815 



SULLA. 



SULLA. 



816 



which was subsequently contracted into Sylla or Sulla. (Macrob., 

 'Sat.,'i. 17.) This account however is 'fabulous, for as Rufus and 

 Sulla have the same meaning, it is more probable that the change of 

 the one name for the other was only an arbitrary alteration. 

 Plutarch (' Sulla,' 2) states that the dictator Sulla was the first who 

 bore this surname, from which it is evident that Plutarch had read 

 the memoirs of the dictator, or at least that part iu which this point 

 was explained, very carelessly. 



2. P. CORNELIUS SULLA, a son of the former (1), was praetor in 

 Sicily in the year B.C. 186. (Liv., xxxix. 6, 8.) 



3. SERVIDS CORNELIUS SULLA, a brother of P. Cornelius Sulla (2). 

 In the year B.C. 167 he was one of the ten Roman commissioners who, 

 after the death of Perseus, were sent to Macedonia to arrange the 

 affairs of that country. (Liv., xlv. 17.) 



4. L. CORNELIUS SULLA, the father of the dictator Sulla, of 'whom 

 nothing is known, except that he was not a man of any great property. 

 (Plut., ' Sulla,' 1.) 



5. L. COHNELIUS SULLA FELIX, the son of L. Cornelius Sulla (4), 

 was born in B.C. 138, in. the consulship of P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica 

 Serapio and D. Junius Brutus Gallaicus. When a young man he lived 

 for a considerable time at Rome in lodgings, and in the same house 

 with a freedman, which was looked upon as a proof of his limited 

 means. But he appears nevertheless to have received an education as 

 good as any of the illustrious young Romans of that time. (Sallust, 

 ' Jug.,' 95.) He indulged however in all kinds of debauchery ; arid 

 women, actors, mimes, and buffoons were his favourite companions to 

 the last years of his life. He appears to have been foreinobt among 

 the fashionable young nobles of the time, and was always an especial 

 favourite of the women. His stepmother loved him like her own son, 

 and when she died he came into the possession of all her property. 

 Nicopolis, one of his mistresses, who possessed considerable property, 

 also bequeathed it all to him. His fortune being thus improved, he 

 was enabled to enter into competition with others for the honours of 

 the republic. In B.C. 107 he was appointed quaestor, and was sent 

 with a detachment of horse to join the army of Marius, who was then 

 carrying on the war against Jugurtha. The stern warrior was at first 

 somewhat indignant that such an apparently effeminate young noble- 

 man was sent to him as quaestor in such an important campaign. But 

 Sulla, although he had hitherto appeared totally ignorant of military 

 affairs, soon showed himself to be the most active and skilful officer 

 in the Roman camp, and gained the confidence and admiration of 

 Marius. He also possessed in the highest degree the art of winning 

 the affection of his soldiers. (Sallust, ' Jug.,' 96.) In the battle of 

 Cirta, Sulla commanded the horse, and greatly contributed towards 

 the victory over Jugurtha and Bocchus. (Sallust, 'Jug.,' 101.) After 

 this victory Bocchus began his treacherous negociations with the 

 Romans, and Marius sent Sulla and A. Manlius as ambassadors to the 

 king. By his duplicity Sulla induced Bocchus to take a decided 

 course, the consequence of which was that Jugurtha was treacherously 

 delivered up into the hands of the Romans. (Sallust, 'Jug.,' 102-13.) 

 Sulla was so proud of having outdone the Numidian king, so famous 

 for his cunning and his prudence, that he had a seal-ring made, on 

 which Bocchus was represented in the act of delivering Jugurtha 

 into the hands of Sulla; and this seal he used to the end of his 

 life. (Plut., 'Sull.,' 3 ; Plin., 'Hist. Nat.,' xxxvii. 4 ; Val. Max., viii. 

 14, 4.) 



