Historical sources on Lucius Cornelius Sulla

Excerpt A 

During the attack on the fortress the quaestor Lucius Sulla arrived in camp with a large force of horsemen which he had mustered from Latium and the allies, having been left in Rome for that purpose. And since the event has brought that great man to our attention, it seems fitting to say a few words about his life and character; for we shall not speak elsewhere of Sulla's affairs, and Lucius Sisenna, whose account of him is altogether the best and most careful, has not, in my opinion, spoken with sufficient frankness. Sulla, then, was a noble of patrician descent, of a family almost reduced to obscurity through the degeneracy of his ancestors. He was well versed alike in Grecian and Roman letters, of remarkable mental power, devoted to pleasure but more devoted to glory. In his leisure hours he lived extravagantly, yet pleasure never interfered with his duties, except that his conduct as a husband might have been more honourable. He was eloquent, clever, and quick to make friends. He had a mind deep beyond belief in its power of disguising its purposes, and was generous with many things, especially with money. 

Excerpt B 

Now Sulla, as I have already said, after he came with his cavalry to Africa and the camp of Marius, although he was without previous experience and untrained in war, soon became the best soldier in the whole army. Moreover, he was courteous in his language to the soldiers, granted favours to many at their request and to others of his own accord, being himself reluctant to accept favours and yet quicker to repay them than a debt of money. He himself never sought repayment, but rather tried to have as many men as possible in his debt. His only effort was not to suffer anyone to outdo him in counsel or in action, and as a matter of fact he surpassed almost all. Such being his character and conduct, he was soon greatly beloved by both Marius and the soldiers. 

Excerpt C 

Marius immediately selected Lucius Sulla and Aulus Manlius, and they, although they had been sent for by the king, decided to address him. Sulla spoke for himself and Manlius, though Sulla was an inferior in rank, because he had the ability in speaking and Manlius was experienced in the arts of war but not in speaking. 

Excerpt D 

When day came and he was told that Jugurtha was not far off, he proceeded with a few friends and the Roman quaestor to a mound in full sight of those who were in ambush, as had been agreed. Jugurtha came to the same place unarmed and with only a few followers, as had been agreed, and immediately on a given signal those who were in concealment rushed upon him from all sides at once. His companions were killed; the king himself was bound and delivered to Sulla, who took him to Marius. 

Contextual information:

Gaius Sallustius Crispus (c. 86–35 BC) was a Roman senator and historian who served under Julius Caesar. The Jugurthine War is a historical monograph describing Rome's military campaign in North Africa against the Numidian king Jugurtha, fought between 112 and 106 BC. Sallust composed the work in approximately 41–40 BC, drawing on earlier accounts and his own knowledge of Roman political life. 

Bibliographical reference:

Sallust. (1921). The war with Jugurtha (J. C. Rolfe, Trans.; Chapters 95, 96, 102, 113). Harvard University Press. (Original work published c. 41–40 BC). 

Copyright: Public domain. 

Excerpt A 

[Sulla – also spelled Sylla] was chosen quaestor to Marius in his first consulship, and set sail with him for Libya, to war upon Jugurtha. Here he gained approbation; and, besides, had opportunity of making friends of Bocchus, king of Numidia. Some ambassadors from Bocchus, arriving at Rome, were hospitably received by him, Bocchus himself invited Sulla to come to him, wishing the seizure and surrender of Jugurtha to be effected rather through him, than directly by himself. Sulla communicated the design to Marius, and having received a small detachment, voluntarily put himself in great danger by going to Bocchus. Bocchus, having both of them now in his power, was necessitated to betray one or other, and after long debate with himself, at last resolved on his first design, and gave up Jugurtha into the hands of Sylla. For this Marius triumphed, but the glory of the enterprise, which through people's envy of Marius was ascribed to Sylla, secretly grieved him. 

Excerpt B

At his return to Rome he was chosen consul with Quintus Pompeius, in the fiftieth year of his age, and made a most distinguished marriage with Caecilia, daughter of Metellus, the chief priest. 

