https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulla%27s_civil_war 83BC
preceding events:
- War Of Octavius in 87 BC, another civil war between two Roman consuls over Italian voting rights and return of Gaius Marius from exile (Marian-Cinna faction) - who married Julius Caesar’s aunt and whose partner Cinna’s daughter married Julius Caesar
- GM has been consul 6 times by this point
- then Sulla, initally given command to fight Mithridates in the East marches on Rome over a power struggle with GM
- part of this is thanks to GM’s reforms which offered non-Romans (specifically those with no property or capite censi) a path to land (and citizenship) via joining the army, hence Sulla’s army at this point was the first to be loyal to him (the patron) vs. the Republic… when they marched on Rome, all but one of his officers defected
“This was a momentous event, unforeseen by Marius, as no Roman army had ever marched upon Rome: it was forbidden by law and ancient tradition. ”
Video on from Marius to Caesar
the events:
- so GM goes into exile but returns with Cinna who raised 10 legions
- they sweep into Rome and execute political rivals and get elected consul, GM for the 7th time
“Their heads were exhibited in the Forum. Fourteen of the victims, including six former consuls, were noteworthy individuals”
- GM dies a week later,
- Sulla comes back and wins a big battle, becomes dictator, and wipes out his enemies
“Sulla ordered some 1,500 nobles (i.e. senators and equites) executed, although as many as 9,000 people were estimated to have been killed. The purge went on for several months. Helping or sheltering a proscribed person was punishable by death, while killing a proscribed person was rewarded with two talents. Family members of the proscribed were not excluded from punishment, and slaves were not excluded from rewards. As a result, “husbands were butchered in the arms of their wives, sons in the arms of their mothers.” The majority of the proscribed had not been enemies of Sulla, but instead were killed for their property, which was confiscated and auctioned off. The proceeds from auctioned property more than made up for the cost of rewarding those who killed the proscribed, filling the treasury. Possibly to protect himself from future political retribution, Sulla had the sons and grandsons of the proscribed banned from running for political office, a restriction not removed for over 30 years.”
after:
- tried to enact reforms and accountability that would be later undone in 10 years
- interesting parallel between cursus honorum, e.g. “To have held each office at the youngest possible age (suo anno, “in his own year”) was considered a great political success. For instance, to miss out on a praetorship at 39 meant that one could not become consul at 42” and Chinese political office?
- retires after second consulship and becomes a normal man?
“Sulla, true to his traditionalist sentiments, resigned his dictatorship in early 79, disbanded his legions, and re-established normal consular government. He dismissed his lictores and walked unguarded in the Forum, offering to give account of his actions to any citizen.”
GM
“Marius’s legacy is heavily defined by his example: his five successive consulships, while seen contemporaneously as necessary for the survival of Roman civilisation, gave unprecedented power into the hands of a single man over a never-before-seen length of time.” “His life and career, by breaking with many of the precedents that bound the ambitious upper class of the Roman republic together and instituting a soldiery loyal not to the republic but to their commanders, contributed to Rome’s transformation from republic to empire.”