When Marius, in his second consulship (B.C. 104), undertook the 

 war against the Cimbri and Teutones, he made Sulla his legate, who 

 distinguished himself by making Copillus, a chieftain of the Tectosagi, 

 his prisoner. The year following Sulla remained in the camp of 

 Marius as tribunus militum, and again distinguished himself. But in 

 the third year, B.C. 102, he left Marius and joined the army of Lutatius 

 Catulus, the colleague of Marius, who was stationed with a force in 

 the north of Italy. Plutarch ascribes this step of Sulla to the 

 jealousy of Marius, who, he says, feared lest his own fame might be 

 eclipsed by that of his tribune. But the real cause of this movement 

 was in the actual state of things. Sulla must have been aware that in 

 the army of Catulus, who, although a good man, was not an able 

 general, his services would be much more useful; aud that there was 

 a much greater sphere of activity for his talents as an officer in the 

 army of Catulus than in that of Marius. If there existed an ill-feeling 

 at all, it is much more likely that the aristocratic Sulla felt indignant 

 at a plebeian being elected consul uninterruptedly one year after the 

 other. Sulla, while in the army of Catulus, was the soul of all under- 

 takings, and he made several successful expeditions against the Alpine 

 tribes. On one occasion, when the army of Catulus began to suffer 

 severely from want of provisions, Sulla contrived to obtain such 

 plentiful supplies, that Catulus was enabled to send some to the 

 army of Marius. 



After the defeat of the Cimbri (B.C. 101) Sulla returned to Rome, 

 where he resumed his old course of life. He did not come forward as 

 a candidate for any public office until the year B.C. 94, when he was 

 a candidate for the prretorship. But he was not elected, because the 

 people, as he himself stated in his Memoirs, wished him first t > hold 

 the office of sedile, as they expected that on entering on the tedileship 

 he would amuse them with magnificent games and exhibit African 

 beasts in the Circus, as it was known that he was a friend of Bocchus, 

 who would easily procure for him rare and beautiful animals. (Plut., 



' Sull.,' 5.) In the year B.C. 93 however he gained his object by can- 

 vassing and bribing : he was made praetor urbanus (trrpoTTj-yia ir<>A.m/^, 

 Plut.; comp. Aurel. Viet., 'De Vir. Illustr.,' 75), and exhibited to the 

 people the games which they had expected from his aedileship. (Plin., 

 'Hist. Nat.,' viii. 20.) The year after his praetorship he went as pro- 

 praetor to Cilicia with a commission to restore King Ariobarzanes to 

 his kingdom of Cappadccia, from which he had been driven through 

 the influence of Mithridates. This object was soon accomplished ; 

 and this bold and successful undertaking excited the attention of 

 Arsaces, king of the Parthians, who, while Sulla was staying some- 

 where near the Euphrates, sent a messenger to him soliciting the 

 friendship of the Roman people. The request was granted, though 

 Sulla, who felt the honour of being the first Roman to whom such an 

 application was made by a Parthian king, treated the ambassador 

 with haughtiness and arrogance. In B.C. 91, wh-n Sulla returned to 

 Rome, Caius Censorinus brought against him the charge of repetuudae 

 or malversation, in his office of propraetor, but did not follow it up. 

 In this year the Marsic or Social War commenced, and for a time 

 delayed the outbreak of the furious hostility between Marius and 

 Sulla, which was kindled by apparently trivial circumstances. (Plut., 

 'SulL,' 6.) Both Marius and Sulla commanded separate divisions of 

 the Roman army, and the latter distinguished himself much more 

 than Marius, who perhaps already began to incline towards the cause 

 of the Italians. In B.C. 89 Sulla was legate of the consul L. Cato. and 

 destroyed the Campanian town of Stabiac. (Plin., 'Hist. Nat.,' iii. 9.) 

