Sulla: Life and Battles - Roman History DOCUMENTARY

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0:05 · At the twilight of the Roman Republic, few figures loom larger -- or cast darker shadows -- than Lucius
0:11 · Cornelius Sulla. Born into a once-proud but impoverished patrician family, Sulla's journey
0:17 · from obscurity to unmatched power is one of the most tumultuous, ruthless, and consequential sagas
0:23 · in Roman history. His life traverses a landscape of war, betrayal, political manipulation, and
0:29 · personal ambition -- all set against the backdrop of a crumbling republic and the rising tensions that
0:35 · would ultimately birth an empire. This episode doesn't just recount Sulla's meteoric rise;
0:41 · it explores the deeper currents that carried him forward and the foundations of Roman politics he
0:46 · shook to their core. From North Africa to Greece, from the Forum to the battlefield,
0:51 · Sulla shaped -- and was shaped by -- the most volatile moments of his time. Understanding Sulla's arc is
0:58 · essential to grasping how Rome transitioned from a senatorial republic to a stage where military strongmen would dominate. This is not just the story of one man, but of a Republic on
1:09 · the brink -- its traditions challenged, its laws rewritten, and its future forever altered.
1:15 · Welcome to the story of Sulla. Previously this biography of Sulla was only available
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1:33 · #1 In 138 BC, only eight years after Carthage's final destruction, the protagonist of our story, Sulla, was born in Rome into a branch of the
1:43 · prestigious Cornelii gens. On the surface, his heritage should have guaranteed a privileged life,
1:50 · but unfortunately for Sulla, this wasn't the case. In contrast to many of the more fortunate Cornelii
1:56 · family lines, such as that of the Scipios, Sulla's offshoot was relatively destitute. At the time,
2:03 · none of his clan had risen above the rank of praetor for several generations. According to
2:08 · one tale which has come down to us, Sulla's wet nurse was carrying her young ward through the
2:14 · streets of Rome one day when she was approached by a mysterious woman. Upon seeing the child,
2:19 · the enigmatic figure spoke the words: puer tibi et reipublicae tuae felix - 'The infant will
2:25 · be a source of felicity to you and the state.'. However, such predictions seemed far removed from
2:32 · Sulla's experiences as he grew into a young man, and by the time he came of age, his father died,
2:38 · leaving Sulla nothing, and reducing him to inhabiting the same house as a slave.
2:43 · Lacking money and access to high society, Sulla, blessed with a mane of golden-red
2:49 · hair and blue eyes, found friends among the vagrants of Roman society: actors,
2:54 · something that only decreased his standing in the eyes of the aristocrats. It was a stroke of pure
3:00 · luck that changed Sulla's fate. In a short period of time, both the youngster's mistress, Nicopolis,
3:06 · and his stepmother passed away, leaving him a substantial sum of money. Now a man of means,
3:13 · Sulla was duly elected quaestor for 107 BC, being assigned to the staff of Consul Gaius Marius.
3:21 · Ongoing since 111 BC, the so-called 'Jugurthine War' was Rome's desert-Vietnam,
3:27 · exposing the absolute worst of Roman politics and the weaknesses of its military.
3:33 · Numidian ruler Jugurtha was avoiding retribution by bribing senators and assassinating rivals,
3:39 · while the legions were repeatedly ambushed by his guerilla warriors familiar with the rugged terrain
3:44 · of the Maghreb. To rectify this situation, Marius launched an expedition into Africa,
3:50 · personally leading the main force, but leaving his deputy Sulla behind in Italy with the crucial
3:56 · task of assembling a large cavalry force. Evidently, the greenhorn quaestor succeeded,
4:02 · and brought a force of riders to Marius in the Spring of 106 BC[1]. Sulla turned on his notorious
4:09 · charm immediately upon arrival, making soldiers, officers, and even Marius admire him. As the war
4:15 · went on, the Romans eventually captured a fort near the river Muluccha where most of Jugurtha's
4:21 · treasury was stored, only to be informed that Jugurtha had captured Cirta in their rear.
