Lives by Plutarch - 14 - Sulla
Sulla
Quote
"Now Sulla was a vain man, and this was the first time he had emerged from the insignificance and obscurity of his past life to a position of some standing in Rome and had tasted prestige. This went to his head so much that he had a picture of the event engraved on a signet ring which he wore and used constantly afterwards."
Notes
Sulla is from a noble but fallen family. He doesn't have a lot of money until he marries and gets a lot of wealth from his wife's family.
He likes hanging out with the theatre crowd who enjoys a pretty crude lifestyle and low sense of humour.
He gets recognized in the military early while fighting under Marius during a campaign in Africa. This first taste of fame really goes to his head and appeals to his sense of vanity and desire for fame and power.
Sulla and Marius are rivals pretty well from the start and purposely irritate each other even over petty things. For example, Sulla wins tons of supplies during one of their campaigns and has enough to spare to give some to Marius' men as well, which bothers Marius. Plutarch writes: "This shows the triviality and childishness of the original pretexts they found for their mutual enmity, which subsequently progressed through civil bloodshed and incurable discord to tyranny and the total overthrow of the constitution, and revealed how well Euripides understood the diseases that can afflict a state when he warned us to beware of ambition, on the grounds that there is no worse or more lethal deity for its devotees."
Civil war breaks out with Sulla coming out on top, but there are some negative signs. He's very erratic and unpredictable with his punishments, for example. He punishes some trivial things extremely harshly, and other more serious things he lets go, but it's inconsistent and leaves his men in fear.
There are bad omens casting shadows over Rome, with some predicting that "a new cosmic order" is on its way.
Sulla marches on Rome and attacks indiscriminately with fire arrows, putting both friends and foes under fire. But it works. Marius is driven out and Sulla takes over Rome. People don't like the way he's acting though.
The wars continue as Rome is in total upheaval, and these wars cost a lot of money. Sulla takes his army through Greece and Asia bringing their colonies there back in line, with lots of death and destruction. But while he's away there's more trouble back in Rome so he has to go back. He gets back and takes over again. Then he convenes a meeting with the senators while in the background they can hear thousands of prisoners screaming and getting killed. It was then that "Rome realized they had only exchanged one monstrous tyranny for another."
People are surprised since Sulla had good character, he had a good sense of humour, and he seemed like a nice guy. It seems like power turned him into a monster, which raises some interesting philosophical questions: "However, whether a person's change of circumstances causes an actual change and alteration in his nature, or whether power allows evil tendencies that had previously lain hidden to emerge, is a question that would more properly be settled by another treatise."
Sulla posts new lists seemingly every day of people to be killed. He says he "forgot" to include some, and so a new list comes out. And there's a reward for killing people on the list, so a killing spree ensues: "There was nowhere that remained free from the stain of bloodshed — no god's temple, no guest-friend's hearth, no family home. Husbands were butchered in the arms of their wives, sons in the arms of their mothers."
Sulla makes himself dictator with lots of new powers. Eventually he feels himself high on power and in fortune's favour, so he gives up the dictatorship and brings back elected consuls.
He sponsors big feasts and parties and starts hanging out with actors and theatre people again. This takes a toll on his body (lots of drinking) and he gets a pretty bad flesh-rotting disease. During his illness, he finds out that someone who owes him money is waiting for him to die so he can get away with his debt. Sulla calls this man and strangles him to death, but this act also causes his ulcer to burst and he loses lots of blood. He dies the next day.