Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix

Reading notes

• Ad Atticum 8.11 §2 That kind of Sullan kingship

  The dictator L. Cornelius Sulla had seized Rome by force in 82 BC and ruled through proscription; Cicero charges that many in both camps now covet a Sulla-style autocracy, so that neither leader's aim is the citizens' good.

• Ad Atticum 9.7 §3 an appetite for a Sullan kingship

  The dictator L. Cornelius Sulla had seized Rome by force in 82 BC and ruled by proscription; Cicero charges that Pompey now covets the same kind of armed autocracy. The recurring "Sullan" tag frames the civil war as a contest of would-be tyrants rather than a defence of the Republic.

• Ad Atticum 9.10 §2 Sulla could; cannot I?

  A line Cicero imagines on Caesar's lips, modelling his ambition on the dictator Sulla, who marched on Rome and ruled by proscription in 82 BC. The recurring "Sulla" measure frames the war as a contest of would-be autocrats.

• Ad Atticum 9.11 §2 nothing but proscriptions, nothing but Sullas

  Cicero fears that a Pompeian victory would bring a fresh round of proscriptions --- the published death-lists by which the dictator Sulla had liquidated his enemies in 82--81 BC --- with the Pompeian commanders cast as so many would-be Sullas.

• Ad Atticum 9.14 §2 with this Pompey as his partner

  Caesar's charge is that Pompey had been the dictator Sulla's willing instrument in the proscriptions of 82--81 BC, earning the youthful nickname "the teenage butcher"; Caesar thus claims the moral high ground as restorer of Sulla's victims.

• Ad Atticum 10.7 §1 he will win in Sulla's manner and after Sulla's example

  L. Cornelius Sulla, victor in the civil war of the 80s BC, became byword for victory followed by proscriptions, confiscations, and dictatorship; Cicero dreads that a Caesarian or Pompeian triumph will repeat that bloodshed.

• Ad Atticum 11.21 §3 the precedents of Sulla's time

  Here "Sulla" is the dictator L. Cornelius Sulla, cited as a historical exemplum: Atticus had pointed to how the partisans of Sulla's day trimmed their conduct to circumstance. Cicero replies that even those expedients were tempered with too little moderation to serve as a model now.

• Ad Familiares 3.11 §2 is what Sulla meant it to be

  The dictator Sulla's lex Cornelia de maiestate (81 BC) defined the offence broadly; Cicero says Sulla intended it precisely so that public men could not be assailed at will, the opposite of how it was used against Appius.

• Ad Familiares 13.4 §1 they escaped the bitterness of the Sullan time

  When Sulla won the civil war in 82 BC, he stripped many Italian towns of their Roman citizenship as punishment for supporting his opponents. Volaterrae surrendered only after a long siege (80–79 BC), but its citizens managed to retain or recover their civic status, partly through legal challenges; Cicero had defended them in court in the 60s BC.

• Ad Quintum Fratrem 1.1 §21 Sullan men

  Beneficiaries of the dictator Sulla's settlement (d. 78 BC), who had seized property and lands by force; Octavius compelled them to give back what they had taken, a politically delicate act of justice.

• Brutus §179 summoned the imperator Lucius Sulla to trial

  Diem dicere: to formally cite a magistrate or commander before the people for trial. The tribune M. Vergilius summoned Sulla (then holding imperium, the magistrate's military command) in 88 BC.

• Brutus §227 between the departure and the return of Lucius Sulla

  The years 87-83 BC, when Sulla was away campaigning against Mithridates and Rome lay under the Cinnan-Marian regime; Cicero calls this a time when the commonwealth was without law and dignity.

• On the Ends of Good and Evil §3.75 more rightly the master of the people — for that is what the dictator is — than Sulla

  L. Cornelius Sulla, the dictator (138-78 BC), here a foil: the true 'master of the people' (magister populi, an archaic title for the dictator) is the wise man, not Sulla, whom Cicero brands master only of luxury, greed, and cruelty.

• On Duties §2.27 after Sulla's victory

  The victory of Lucius Cornelius Sulla in the civil war of 82 BC, followed by the proscriptions. Cicero dates the Romans' loss of their old fair dealing with allies to this cruelty toward citizens.

• Twelfth Philippic §27 Sulla, with Scipio, between Cales and Teanum

  In 83 BC Sulla parleyed with the consul L. Cornelius Scipio Asiagenus between the Campanian towns of Cales and Teanum over terms touching the Senate, the popular vote, and citizenship; the talks failed but were free of violence.

• Philippica XIV §23 Sulla as consul waged a civil war

  Cicero argues from precedent that no thanksgiving was ever voted in a civil war: not for Sulla's march on Rome in 88, nor for Cinna's victory in the Octavian War of 87, nor for Sulla's reconquest in 82.

• Second Philippic §108 We remembered Cinna at the height of his power, Sulla afterwards in his domination

  L. Cornelius Cinna dominated Rome by force in the 80s BC, and L. Cornelius Sulla ruled as dictator after his proscriptions; Cicero ranks Antony's armed terror with these and with Caesar's reign.

• Ninth Philippic §13 a gilded equestrian one, of the kind first set up for Lucius Sulla

  L. Cornelius Sulla, the dictator, was honoured with the first gilded equestrian statue in Rome. Cicero proposes instead a plain bronze statue on foot, in keeping with Sulpicius's love of ancestral restraint.

• For Quintus Ligarius §12 that dictator

  L. Cornelius Sulla, dictator 82-79 BC, whose proscriptions posted rewards for killing the proscribed; Cicero contrasts his cruelty with Caesar's clemency, noting Caesar had himself once prosecuted a Sullan agent.