Excerpt C 

At present esteeming the consulship but a small matter in comparison of things to come, he was impatiently carried away in thought to the Mithridatic War. Here he was withstood by Marius; who out of mad affectation of glory and thirst for distinction, those never dying passions, though he were now unwieldy in body, and had given up service, on account of his age, during the late campaigns, still coveted after command in a distant war beyond the seas. And while Sylla was gone to his army, Sulpicius, a most audacious person, who feared no man, passing a law to recall exiles and giving freedom to slaves that they might be ready for whatever he should command, and arming himself with their assistance, on a sudden fell upon the consuls while they were sitting in the forum, and amongst other outrages, threw the fasces of one of them into the Tiber. They allowed Sylla to continue his consulship, only transferring the Mithridatic expedition to Marius. 

Excerpt D

With his colleague he moved from Nola, at the head of six complete legions, all of them willing to march up directly against the city. As he advanced, he found Rome in an uproar; many there besought him to desist, and Marius with his friends tried to make a stand. But Sulla, with his colleague, forced their way in, making use of fire-darts against those who he saw attempting to defend the walls by throwing tiles and stones at them from the tops of houses. Making his entry by main force, he called aloud to his men to set fire to the houses, and taking a flaming torch, he himself led the way, and commanded the archers to make use of their fire-darts, letting fly at the tops of houses; all which he did, not upon any plan, but simply in his fury, yielding the conduct of that day's work to passion. Marius was driven out of Rome, and notices were put up declaring him a public enemy. 

Excerpt E 

Sylla, having thus ordered affairs at Rome, and having created Lucius Cinna consul, one of the adverse party, having first bound him under oaths and imprecations to be favourable to his interest, marched against Mithridates. When Cinna and Carbo were using injustice and violence towards persons of the greatest eminence, many of them to avoid this tyranny repaired, as to a safe harbour, to Sylla's camp, where, in a short space, he had about him the aspect of a senate. 

Excerpt F

Sylla now being master of the field, and his affairs generally succeeding to his wish, proclaimed himself dictator, reviving this particular office after a lapse of one hundred and twenty years. There was an act passed, securing indemnity for all past acts, and granting him for the future the power of life and death, of confiscation, of colonization, of founding or demolishing cities, and of taking away or bestowing kingdoms at his pleasure. 

Excerpt G

And at the first, he proscribed only eighty persons without communicating with any magistrate; and in spite of the general indignation, after a single day's interval, he proscribed two hundred and twenty others, and then on the third day, as many more. In an edict he made it a capital offense to harbour or conceal any of the proscribed, making no exception in favour of a brother, son, or parents. And to him that should kill any of the proscribed, he ordained two talents as the reward of the slaughter, even were it a slave who had killed his master, or a son who had killed his father. But the greatest injustice of all was, that he took away all civil rights from the sons and grandsons of those who had been proscribed, and caused their estates to be confiscated. 

Excerpt H

He modelled the offices of government afresh; he also enlarged the senate, which had been much thinned, and filled it up to the number of three hundred, by admitting the most distinguished of the equestrian order; and he referred to the people several things which had previously been at the disposal of the tribunes, whose power he greatly curtailed. He enacted that no man who had been tribune should ever after be capable of any other magistracy; by which means he discouraged all men of spirit or ambition from ever coming into that office. 

Excerpt I

But his corporal strength failed him by degrees; and for a long time he was insensible to his infirmity, and continued his former way of life, though he was actually ill. But he died shortly after, having finished his Memoirs two days before his death. He says in them, that the Chaldaeans foretold that having lived a glorious life, he should end it after a period of good fortune. He says, too, that in a dream he saw his son, who had died not long before Metella, standing by him in a mean habit, and entreating his father to lay aside all further care, and come along with him to his mother Metella, there to live at ease and quiet with her. He was not therefore, entirely a stranger to the warnings he received from above. For as soon as he had put the last hand to his Memoirs, he died in the night, having lived to the age of sixty years. 