4:27 · ADD #1 Marching back, the Romans were confronted by the Numidians, recently joined by the Mauretanian King Bocchus I
4:34 · of Mauretania. The initial engagement with the two Kings was an ambush, where Marius and Sulla were
4:39 · forced into forming a series of defensive circuits and weathering the hail of missiles until evening
4:45 · forced the end of the confrontation. Unable to press battle into the night, Marius marched his
4:50 · soldiers out early and reached the Numidian camp at dawn, routing them at daybreak. Wary of further
4:55 · ambushes, Marius and Sulla pursued Jugurtha slowly with their army formed in a defensive square,
5:01 · passing nearby Setif and proceeding to Cirta. The second battle of Cirta began when Jugurtha
5:06 · and Bocchus had recuperated from their defeat, leaving Cirta in an about-face and marching four large divisions, allegedly numbering 90,000 men, against Marius' army. Unsure what Jugurtha
5:18 · planned, Marius halted his army and prepared for battle on the open plains outside the city, giving Sulla command of the right wing. Jugurtha and battle, with Bocchus and Vollux appearing
5:28 · shortly after the beginning of the engagement at the Romans' rear, encircling them. With the Romans pressed from all sides, Jugurtha then held up his dripping sword, exclaiming that he had
5:38 · killed Marius himself. Thrown into confusion, the Roman army fell into disorder, except for Sulla,
5:44 · who managed to break Bocchus and the Mauretanians' line and drive them off, opening a gap for them to maneuver. Marius also restored order to his part of the line, and was able to drive off the
5:54 · Jugurthine cavalry on the Roman left, allowing him and Sulla to perform a counter-encirclement
5:59 · against the Numidians. Suddenly losing, Jugurtha fled the field, and his army was routed.
6:07 · This victory made Jugurtha's allies, crucially his father-in-law Bocchus I of Numidia, waver,
6:14 · so Marius sent Sulla to negotiate. The latter swiftly weaved his way into Bocchus' good graces,
6:20 · reassuring and instructing him as though he was a close councilor, rather than an enemy ambassador.
6:26 · Real or manufactured, this diplomatic friendship allowed Sulla to end the war.
6:31 · Meeting in the middle of the desert, Bocchus promised both Sulla and Jugurtha that he would hand the other over, allowing the Mauretanian king to lean whichever way he wanted to. Lured
6:42 · by Sulla's promise of favourable terms, Jugurtha arrived for negotiations unarmed,
6:47 · and was immediately seized by men jumping out of hiding. He was shackled and handed over to Sulla,
6:53 · who then gave him to Marius, whose jealousy at the plaudits earned by his subordinate triggered an enmity that lasted a lifetime. With the war in Africa concluded, the Marian
7:04 · army was called back to Italy to fight an invasion of Germanic tribes in the Cimbrian War. Sulla
7:10 · wasted no time in employing his well-renowned magnetism to split the Germanic Marsi tribe off
7:16 · from their kin and persuade them to become allies of Rome, a great diplomatic boon to the cause.
7:22 · Realising Marius's shadow would always veil his achievements, Sulla went to serve Rome's other
7:28 · consul, Catulus, in the hopes that military acclaim of his own would quicken his ascent.
7:33 · In 101 BC, Sulla remedied a supply shortage among Catulus' troops so effectively that
7:39 · not only was he able to feed Catulus' armies, but Marius' soldiers as well, causing Marius'
7:45 · jealousy to flare up once again. Thanks to Marius' politically-motivated deployment,
7:51 · Sulla was relegated to a relatively minor role in the final Roman victory of the Cimbrian war
7:56 · at Vercellae. After this, Sulla returned to Rome, and his political career began in earnest. 98 BC,
8:04 · however, saw the ambitious noble fail to gain the praetorship due to basing his campaign on his military achievements as a junior officer. Sulla learned his lesson,
8:14 · won next year through bribes and cynically telling voters what they wanted to hear. As urban praetor,
8:21 · he had a century's worth of exotic lions sent from his royal contact Bocchus for display at the
8:26 · Apollonian games, gaining immense popularity, which only further inflamed Marius' ire.
