Publius Cornelius Sulla

Reading notes

• Ad Familiares 9.10 §3 the people were strongly agitated over the death of P. Sulla

  Publius Cornelius Sulla, nephew of the dictator and Cicero's client in the Pro Sulla (62 BC), was a notorious Caesarian profiteer who grew rich buying confiscated property at auction. His death in 45 BC caused a public stir; Cicero's mock-anxiety below is that the demand at Caesar's confiscation-auctions might slacken without him.

• Ad Familiares 15.17 §2 the elder P. Sulla

  Publius Cornelius Sulla, nephew of the dictator and the defendant of Cicero's Pro Sulla (62 BC); he had grown rich buying up confiscated property at Caesar's auctions. He died at the end of 46 BC.

• Ad Familiares 15.19 §3 bought up all the goods at once

  A pun on bona ('goods'/'the good'): P. Cornelius Sulla, the speculator who had recently died, sidestepped the philosophers' quarrel over the supreme good by buying up confiscated estates wholesale at Caesar's auctions.

• On the Ends of Good and Evil §2.62 you snatched the consulship from Publius Sulla

  Publius Cornelius Sulla, elected consul for 65 BC but disqualified for bribery on the prosecution brought by the young Lucius Torquatus (the dialogue's interlocutor). Cicero recalls the case to needle Torquatus about his real motives.

• On Duties §2.29 Publius Sulla

  Publius Cornelius Sulla, kinsman of the dictator, who profited from the proscription auctions of 82 BC and again from Caesar's confiscations thirty-six years later. Cicero defended him in 62 BC but here treats him as an emblem of recurring civil-war plunder.

• For Publius Sulla §1 Publius Sulla

  P. Cornelius Sulla, nephew of the dictator Sulla, the defendant in this trial. Elected consul for 65 BC but stripped of the office after a conviction for ambitus (electoral bribery), he is now accused of complicity in the Catilinarian conspiracy.