Ancient Rome: The Lives of Great Men

by Mary Agnes Hamilton

SULLA
from a coin

Thus while Romans were fighting one another the lands beyond the seas of which they were so proud, and which were the source of most of their wealth, were in rebellion. Men of their own race had been massacred by Asiatics. Each day the news grew worse. In Rome there were riots in the streets. Sulla had been named commander against Mithridates. Marius could not bear this. He got his friends to bring in a Bill transferring the command to him. It was carried, but amid such disorder that senators and consuls fled from the city. Sulla had left the riots and disorders of Rome to go to his army at Nola. There he received the order to hand over the command to Marius. If Marius expected him to obey he had misread the character of the man he hated. Sulla’s answer was to march upon Rome at the head of his legions. There he was welcomed by the remnant of the Senate as the restorer of law and order. Marius fled.

Of the sudden rise of Sulla, Plutarch gives the following account:

Sulla Felix

In the long Social War, with all its vicissitudes and disasters, and dangers that threatened the safety of Rome, Marius could achieve nothing great, and merely proved that military excellence demands physical strength and vigour, while Sulla by many notable victories gained the reputation of a great general with the people, of the greatest of generals with his friends, and of the most fortunate with his enemies. Yet he was not sensitive about this last judgement as Timotheus the son of Conon was; for when his enemies attributed all his successes to fortune, and painted pictures in which he was represented asleep with Fortune casting a net over the cities, Timotheus was rude to them and angry, feeling that they deprived him of the credit due to his deeds. Sulla, on the other hand, not only accepted without annoyance the ‘felicity’ thus assigned to him, but even magnifying it and recognizing it as divine, he made fortune responsible for his exploits, either in a spirit of ostentation or from a genuine belief in providential guidance. For example, he has written in his memoirs that of all his decisions which were justified by results the happiest were not reached by deliberation, but adopted in the hurry of the moment. Moreover, when he says that he was born for fortune rather than for war, he seems to have more respect for fortune than for merit and to accept the control of an unseen power; insomuch that he makes a divine good luck the cause of his harmony with Metellus, his kinsman and colleague in the consulship; for he expected to have much trouble with him, but found him a most agreeable partner in office. Again, in the memoirs, which he has dedicated to Lucullus, he bids him place most reliance on any warning given him by a vision in the night. He tells us, too, that when he was leaving the city with an army to fight in the Social War, the earth opened near Laverna and a great fire gushed out, shooting up a bright flame to the sky. The prophets interpreted this to mean that a man of genius, who was of unusual and remarkable appearance, would take the command and free the country from its present disorders. Sulla declares that he was the man; for his golden hair was the peculiarity in his appearance, and he felt no diffidence in ascribing genius to himself after his great achievements.

Plutarch, xxxiii. 6. 2-7.

In many respects Lucius Cornelius Sulla is the most extraordinary figure in Roman history. Belonging to a very old family, the same as that of the Scipios, he grew up in genteel poverty, living in one of the large blocks of flats that had been built near the centre of the town. He was extremely handsome, with every grace of form and feature, tall, well built, with a face of classic outline, marred in later life by a hot and somewhat mottled complexion, but distinguished by eyes of a brilliant blue: eyes that could upon occasion flash fire. They did not often do so, for Sulla was a person of ice-cold reserve, seldom carried away by his feelings. Highly educated and gifted with unusual powers of mind, he looked out upon the world and despised most people in it. His was a mind incapable of feeling any sort of religious appeal. Most of the things people strove after seemed to him stupid, because there was no pleasure in them. He was what is called a cynic.

Until he was nearly fifty Sulla took no important part in public affairs. He served with great distinction in Africa. His unshakable courage and complete self-control, combined as they were with rare powers of making men do what he wanted and an absolute belief in himself, made him a successful commander. But for military glory in itself he did not care, or for any other kind of glory. To him these things were illusions. Nor was he stirred by patriotism in the ordinary sense. He saw the Rome of his time very much as it was and did not consider it worth the sacrifice of a pleasure. The aristocrats seemed to him selfish and stupid: the popular party vulgar and stupid. He saw what was going to happen but had none of the belief that inspires idealists that he could change the course of events. ‘Things are what they are; the consequences will be what they will be. Why then should we seek to be deceived?’ This, said two thousand years later, was a true description of Sulla’s point of view. He looked on, coldly scornful; and amused himself, like other well-to-do men of his class, with the arts in their lower as well as their higher forms. But, when occasion called, he could act. When the Social War broke out, and all hands in Rome were, as it were, called to the pumps, Sulla was ready. He proved more successful, if also more ruthless, than any other commander in the field; he understood, better than any one else, the supreme danger in which Rome stood. It was this, and not personal ambition in the ordinary sense, that made him take the command against Mithridates, and march on Rome when the Marius faction showed that they were incapable of keeping order there.