in possession of rather more silver plate than was allowed by the sumptuary laws then in force and he was ignominiously expelled from the Senate.

It was, for some considerable time, fashionable to applaud a certain simplicity of living, and the suggestion that Rome had once been the height of perfection in achieving this standard was gained by occasional purges and by punishing any who attempted to singularize himself above his peers. This attitude may well have been as hypocritical then as it is now. However, hypocritical or not, being found to have acquired more precious metal than was permitted served to eclipse the family politically for some time to come.

One of his sons, Publius Cornelius Sulla, was elected Flamen Dialis around the year 250 BC. Although on the face of it this was considered to be a great honour, it was in actual fact an appalling restriction on normal living for the man (and his wife) whom were appointed as the priest and priestess. An appointment for life, it effectively prevented the man from pursuing any kind of political or military career. This in itself, in a military society, set him apart from his peers in a way not altogether to be envied.

He and his wife would not be permitted normal foods, for instance with restrictions even on the kind of bread they were allowed to eat. The Romans were a people who loved their bread, as the number of bakeries in each town testified. A great deal of effort was put into getting the right kind of crisped crust, to the extent that baking bread at home became most unusual. Having to conform to such dietary rules were not the only restrictions on the Flamen and Flaminia. They were not allowed to wear certain types of clothing, with the result that the Flamen could not even have buckles or similar fasteners on his shoes, which was a part of the prohibition stating that he could not touch steel. This of course prevented him from ever being involved in a military career, along with the further rule that he could not witness a death. He and his wife must both be Patricians and must have had no previous wife or husband, another restriction not always easy to conform to at a time when divorce was common.

These taboos sometimes led to ironical amusement for the Romans, who were supposed to have said that ‘every day is a holiday’ for the Flamen, due to his inability to take any real part in normal life. However, the restrictions can only have been irksome in the extreme for the holder of the office, even while the honour of being related to a Flamen devolved upon his family.

The son of the Flamen Dialis was to become Praetor in 212 BC and his son, another Publius Cornelius Sulla, also reached this position in 186. This man was to become the grandfather of Lucius Cornelius Sulla.

Very little is known about Sulla’s own father except that he married twice and his second wife seems to have been a woman who had a considerable amount of money of her own. This was one day to prove significant. However, the family into which Lucius Cornelius was born in Rome, in 138 BC had not actually risen above the rank of Praetor for several generations. Although this had originally been the title of the senior magistrate who replaced the kings, it had become an office of second in command. The number of Praetors had gradually risen from one man serving alone, to six by 197 BC when two were sent to Spain to govern the two new provinces there. It would, eventually, be obliged to be extended far further than that, as the empire expanded over the years to come and officials were needed to carry Roman authority to new territories.

However, by the time of Sulla’s birth, his family had sunk somewhat down the social scale, due to a serious depletion of funds. Wealth, in Rome, was absolutely essential and the fact that a man had achieved high office could sometimes result in the eventual loss of status for his entire family, due to the amounts of cash needed to fund the position. Each magisterial position required a certain level of financial standing to back it, along with a great deal of free spending once it was achieved. Unfortunately it was the lack of this necessity which was to prevent the young Lucius Cornelius from taking up the position in the level of Rome’s society to which his birth might otherwise have been considered an entitlement.

He was born into a world where war and turmoil were the norm and a society in which birth and wealth would open the doors to power and advancement for its possessor. Equally,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Maps
• Introduction
• Chapter One
• Chapter Two
• Chapter Three
• Chapter Four
• Chapter Five
• Chapter Six
• Chapter Seven
• Chapter Eight
• Chapter Nine
• Chapter Ten
• Chapter Eleven
• Chapter Twelve
• Chapter Thirteen
• Chapter Fourteen
• Chapter Fifteen
• Chapter Sixteen
• Chapter Seventeen
• Notes and References
• Selected Bibliography