Sulla: A Dictator Reconsidered

States.

Introduction

The last 150 years of the Roman Republic undoubtedly produced some of the greatest men who have ever lived. Across the stage of the then known world walked, within a relatively short space of time, men whose names still ring aloud their glory and their achievements.

They ranged from the Brothers Gracchi, who struggled and had to die for the cause of land reform, or fairer distribution of the Italian lands, which had become the private sinecure of wealthy landowners. This control of the ager publica by several of the great families, using slave gangs to work the land, was to the detriment of the original small farmers who might otherwise have produced a modest prosperity for their own class. Even more, they would also have bred families of their own, and those children would in various ways advance the cause of Rome. Naturally, the great reforming brothers met with opposition from those who benefited most from the latifundia, and they were eventually destroyed, but their legacy of land reform lived on to be raised again in later years when land was required for veterans of the wars.

Next there was the great Gaius Marius. He not only reshaped the Roman army into something that a modern day soldier might still recognize, but started his brilliant rise by being successful against Jugurtha. He was also able to turn aside the hordes of the Germanic peoples, who were desperate to descend on southern Europe in the hope of better lands and a more equable climate. These people, many hundreds of thousands of them, represented a very real threat to Rome and the Roman way of life. When they were finally turned aside and the survivors eventually made their way towards the lands of the Belgae, seeking refuge, the stay-at-homes in Rome became aware that Gaius Marius, though a man of no birth, had saved them. He was capable not only of showing the old families that he was one of their greatest generals, but was beloved by those who swung the votes, and thereby became Consul for an unprecedented seven times.

Then followed my subject, Lucius Cornelius Sulla. He started life with the great advantage of Patrician birth, but also the huge disadvantage of lack of sufficient wealth to support that birth, and to help him make the expected ascent of the cursus honorum to which his Patrician blood entitled him.

There was also Pompey – Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus. He saw himself as the greatest man in Rome and, despite his youth, very nearly proved it to be so.

Then Caesar himself, another Patrician, who managed to do the impossible, in making himself Dictator for Life, but who had to pay for his presumption by the loss of that life.

Also walking the Roman stage at that time were Crassus and Cato, Brutus and Cicero and the scandalous young Publius Clodius Pulcher and his equally scandalous sister Clodia, together with his delectable wife Fulvia. She was a descendant of the Gracchi and first married P. Clodius, then Curio, then finally Marcus Antonius, who was Gaius Julius Caesar’s second cousin and who expected to be his heir – an expectation which, sadly for him, failed to materialize.

Exciting though these people are, who all have a tale to tell us, it is a very great mistake to look upon them, or indeed any historical character, with twenty-first century eyes, or to judge them by twenty-first century standards. They lived in a very different time when people had to make their decisions according to more brutal rules, which demanded more brutal reactions in return. They were often forced into situations we would probably be unable to cope with, therefore trying to understand their motives with minds blinded by modern considerations is a futile exercise.

This account does not pretend to be a military or political history of the period, nor do I believe that it needs to be. There are many such accounts already written by people who are experts in those fields. What the work does hope to do is to show this one man, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, as a real and living person. Not just as a figurehead of the Roman state, a name in a history book, a general, a politician, a dictator, or a murderer, though at various times in his life he became all of those things.

I believe he was a very able and competent man. This was at a time when Rome was rich in such men, but many, indeed most, of them failed to put Rome’s needs before their own. Yet Sulla, whose actions sometimes had to become extreme, was fundamentally a decent man, whose first love was always for Rome. I believe that he has had a very ‘bad press’ and is not at all appreciated as he should be, nor does his life attract the sympathy and understanding given to other men of his time. Men of status and power were often compelled to deal with situations similar to his and were just as ruthless when they needed to be.

They too, often performed or instigated acts which have stained their names, and very few of them could claim to be free of this taint. Indeed, in the context of the time, it would hardly be possible for any man to live as a soldier and politician without at some time being obliged to stain his hands with the blood of those who fought against him or opposed him politically. This was the world in which they lived. However, other men have done this and been more easily forgiven for it.

Caesar was not exempt from extreme acts during his years as a general, yet he is still revered. He was not only responsible for horrific slaughters in Gaul, but some histories actually fail to mention Thapsus, on 6 April 46 BC. On that occasion, fighting the supporters of Pompey’s sons, his men massacred 10,000 of the defeated side, while they were trying to surrender! After the massacre was over, he then executed Lucius Afranius, who had been Consul, along with Sulla’s son Faustus. These were, of course, not savages or barbarians, but fellow Romans. I fail to see how anything done by Sulla compares with that action, which is actually glossed over in many books dealing with the period.

