The republican era of ancient Rome was a period in which Rome was ruled by the senate, a group of Patricians with no single person in power. The republican era ended with Julius Caesar and many assume that Caesar solely led to the downfall of republican Rome, however, there were many significant figures that ultimately led to the downfall of this instated government. Sulla was one of these such figures and due to his dictatorship, proscriptions, and reforms in the republican system, he contributed greatly to Caesar's final blow against the Roman Republic. Lucius Cornelius Sulla (138-78 BCE) was a ruthless military commander, who first distinguished himself in the Numidian War under the command of Gaius Marius. His relationship with Marius soured during the conflicts that would follow and lead to a rivalry that would only end with Marius' death. Sulla eventually seized control of the Republic, named himself dictator, and after eliminating his enemies, initiated crucial reforms. However, the reforms he initiated could not save the city from its future. Despite believing in a Republican system, sulla used force to come into power in Rome which indirectly led to people believing that they too, with enough manpower, could also take control of Rome. Additionally, once dictator, he made multiple reforms to the system he governed which contradicted the very idea of a republican government as they were slowly reinstating regal concepts. Sulla's dictatorship and regal pretensions started the deterioration of the republican system and ultimately led to its downfall.
In the final years of the roman republic, the government was split into two factions. The optimates favored the traditional organization of government which was controlled primarily by the Senate. On the other hand, there were the Populares who used the rights and powers of the popular assemblies to enact their agendas, however, they were not led by the people but rather were an aristocratic party seeking to circumvent the power of the Senate. The division began in the time of the Gracchi, generations earlier, and this rivalry eventually led to the cesarean civil war which brought on the fall of the republic era. Forty years prior to the fall, the two parties engaged in a mass bloodshed now known as the civil war of Marius and Sulla. Sulla was the leader of the optimates and the Populares soon became known as the party of Marius. Their rivalry broke out into open hostilities when Sulla was elected consul in 88 B.C., and was also chosen to lead an army against Mithridates. The Populares however, favored Marius to lead the army, and revoked Sulla's commission, so that the leadership of the army became a point of contention between the two political parties, thus turning what had been a political rivalry into a contest of wills between two powerful generals. When the Populares faction prevailed, Sulla fled to his army, camped outside the city, and then, for the first time in history, he led a Roman army into the city itself, in gross violation of all principles of government. He was welcomed by the senate, however, who considered the election of Marius an illegal act. Thus, Sulla made himself the dictator of Rome to reinstate the power of the Senate.
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As Plutarch describes it, “… he revived a type of office that had not been used for 120 years and proclaimed himself dictator. And a decree was passed giving him immunity from all his past deeds and for the future, the power to condemn people to death, to confiscate property, found colonies, raze towns, and overthrow kings at whim”(Plutarch 211). This was a level of power that was unprecedented for the Republic and created chaos within Rome as Sulla proceeded to do whatever struck his fancy. The new dictator introduced a judicial process called the prescription. Essentially this new concept was an open publication listing names of people he deemed to be undesirable. A reign of terror ensued with rewards offered for the death or capture of any name on the list. At first, the proscriptions were mainly focused on Sulla's direct enemies and supporters, but eventually, the death toll would reach epidemic proportions. As Plutarch said, “He seems to have had a character that was very irregular and full of inconsistencies. He would have a man beaten to death for some inconsiderable offense; yet on other occasions, he would meekly put up with serious misdeeds”. Plutarch was a biographer shortly after the time of Sulla and he often wrote biographies of people in the worst possible light. Despite the possibility of bias, he based his work on available sources and made up nothing himself and he is therefore a valid and reliable source. Simply by forcing himself as dictator of Rome and breaking the constitution, he showed the populous of Rome that with enough manpower, the city of Rome could be theirs. Sulla not only butchered the constitution through various reforms he made but also focused his power on the leading members of the Roman ruling classes. “…he was proscribing everyone who came to mind… He also proscribed anyone who sheltered and saved the life of a proscribed person…”(Plutarch 209). Senators and enemies were listed on his proscription list. Thus, with Sulla’s actions, a Republic established by the murder of many of its senators by a murderous tyrant would now be undone by the murder of many of its senators by a murderous tyrant.
Even if Sulla did not realize the full magnitude of his actions as he tried to reform the Senate, he did try to use his action to make changes to the Senate. Nevertheless, Sulla’s attempt to recreate and rebrand the Roman Republic proved feeble to fight the trends that Sulla himself set in motion. “It was the this republic of Sulla, not a more traditional one, that proved so unstable in the 70s BC and beyond, as it slowly disintegrated, even as no second lawgiver emerged to propose a systematic and workable revision of Sulla’s system of government”(Harriet 12-13). Sulla’s constitution, constantly revised in the years after his death, was simply a holdover until a more permanent governing system replaced it. Despite strengthening the senate during his dictatorship, he overall threatened the existence of the senate and a republican government. Through his extensive program of constitutional reform, he intended mainly to re-establish the supremacy of the Senate in the Roman state, and his administrative reforms did indeed survive to the end of the republic. However, there is no denying the fact that the forcible control of Rome contributed to its inevitable downfall.
The Republic would never truly recover from the shock of this civil war and was but a shadow of its former self as other dictators like Caesar would soon rise to take Sulla’s place. “When the civil war came and the victor once again had to have a position beyond challenge, Caesar found that the only office which he could devise was precisely the monster invented by Sulla”(Ridley 229)
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