8:33 · According to the sources, Sulla's term ended hastily when he was sent to deal with the pirate-infested province of Cilicia as propraetor. However, the pirate issue soon took a backseat to
8:44 · the larger struggle that was taking shape in Asia Minor between Rome and the Kingdom of Pontus led
8:49 · by Mithridates VI. Since 114 BC Mithridates had expanded Pontic rule across Anatolia, and in
8:57 · doing so, attracted the wary gaze of the Roman Republic. By the time Sulla arrived to take up
9:03 · his magistracy in 96, Mithridates had managed to drive out or slay two Cappadocian kings. Installed
9:11 · in their place was a son of the Pontic king, and when the Romans ordered that puppet to get out,
9:16 · Mithridates appointed an apparently rogue regent known as Gordius, who was almost certainly still
9:22 · acting in the king's name. Almost instantly after the propraetor arrived, he received
9:28 · orders to take his meagre forces and kick the Mithridatic stooge out of Cappadocia for good.
9:34 · Despite possessing inadequate forces for the job, Sulla took his small army, reinforced it with allies from the cities of Asia Minor, and embarked on a campaign.
9:44 · It is one of history's great disappointments that we have little detail concerning what was almost certainly one of Sulla's greatest military achievements. However, what we do know is that,
9:54 · by using a combination of military skill and diplomatic trickery in the rough Cappadocian land,
10:00 · the propraetor threw Gordius out with his motley force, and put the previously deposed King,
10:05 · Ariobarzanes, back on his throne. In the aftermath, Sulla was not only declared imperator
10:11 · by his men, but reached the Euphrates River and received the first ever embassy from the rising
10:17 · Parthian Empire to the rising Roman one. Again, the propraetor asserted his and his Republic's
10:23 · superiority in the typical tactless Roman style. He brought three chairs to the meeting, seating
10:29 · himself in the centre whilst both the Cappadocian and Parthian emissaries were forced to the left and right. This meeting was ultimately successful for Sulla in a diplomatic sense, resulting in a
10:40 · treaty of friendship between the two great powers, but he'd also asserted Rome's symbolic authority.
10:46 · Rome sat at the centre of affairs, directing the trifling Parthians as easily as it controlled
10:52 · the kinglet of Cappadocia. When the Parthian king learned of the insult, his diplomat was executed
10:59 · for allowing it. Nothing further of note happened for the remainder of Sulla's time as governor, and even the amount of time itself aren't known for certain, but by 93BC his assignment was over
11:10 · and he was making his way back to Rome. Now his career as a great man could begin in earnest.
11:17 · Just as the rising starlet was about to take the next step in his career however, the tribune Livius Drusus, initially supported by Sulla due to his desire for a strong senate,
11:27 · was assassinated in 91 for backing citizenship for Rome's Italian allies. With that murder,
11:33 · the Republic descended into a self-inflicted civil war of terrible scale: the Social War, and
11:40 · the rising Sulla was called upon to fight in the ensuing conflict alongside his hardline political
11:46 · rivals, such as the populares' darling Marius. As Romans and their former comrades-in-arms fought
11:53 · and slew one another on two different fronts1, Sulla gradually became a hero.