Gaius Marius suffered a series of strokes, which seriously affected his mental capacities. After his second stroke he became almost a monster of cruelty, destroying all those who defied him, friend and foe alike, but he is still openly referred to as the ‘great’ Gaius Marius!

Sulla, however, is always referred to in histories of the period in a very different way. Writers feel free to admire his ability as a general, or refer to the perfectly sensible laws he promulgated when he achieved power, or even to describe the affection in which he was held by those who knew him well and served him for years. Some writers indulge themselves with blaming him for every cruelty and debauchery, often without producing evidence, and even with the fairest of them there seems to be always a ‘but’ to qualify any praise of him.

Corruption and greed were as rife in the Republic as in any other time in history, and those who put the interests of their State first have always been in a minority. Unfortunately, due to the opposition, jealousy and short-sightedness of others, Sulla was several times forced into actions which have since defined him in a way which might well have surprised him, and which have certainly stained his name for ever.

For Sulla truly loved Rome. Not, as many men did, for what she could give back to her sons, in power, prestige and wealth, but for herself. Sulla believed in her implicitly. He believed that she was a mother to her citizens and a mistress to be served. When he was finally able to do so, after a long struggle, he promulgated laws which were not only in many ways models of common sense, but incorporated the reforms he believed essential to Rome’s prosperity and economic recovery. These were necessary after the decades of wars had leached her of all her resources.

Sulla fought with distinction in those wars, with Gaius Marius against the Germanic peoples, who were still trying to find a new homeland, and against Jugurtha, whose capture he accomplished. He also had to fight the Italians themselves, who resented the idea of Rome’s pre-eminence and the unfairness with which they were treated as allies of Rome. The resulting conflict dragged on for years. During that time he was awarded the Corona Graminea outside the walls of Nola, and conquered Pompeii which then became known as Colonia Cornelia Veneria Pompeianorum or Sulla’s Colony of Venus. But by then the State was bankrupt and tottering.

Trying to find solutions to this, Sulla also found himself up against those men who resented him and whose self-interest prevented them not only from helping to rebuild and restore Rome but also from sharing his vision of a new security and prosperity. Certainly he grew to hate and deeply resent the bankers and loan sharks, in a predicament which has many all too familiar references to the present day. The ‘money-men’ who, though still personally unbelievably rich, expected him to fight again in the East, yet were not prepared to put their hands into their ample pockets and provide the funds. They wanted him out of the way, ostensibly to acquire for Rome (or for themselves) any riches that might be available. But they had no interest in the fact that he had to go without ships, funds or equipment, which he had to find by taking the battle to Greece.

It should be remembered that before Caesar won his Corona Civica, Sulla had earned the Corona Graminea, or Grass Crown, the highest of all Roman military honours. Before Caesar crossed the Rubicon and marched on Rome, calling himself Dictator, Sulla had already been there. He had done it all before. Not for the usual six months’ duration, awarded by the Senate when necessity arose and they found themselves driven into a corner, but taken by him into his own hands for as long as he considered necessary, in order to reorganize and rectify the State’s many problems. That he was obliged to take extreme measures in order to attain these ends has tended to blight the effects of his achievements in the eyes of many historians.

His hatred of the Ordo Equestor, whose members persisted in thwarting his every attempt, defined his actions upon his return. Rome was by this time on her knees and Sulla was determined to end the appalling self-seeking amongst the knightly class, refill Rome’s empty treasuries, rebuild her rotting temples, and put her back on her feet.

He eliminated those many enemies who were intent on preventing his success and who disbelieved his claims to put Rome’s welfare first, accustomed as they were to considering only their own. He is greatly criticized for giving increased powers to the Senate and reducing the power of the Tribunes. These were necessary reforms for the time and to claim that he advanced the patricians at the cost of the plebians is a gross over-simplification. Sulla tried to strengthen the Senate, certainly not because of any love for its members, who were only too often his own enemies, but because he was aware that it needed strength to rule an empire that was already becoming unwieldy. He reduced the powers of the Tribunes because they had the power of veto. This enormous power, given to a group of people who had proved themselves to be eminently bribable, was a great danger to reform. Any man who wished to block a new move simply had to ‘buy’ a Tribune and that man would then veto whatever he was paid to oppose. The result was that any action against people with a vested interest could not even be discussed and no real work could ever be achieved. Sulla, in preventing these all too common abuses, allowed the work of reforming the state to proceed.

