![]() Not one to accept the rules when they went against him, Sulla embarked on the unthinkable: He massed his six legions (35,000 soldiers), hardened from battles on the Italian peninsula during the Social Wars, and headed for Rome to “free her from tyrants,” that is, from Marius and his followers.īy law, no army could enter Rome: After all, it was the sacred ground of the gods! But as a god-like person, Sulla surely felt that the rules didn’t apply. He then watched as his prize was taken away through the political dealings of Marius. It was an honor that Sulla saw as a path to even greater glory and power. In 88 BCE, Sulla was initially given the ultimate prize, command against the meddling eastern ruler and constant thorn in Rome’s side, Mithridates. Two Roman soldiers shown in the Ahenobarbus relief. Fueled by a burning desire to outdo his rival, the wealthier and more famous Gaius Marius, Sulla made his bones smashing uppity Roman allies during the Social Wars (91–88 BCE). ![]() Sulla, a handsome playboy, was blessed with “good genes” as a self-claimed descendent of Venus. Considering that his predecessors had done most of the work of wrecking the Roman constitution, the rise of this populist megalomaniacal leader was almost inevitable.įor a role model and guide, Caesar had only to choose the hyper-ambitious general Lucius Cornelius Sulla. Caesar did not break norms when he crossed the Rubicon in 49 BCE and marched to Rome with his army to ultimately become dictator for life he merely followed a path that had been blazed by others. But it also led to mass destruction, slaughter, and plunder on a scale not seen before.Īs Sallust, an historian and confidante of Caesar noted, “Warmonger against every nation, people, and king under the sun, the Romans had only one abiding motive – greed, deep-seated, for empire and riches.”īy the time of Gaius Julius Caesar’s rise in the first century BCE, governmental checks on the Roman elite had been in long decline. Ruthless quests for power, when tempered by a common good, had propelled Rome to the heights. The dysfunctional Roman culture valued fame, glory (war victories), and wealth above all else – and then set ambitious nobles against each other through winner-take-all contests in a pattern not unlike our own politics. Caesar had only to look to the recent past at two Roman generals, Marius and Sulla, for case studies into achieving power and sole rule over Rome.Ĭlassical Rome is a wonderful petri dish for observing ancient authoritarians in an optimal environment. Rome was wracked by class differences and violent political struggles in which long held rules were shattered. In fact, the foundations of Rome’s unique representative government had been crumbling for more than 50 years before Caesar’s river excursion. When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BCE, the fate of the Roman Republic had already been sealed.
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