Contextual information:

Plutarch (c. AD 46–120) was a Greek historian and biographer from Chaeronea in Boeotia. He served as a Roman citizen and wrote the Parallel Lives, a collection of paired biographies comparing notable Greeks and Romans. The Life of Sulla was written approximately 160 years after Sulla's death in 78 BC, drawing on earlier Latin and Greek sources, including the now-lost autobiography that Sulla himself composed. 

Bibliographical reference:

Plutarch. (1683–1686). Life of Sulla ["Sylla"] (J. Dryden, Trans.; Rev. A. H. Clough, 1859; Chapters 3, 6, 7–8, 9–10, 22, 33, 31, 33–34, 37). In Plutarch's lives of the noble Grecians and Romans. 

Copyright: Public domain. 

Excerpt A

When Sulla heard of this he resolved to decide the question by war, and called the army together to a conference. The army fell to lamenting and fearing lest they should be deprived of their share in the Mithridatic war. The soldiers themselves uttered boldly what Sulla had in mind, and told him to be of good courage, and to lead them to Rome. Sulla was overjoyed and led six legions thither forthwith. When envoys came from Rome to Sulla asking why he was marching with armed forces against his own country, he replied that he was marching to deliver her from tyrants. 

Excerpt B

Thus the seditions proceeded from strife and contention to murder, and from murder to open war, and now the first army of her own citizens had invaded Rome as a hostile country. From this time the seditions were decided only by the arbitrament of arms. There were frequent attacks upon the city, and battles before the walls and all other calamities of war. Henceforth there was no restraint upon violence either from the sense of shame, or regard for law, institutions, or country. 

Excerpt C

Sulla now being master of the field, and his affairs generally succeeding to his wish, had himself chosen dictator — an office that had been in abeyance for about 120 years, the last dictator before him having been appointed in the time of the second Punic War. He thus became at once king and tyrant de facto, not elected, but holding power by force and violence. As the power of the dictator was formerly absolute, Sulla's power was now still more nearly absolute; for he had soldiers to support him. There had been autocratic rule of the dictators before, but it was limited to short periods. But in Sulla's time it first became unlimited and so an absolute tyranny; yet they added, for propriety's sake, that they chose him dictator for the enactment of such laws as he himself might deem best and for the regulation of the commonwealth. 

Excerpt D

After saying this he forthwith proscribed about forty senators and 1,600 knights. He seems to have been the first to make a formal list of those whom he punished, to offer prizes to assassins and rewards to informers, and to threaten with punishment those who should conceal the proscribed. Shortly afterward he added the names of more senators to the proscription. Some of these, taken unawares, were killed where they were caught, in their houses, in the streets, or in the temples. Others were hurled through mid-air and thrown at Sulla's feet. Others were dragged through the city and trampled on, none of the spectators daring to utter a word of remonstrance. 

Excerpt E

He reduced the tribunician power to such an extent that it seemed to be destroyed. He curtailed it by a law which provided that one holding the office of tribune should never afterward hold any other office; for which reason all men of reputation or family, who formerly contended for this office, shunned it thereafter. 

Excerpt F

While he was living in the country Sulla had a dream in which he thought he saw his Genius already calling him. Immediately he summoned his friends and made his will. After sealing it he was taken with a fever towards evening and died the same night. He was sixty years of age. 

Contextual information:

Appian of Alexandria (c. AD 95–165) was a Greek-speaking Roman historian who served as an imperial procurator under the emperors Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. The Civil Wars is the fifth section of his larger work on Roman history, the Romaika. Book I focuses on the period of political violence and civil conflict from the Gracchi through the dictatorship of Sulla, covering events from approximately 133 to 70 BC. 

Bibliographical reference:

Appian. (1899). The civil wars (H. White, Trans.; Book I, §§57, 60, 95, 98–100, 105). Macmillan and Co. (Original work written c. AD 150). 

Copyright: Public domain.