His actions taken against the Ordo Equestor and the Senators who persisted in opposing him were in line with this. Firstly, they would never stand aside and allow him to make the reforms that were desperately needed. Secondly, the money for restructuring and rebuilding a shattered Rome had to come from somewhere! Rome would need to have vast sums of money before she could become financially solvent again. Sulla always showed that he believed strongly that such a terrible burden should not be thrust onto the ordinary people, and neither could he put it upon those people who had served and supported him, demonstrating their loyalty with their lives.

The members of the Ordo Equestor had waxed fat under the administrations of Marius, Cinna and Carbo. Now it was their turn to pay the price and pay they did. Not only did their lives become forfeit, their fortunes were used to replenish the empty treasuries of Rome and help to rebuild her prosperity.

However, he did not use the money from all their confiscated estates for his own enrichment, as another man might easily have been tempted to do. Even though he had never been a wealthy man in the way his contemporaries were and when wealth was still a very necessary adjunct to status. (It is interesting to note that while Sulla put the confiscated monies back into Rome’s treasuries, it was Caesar who was to later take it all back out again!) Sulla made and enforced new laws in an attempt to simplify the political system and prevent the corruption that was endemic within the state, just as he tried to ensure a future stability.

When all this was finished, in the space of just over two years, he did what nobody had ever expected him to do, or believed that he would dare to do. He laid down the supreme power and retired to the country.

No man ever voluntarily set down such power as he had held. Those men who had not expected Sulla to behave in such a way were judging him only by their own lesser standards. They would certainly not have laid down the Dictator’s power, if they had ever managed to acquire it, if only for fear of the retribution of their enemies. Caesar did not, when his own turn came. He simply could not afford to, knowing that if he did step down they would all turn and rend him. Eventually, he had to declare himself Dictator in Perpetuity, and this was far too close to the status of the old kings for anyone’s comfort and satisfaction. (Was there not the slight but definite idea in his mind that of all men he had the best right to be a king?) Whatever his thoughts and ambitions at that time, Caesar had finally to be removed by assassination.

However, Sulla had kept his word. After doing what he considered necessary, he announced his retirement and stepped down, taking those who loved him with him. There were still many who did love him, despite the agonies of the past years.

Sulla had started his career as a man of great physical beauty. Such beauty, however, had its downside, especially in Rome. One the one hand, it was admired, but also greatly suspect. If a man was beautiful of face when a boy, he was considered a temptation to other men and always that suspicion of passive homosexuality clung to him. When that same man matured, he was then a temptation to women, and other men looked askance at him, wondering if they were being cuckolded. Either way, he might be considered to be a lightweight, not a proper Roman male.

Sulla proved beyond a doubt that, despite his unusual appearance, he was certainly no lightweight, though he did have lovers in plenty, male and female, plus wives and children. He was also possessed of that one elusive and most important thing, a great deal of charm. He had a wonderful capacity for making and keeping friends, and that ability does not sit happily with the idea that he was a crazy despot. Such people have cronies and sycophants, not true friends. Despite all his many faults, and he was a normal human being with human frailties, people who knew him intimately continued to respect and care for him.

Later in his life he contracted a terrible disease in Greece, which many historians think may have been scabies. However, the scabious plant, (Succisa pratensis), a commonly found blue wild flower, was used to treat that condition from earliest times, hence the name. But I prefer another possibility. If he suffered from shingles, the symptoms would be very similar. Shingles, (or post herpetic neuralgia), especially if it affects the face, can be a very debilitating ailment indeed. This disease is caused by the same virus as chickenpox, the Herpes Virus Type 3 and it produces the same rash and intense itching as scabies, which eventually leads to serious pain and permanent scarring. This would have had no possibility of treatment during his lifetime. Doctors even now find that in an older patient, the prognosis is far from good and there is more likelihood of not only intense, but continuing pain with little chance of relief.

Though neither of the suggested ailments is life threatening, the condition did destroy his looks completely. He must have suffered terribly, not only from the illness itself, causing him to tear in agony at the skin of his face in attempts to relieve the constant irritation, but it was probably at this time that he began to take refuge in wine. This may have blunted the continual discomfort of the skin disease that no doctor at that time could understand, although the resultant heavy drinking certainly helped to shorten his life. Furthermore, he then had to suffer the utter humiliation of finally returning to Rome, to face his enemies, knowing that his looks were completely wrecked, and that other people felt free to laugh at him. He was then described openly as having a complexion ‘like mulberries sprinkled with oatmeal’.