12:00 · ADD #2 At the outbreak of the War, Sulla was appointed a legate under Marius himself, the two working together despite their
12:06 · supposed enmity. In 91 BCE, Sulla and Marius were attacked by the Marsi and Marrucini after they had
12:13 · inflicted a series of defeats against the Romans, but Marius and his protege managed to drive them off, pursuing them into a vineyard. The cornered Marsi engaged Marius but were driven back, and
12:23 · forced to escape over the walls of the vineyard, where they took considerable losses. Having anticipated their escape, Sulla outmaneuvered them and intercepted the fleeing Marsi on the
12:33 · other side of the enclosed vineyard, killing 6000 and capturing a great deal of arms and armor. This
12:39 · proved the first Roman victory of the conflict, right at the close of the campaigning season, bringing a desperately needed boost to Roman morale on Sulla's behalf. After the battle,
12:49 · Marius dispatched Sulla to relieve the besieged city of Aesernia, but he would not arrive in time to halt the Samnite forces besieging the city in 90 BCE. In the opening of that year,
13:00 · they had already defeated a Roman force under the consul L. Julius Caesar, and the Samnites under Duillius had anticipated his arrival. In one of the narrow defiles approaching the city,
13:10 · Sulla's 24-cohort-strong force was ambushed by the Samnites as he passed through the gulley,
13:15 · and appealed to Duillius for a truce to discuss terms. The Samnites, believing they had the
13:20 · upper hand, let their guard down through the night as they prepared to parlay with Sulla, a situation in which he quickly rose to the occasion. Using the cover of night
13:29 · to hide his army, he ordered the cornicens to continue sounding the watches in the Roman camp, leaving it intact but marching his forces, their baggage, and the artillery out and around
13:39 · Duillius' force until the fourth watch, when the skeleton crew of trumpeters scurried after him.
13:45 · Duillius' men were left confounded and bewildered, although the sources become confused after this:
13:50 · did Sulla alleviate the siege of Aesernia and defeat Duillius? Or was he forced to withdraw?
13:56 · Sadly, we may never know. However, Sulla's distinguishing himself in the first years of the conflict propelled him to new heights, ultimately resulting in his appointment as proconsul
14:06 · following the death of Cato in 89 BCE and being given command of an army for the campaign against the Samnites. Unlike his predecessor Caesar, Sulla quickly gained a series of successes in
14:16 · Campania against the Italic rebels, recapturing Stabiae and laying siege to Pompeii. Evidently,
14:22 · the siege wore on the soldiers, who grew tired of the arrogance of the Legate and former Consul Postumius Albinus, stoning him to death. Sulla acted decisively to resolve the situation.
14:35 · Countermanding the wishes of some officers who wished to have the mutineers viciously punished, Sulla recognised the need to keep solidarity during the war and particularly the siege at
14:45 · Pompeii. Instead of acting draconian, Sulla took advantage of the inevitable remorse felt by the soldiery, simply informing them that he expected
14:54 · reparations in the form of greater courage and doggedness during their coming battles.
14:59 · ADD #3 The soldiers would soon have their opportunity, as the Samnite army under L. Cluentius approached via nearby Nola and encamped less
15:08 · than a half-mile from Sulla, provoking him into a rash first assault. Sulla was quickly driven off,
15:14 · but waited for his foraging parties to return and then made a second attempt on Cluentius, which succeeded and forced him to move his camp. Cluentius then awaited his own reinforcements
15:23 · in the form of a large force of Gallic defectors formerly in Roman service. The two men formed up
15:29 · their armies for a set-piece battle, and as they came within a few hundred meters of each other, allegedly a Gaul of enormous size sallied forth from Cluentius' army, challenging any
15:39 · of the Romans to single combat. The challenge was then received and accepted by a Mauretanian man
15:44 · of short stature, who killed the Gaul and caused the whole Gallic contingent to desert in a panic.
15:50 · This triggered the rest of Cluentius' force to break and flee the battlefield back to Nola in disorder, with Sulla slaying 3,000 in the pursuit and allegedly another 20,000 up against the walls
16:01 · of Nola, including Cluentius himself. After this, Pompeii and Herculaneum quickly succumbed
16:07 · to Sulla's forces, who then moved on the nation of the Hirpini and their stronghold of Aeculanum.