 He also defeated L. Cluentius near Pompeii, pursued him as far as 

 Nola and compelled the Hirpini to submit. In Samnium he surprised 

 and routed the army of Motilus, and took Bovianum by storm after 

 a siege of three hours. (Appian, 'De BelL Civ.,' i. 50.) During this 

 war Sulla left nothing untried to gain the goodwill of the soldiers ;' and 

 he even connived at their gross excesses. Thus when the soldiers beat 

 to death with sticks his own legate Albinus, a man who had filled the 

 office of praetor, Sulla not only did not punish this outrage, but 

 rather boasted of it, saying that his men would fight all the better 

 for it. (Plut., 'Sull.,' 6.) When the time approached for elacting 

 the consuls for the year following, Sulla went to Rome to offer him- 

 self as a candidate. His successful campaigns had gained him such 

 popularity, that he was almost unanimously elected consul for the 

 year B.C. 88. (Vellei. Pat., ii. 17.) He was now in the forty-ninth 

 year of his age. His colleague was Q. Pompeius Rufus, who obtained 

 Italy as his province. Sulla had Asia and the command in the war 

 against Mithridates. The Social War was still going on, and Marius 

 was not only exasperated because his former quaestor was now his 

 equal, but was at the same time anxious to get the command in the 

 war against Mithridates, and with this view he persuaded the tribune 

 P. Sulpicius to give him his assistance in depriving Sulla of the power 

 intrusted to him. A direct attempt to this effect would have been 

 imprudent. Marius and Sulpicius therefore first tried to gain the 

 interest of the Italian allies, and to identify the popular cause, repre- 

 sented by Marius, with that of the allies. With this view Sulpicius 

 proposed two measures, first, to recall those who had been exiled on 

 account of the support they had given to the allies; and, secondly, 

 to distribute those Italians who had obtained the franchise, but had 

 been formed into new tribes, among the thirty-five old tribes, the 

 object of which was to increase the weight of their suffrage. (Liv., 

 ' Epit.,' 77; Appian, 'De Bell. Civ.,' i. 55.) These proposals met with 

 the most determinate opposition from the old citizens, and the Forum 

 became the scene of terrible violence. The popular party, by far the 

 most numerous, would have carried the day, but Sulla, who was with 

 his army in the neighbourhood of Nola, returned to Rome, and in 

 order to put an end to the violent proceedings in the Forum, he and 

 his colleague proclaimed a justicium for several days. But Sulpicius 

 and his party, armed with daggers, appeared in the Forum, declared 

 the proclamation of the consuls to be unlawful, and endeavoured to 

 compel them to repeal the justitium. This again increased the tumult, 

 and Pompeius was obliged to take to flight, and his son who had 

 married a daughter of Sulla, was murdered. Sulla himself, who had 

 escaped into the house of Marius, was dragged forth and compelled to 

 repeal the justitium, after which he returned to his army at Nola. In 

 the meantime the rogations of Sulpicius were carried, and the command 

 in the war against Mithridates was given to Marius. When the mes- 

 sengers from Rome came to the camp of Sulla with orders for him to 

 surrender the command, the soldiers, who loved Sulla, aud who were 

 of opinion that Marius would not lead them to Asia, where they 

 expected a rich harvest of booty, called on Sulla to lead them to 

 Rome. Several officers of the camp, who were opposed to civil war, 

 retired to the city, while numbers of other persons flocked from the 

 city to the camp of Sulla. All signs and omens, to which Sulla pre- 

 tended to attribute great importance, were in his favour, and with the 

 declaration that he was going to deliver Rome from its tyrants, he 

 marched with six legions against the city, which he took by storm. 

 A battle followed within the walls, in which Marius and his party 

 were defeated. Marius escaped to Africa, and Sulpicius, betrayed 

 by one of his slaves, was put to death. Sulla and his colleague 

 on this occasion prevented the soldiers as much as possible from 

 committing any outrage upon the citizens. Besides the two leaders 

 of the popular party, ten others were declared enemies of the republic, 

 their property was confiscated, and agents were sent in all directions 



