Sulla: the first Roman to march on Rome
Lucius Cornelius Sulla was a remarkable soldier. As a general in the Social War, he was awarded the rare corona graminea (a grass crown, similar to Medal of Honour) for his personal ability and bravery. As a politician he was equally successful, becoming consul for the first time in 88 BC, aged around 50 years old, and for the second in 80 BC. However, he also holds the debatable honor of being the first Roman to invade Rome, not once, but twice.
Invading Rome wasn’t his only innovation. In 87 BC, after first marching on Rome and either butchering or expelling his enemies with his troops, Sulla became the first recorded Roman to apply the term hostis or “enemy of the state” internally; to political enemies rather than just foreign enemies. This set a problematic example. When he left Rome in 87 BC to wage war against the Asian King Mithridates VI his enemies, especially his main rival Gaius Marius, repaid the favor.
Having himself been declared hostis, when he had successful completed the Mithridatic War in 83 BC, Sulla once again marched on Rome. His legions met those of the Marians at the Colline Gates, on the northern outskirts of the city in 82 BC and a decisive battle was fought. The Battle of the Colline Gates saw the loss of an estimated 50,000 Romans and resulted in the establishment of Sulla as the sole ruler (or rather dictator) of Rome. Having secured power, Sulla made another violent contribution to politics by introducing the proscriptions. This essentially involved Sulla writing up the names of thousands of his political enemies and posting them as lists in the forum. People were then at liberty to hunt these people down and bring Sulla their heads for a bounty.
Sulla passed two significant senatorial reforms before retiring from public life: doubling the Senate’s membership from around 300 members to 600 and bringing in minimum age requirements for each position of office. With the latter he was effectively pulling up the ladder behind him because it ensured nobody could replicate what he had done. In doubling the size of the Senate, however, he also doubled the number of disgruntled senators who would never get reach the highest political point by becoming one of only two consuls elected every year; intensifying the already murderously intense competition that characterized republican politics of this period.
So loathed was Sulla that when he died in retirement in 78 BC, aged 60, rumors started circling that his skin had turned to worms. His body would have been denied the proper burial rites, had it not been for the intervention of the young, upcoming general Gnaeus Pompeius (“Pompey Magnus” as he came to be known). Sulla’s tomb bore chilling testament to the man it held, reading, “No better friend; no worse enemy“.