16:12 · Aeculanum had been one of the instigators and staunchest supporters of the Rebel cause, and was thusly punished by Sulla, sacking and setting fire to the town. This example quickly brought
16:22 · about the surrender of other nearby towns, and the whole of the Hirpini rebels were quickly brought to heel by Sulla, reversing the severe defeats of the prior years of the war. With dash and ability,
16:33 · the legate then turned and unexpectedly invaded Northern Samnium, leading his forces through the mountains and evading an attempted interception by the Samnite general Mutilus. He was able to
16:43 · weave through the passes of the Apennines and outflank Mutilus, surprising his forces in an ambush from the other side, scattering them and driving the wounded Mutilus to Aesernia. His quick
16:54 · capture of Bovianum and the Samnite council was a decisive blow in ending the conflict, and his rapid military successes had brought Sulla out of Marius' shadow. Unlike his exploits against
17:06 · the Germans, this laundry list of military triumphs closer to home skyrocketed Sulla to
17:12 · the apex of Roman society. Still shimmering with the freshly-won glory of his victories,
17:18 · the once-destitute friend of actors put himself forward for the consulship, and won by an absolute
17:24 · landslide, swept into office by a grateful and awestruck populace. 88BC was to be his year,
17:31 · during which Sulla would carve his name into history. He would eventually do just that, but
17:37 · in a manner far distinct from what he expected. The new consul wed his son to the daughter of his
17:43 · colleague and political ally, Quintus Pompeius Rufus. Not satisfied with just one marriage
17:49 · alliance, Sulla himself controversially married a scion of the ancient and powerful Metelli family.
17:56 · Secure in his friendships, the prime-consul could proceed in conducting state business and acquiring
18:01 · the year's true prize: supreme command in a full-scale war against Mithridates VI.
18:08 · Previously seen as only a minor annoyance, the shrewd King of Pontus had taken advantage of
18:13 · Rome's civil strife-induced paralysis to expand without consequence. When the enfeebled Romans
18:19 · sent Manius Aquillius to threaten Mithridates into submission, he was instead defeated, captured,
18:25 · and executed by having molten gold poured down his throat. By the time Sulla took up his consulship,
18:32 · this upcoming 'eastern command' and its sure promise of dignitas aplenty was the talk of the
18:37 · town. Motivated by this desire for wealth and greatness, the Republic's grandees would tear
18:43 · each other and Rome apart to get it, particularly Sulla and his old mentor - the aging Gaius Marius.
18:50 · Boundlessly envious of the rising sun that was Lucius Cornelius Sulla, the setting sun of Marius
18:56 · found common cause with a radical tribune of 88BC known as Sulpicius. Previously a Sullan ally,
19:04 · Sulpicius had found the consul unwilling to implement his legislation, and so went to Marius in hopes of using the man's great name as a weapon. In return for Marius' help though,
19:15 · the aging general required Sulpicius use his power as tribune to transfer the Mithridatic command,
19:21 · and all its accompanying boons, to him. When Sulla, as of yet unaware of the plan to deprive
19:27 · him, responded by declaring a suspension of public business in order to give himself time to speak
19:32 · with the people, Sulpicius initiated a bout of rioting throughout the city. Blindsided by bitter
19:39 · factional violence which left his co-consul's son dead on the streets of Rome, Sulla was
19:44 · forced to take refuge with his loyal army who were in the process of stamping out the Social War's last embers. Taking advantage of Sulla's absence, Sulpicius went on a legislative rampage,
19:56 · implementing a number of measures which included fully enfranchising the Italian allies. Then,
20:01 · running hot with success, the tribune snatched the Mithridatic command away from Sulla and
20:07 · handed it to Marius. When Sulla found out about this sleight of hand, he was utterly furious,
20:13 · realizing he had been backed into a corner and threatened with humiliation and political death.
20:19 · So Sulla did the unthinkable. He incited his rank-and-file legionaries with complaints of
20:25 · the Marians' behavior, implying that the old general would strip them of the opportunity for
20:30 · Pontic plunder. The soldiery was so dead-set loyal to their magnetic commander that when Marius sent
20:37 · military tribunes to seize the army, they were promptly stoned to death. However, upon realising
20:43 · that Sulla was intending an unprecedented march on Rome, most of his officers deserted.
20:49 · Nevertheless, the consul was confident and desperate, and so continued his fateful advance on the barely-defended capital with six full legions. When panicked senatorial
21:00 · emissaries came to ask the general why he was moving on his own city, Sulla simply replied
21:05 · that he planned to free it from tyrants. To his view anyway, the consul did just that.
