Sulla, Lucius Cornelius (138 BC–78 BC)

Roman general and dictator. He was elected consul in 88 BC after defeating the Samnites several times during the Italian Social War. In the same year, Marius tried to deprive him of the command against the king of Pontus, Mithridates (VI) Eupator (120–60 BC). Sulla's unprecedented response was to march on Rome, executing or putting to flight his rivals. His campaign against Mithridates ended successfully in 85 BC, and Sulla returned to Italy in 83 where his opponents had raised armies against him. Sulla defeated them in 82 and massacred all his opponents. After holding supreme power as dictator and carrying out a series of political reforms, he retired to private life in 80 BC.

Sulla came from an old but impoverished family and entered politics late in life. He made a reputation for himself in 107 BC when, as Marius' quaestor, he arranged the capture of the African king Jugurtha. His reputation was further enhanced by his command at Campania during the Social War in 90 BC, and his defeats of the Samnites eased his election to the consulship. After defeating Marius in 88 BC, Sulla left Italy for the war against Pontus, in northeast Asia Minor. He stormed Athens after a long siege and subjected it to a brutal sack, then defeated the forces of the Pontic king Mithridates at Chaeronea and Orchomenus. Before the second battle, he built strong fieldworks to defend his army's flanks against the numerically superior enemy. When enemy attacks dispersed the Romans working on these fortifications, Sulla rallied his troops by seizing a standard and proclaiming that they must fight or abandon him. Sulla's enemies seized power during his absence from Rome, but on his return in 83 he defeated one army near Capua, a town in southern Italy, then persuaded another to defect to him. He blockaded Marius' son until the main Marian army, including a large contingent of Samnites, advanced on Rome and forced him to abandon his siege in some haste. In 82 he confronted them in a fierce battle outside Rome's Colline Gate, where both sides suffered heavily before the enemy withdrew. Sulla's victory was accompanied by mass executions of his opponents. Like Caesar and Pompey, Sulla was always keen to portray himself as a lucky general, a virtue the Romans admired.