His personal motto of ‘no better friend, no worse enemy’ speaks volumes of his feelings at this time. He did indeed become a terrible enemy to those who opposed him, but he still was, at the same time, the best and truest friend to those who were loyal to him. He repaid their faith and their loyalty gladly. These closest friends were often drawn from the lowest levels of Roman society, the actors, mimes and dancers who had been his preferred companions since youth, when his lack of personal funds prevented him from mixing in the circles to which his birth otherwise should have entitled him. I have seen these friends of his described as ‘evildoers’ and ‘people sunk in every kind of debauchery’. Thankfully in our own time we can appreciate that poverty and low birth are not crimes and that those who suffer these indignities can still be decent people. These were largely the friends who retired with him, drawn from the outcasts of society, who did not judge him by his relative poverty, or by the evils he was supposed to have done, but by his true character, which they were in the best possible position to know.

These connections, some of them homosexual, are probably the reason why Sulla has not been a favourite of early twentieth century historians, at least in England. Thankfully, we are now able to see the real person behind the labels that certainly show only a very small part of this full and many-faceted character. He was a man who lived and struggled, won and lost, all within the bounds of Rome’s greatest time, surrounded by a large number of the finest and most vibrant people who have ever lived.

This biography will seek to show Sulla as a brave, capable, devout man of his time. I feel strongly that he deserves a better understanding of his difficulties and an appreciation of his undoubted achievements. It is a great pity that most of those achievements were torn down after his death and Rome’s society returned gladly enough to that from which he had tried to save it. He certainly intended to prevent the self-aggrandizement of those whose only interest was in their own greed. Few men lasted long in the political arena of Rome, though Sulla, in his eventual retirement, enjoyed a rounding off of his public life that was indeed unusual. He must have known that his health was failing and that he had only a short time left to live.

Other maligned historical characters have benefited from a modern rehabilitation of their reputations. Two favourites of mine, Anne Boleyn and Richard III have in recent years been looked at far more fairly. Eric Ives has done wonderful work in showing that Anne Boleyn was far more than just a greedy and ambitious good-time girl who got what she deserved for being nasty to Queen Catherine, who is often represented as a patient Griselda. David Starkey has also achieved a great deal with his research, which shows clearly that there is a lot more to their story than originally met the eye!

I have for many years been a member of the Richard III Society and have seen first-hand the excellent work that has been done, and is still being done, to put before the public the knowledge they need to evaluate King Richard differently. Every effort is made to focus more on what he was attempting to achieve, rather than the later Tudor ‘monster’ fairy stories that have been prevalent for so long.

I believe that it is now high time that Lucius Cornelius Sulla was looked at more equably. I am aware that mine may be something of a lone voice initially, and my theories regarding the reasons for his actions will undoubtedly be highly controversial, as a new opinion so often is. Nevertheless, I would welcome an opportunity to ask readers to reconsider the usual glib accounts of him and give him a fair hearing, as he undoubtedly deserves.

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, lack of either of these essential commodities would just as easily close those doors to him for good, despite any natural ability in learning or military skill he may have had, which might have otherwise been considered useful to Rome.

A Patrician had to be seen to be a Patrician, and a certain amount of freehandedness was obligatory. Without it he would be unable to make the necessary friends, or enrol the necessary clients, who would be expected to accompany any important (or seemingly important) man about his daily business. This entourage, continually following him about, was the visible sign of the up and coming man without which he would not be taken as a serious contender for any political position. It was the mark of his popularity and the visible number of his clients showed his power and supposed influence.

Finally, without money even the lowest position would be impossible for him. It is a fact that although on the face of it any man in a republic is supposed to be considered equal to any other and can aspire to greatness on ability alone; in reality all political life requires vast sums of money. This is not only to achieve high office but also to oil the wheels once there. Any hopeful without money available to him, either his own or someone else’s, is definitely surplus to requirements.

It was in this eminently practical and essentially heartless world that the young and ambitious Lucius Cornelius Sulla would have to struggle to find his place.

Chapter Two

Poverty is, of course, relative. The young Lucius Cornelius was not in danger of starvation, and was, so far as we can