21:13 · ADD #4 When the army finally arrived, it fought a vicious urban battle against a hastily organised Marian force; this move was completely unexpected,
21:22 · and Rome had little to defend itself with. Sulla's plan was to send Pompeius Rufus to breach the
21:28 · Colline Gate in the north and two more legions to take the Caelimontana Gate and Pons Sublicius
21:33 · Gate on the southeast and southwest sides of the city in a three-pronged assault. Sulla himself
21:38 · would march through the Esquiline Gate, all his troops converging in the center of the city. Sulla's detachment, led by Lucius Basilius and Caius Mummius, quickly seized the gatehouse
21:48 · and the walls, and his soldiers advanced into the city before them. Marius had arranged for
21:53 · a furious defense by the city's citizens, who threw terracotta roof tiles, stones, and other heavy projectiles at the legionnaires below. The legionaries were forced up against the
22:03 · walls of the shops and apartment blocs, unable to advance, when Sulla and his men arrived and
22:08 · responded by setting the houses ablaze. They continued up the streets to the Esquiline hill, where Sulpicius' personal retinue was waiting. There, the soldiers clashed in an uphill battle,
22:19 · and Sulla's men were wavering; sensing the urgency of the situation, Sulla grabbed the Aquila and
22:24 · pushed through to the front rank, and castigated them if they should abandon their standards, rallying the men to hold the line. He then ordered a reserve legion to go through the Viminalis
22:34 · Gate and take the Suburra near the city center, outflanking Sulpicius' forces. Desperate, Marius
22:40 · and Sulpicius retreated back to the Temple of Tellus on the Oppian Hill, beseeching the slaves of the city to take up the fight in exchange for freedom. However, the citizens and the enslaved
22:50 · were already deserting the defense, and with no other options, Marius and his supporters fled the
22:56 · city. Marius, for his part, managed to escape the clutches of his rival, and went into exile
23:01 · all the way to Africa. Sulpicius, however, wasn't so lucky. Betrayed by a slave and discovered by
23:10 · Sullan troops in a villa near Rome, the tribune was executed, his head sent to the consul,
23:15 · and all his laws annulled. However, as though to show Sulla's conservative and even-handed nature,
23:22 · the consul freed the slave as a reward, and then had him thrown from the Tarpeian Rock
23:27 · for betraying his master. The order had to be maintained, after all. Having secured the city
23:33 · with his legionary army, Sulla attempted to right what he saw to be the Republic's terrible problem,
23:39 · the tribunes, who he considered to be out of control. To that end, legislation that favoured
23:44 · the senate was passed which restored to that reverent body sole authority to enact new laws,
23:50 · while the power of the people's tribune was diminished. As Appian phrased it: 'voting
23:56 · would be controlled by the rich and wise, not the poor and headstrong'. With the problem apparently
24:02 · sorted out, Sulla sent his army back to Nola and didn't interfere with the next year's elections.
24:08 · But his unseemly attack on Rome had scarred the consul's popularity so badly that a Marian-aligned
24:14 · politician, Cinna, became consul at the start of 87. Soon after, Sulla left Rome as proconsul
24:21 · and departed for the east, successful in his ultimate desire to win the command.
24:26 · #2 Since the Pontic King's gilded execution of Manius Aquilius and Rome's subsequent distraction with
24:33 · its own civil turmoil, the Mithridates situation had flared from an ember into an inferno. Almost
24:41 · all of Asia Minor and its wealthy Greek cities were in thrall to him, and the slaughter of
24:46 · perhaps 80,000 Romans and Italians in the region had only bound the locals even more closely to
24:52 · his anti-Roman cause. By the time Sulla docked at Dyrrachium with five veteran legions in 87BC,
25:00 · Pontic-allied Thracian tribes were causing issues for Roman forces in Macedonia. Meanwhile,
25:07 · Mithridates' best general, Archelaus, was heavily fortified in the Athenian harbour at Piraeus,
25:13 · while a third Pontic army was preparing to hook through Thrace and bear down on the Romans from
25:18 · above. Perhaps because his ascendant political enemies in Rome were cutting off his financial
25:24 · support, Sulla began an advance on Athens first. Not only would securing this most symbolically
25:31 · important city destroy a major Pontic inroad into Greece and shower the general with dignitas,
25:37 · but the plunder upon its seizure might serve as pay which would serve to keep his veteran
25:42 · legionaries loyal for the foreseeable future. Sulla was so confident on arrival that he only
25:49 · left a portion of his army to besiege Athens proper, disconnected from the sea as it was,
25:54 · while he himself launched an immediate assault on the fifty-foot high stone walls of Piraeus.
26:00 · Contrary to expectation, however, the Pontic defenders gave a good account of themselves,
26:05 · inflicting significant casualties despite taking many in return. After a painful and
26:11 · ultimately unsuccessful first clash, Sulla's forces were repelled and withdrew to Eleusis.
26:18 · The general's pride was dented deeply enough by this initial setback, and salt was rubbed in the
26:24 · wound when the Mithridatic-sympathizing tyrant Aristion and all his Athenians began outright
26:30 · mocking Sulla's sun-blemished complexion by chanting 'Syllabub, Syllabub, mulberry crumble!"
26:36 · With these continuous insults buoying his determination, Sulla began chopping down
26:41 · Athens' legendary philosophers' groves and using the timber to construct proper siege engines. Further machines, such as catapults and huge towers were requisitioned from a newly
26:53 · acquiescent Thebes, and the dejected soldiers of the prior escalade were ordered to break
26:58 · the 400 year-old 'long walls' and use the stone to build siege mounds. According to Frontinus,
27:05 · Sulla gave them this tedious task so that by the time another assault was ready to be mounted,
27:11 · the men were positively rearing to execute it, if only to get out of the mind-numbing drudgery.
27:17 · Archelaus received fresh reinforcements from his garrisons at Chalcis and on other previously
27:22 · captured islands, then subsequently in the form of a force sent by Mithridates himself.
27:29 · Still, persistent betrayal by slaves in Piraeus repeatedly allowed Sulla to ambush Archelaus'
27:34 · sally forces and resupply caravans heading to Athens, a once vibrant city which was succumbing
27:40 · to famine with disconcerting speed. Eventually coming to suspect that turncoats were alerting
27:46 · the Romans to his plans, Archelaus countered Sulla with an intelligent sleight of hand. That night,
27:53 · he sent another caravan of supplies towards Athens which was duly predicted, ambushed and destroyed.
27:59 · However, that sacrifice also allowed the Pontic general to send out soldiers armed with flaming
28:05 · torches, who razed some of the unprotected Roman siege weapons. Fighting and famine within Athens
28:12 · intensified until the citizens began acting against Aristion, for whom Sulla had developed
28:17 · an intense personal hatred. The tyrant was eventually forced to send envoys in order to
28:23 · make peace with the Roman general. When they got there though, the emissaries immediately began by pontificating about Athens' old glories and spouting rhetoric which Sulla was in no mood
28:34 · to hear. Interrupting Aristion's blustering emissaries in a most uncouth and utterly
28:40 · barbaric manner, to the oh-so-sophisticated Greeks at least, Sulla exclaimed "My friends,
28:45 · you can pack your speeches and be off. Rome did not send me to Athens to study ancient history.
28:51 · My task is to subdue rebels." It was not long after that Sulla found a way into the city and
28:58 · stormed it, allowing his soldiers to sack and pillage Athens in a massacre that was committed
29:03 · to folk memory thereafter. In the wake of Athens' fall, Archelaus raised anchor and sailed away from
29:10 · Piraeus to rendezvous with other Pontic forces at Thermopylae, allowing Sulla to capture the coastal
29:16 · fortress in spring of 86BC. Free from his months' old siege, the Roman commander advanced into
29:23 · Boeotia to continue his campaign against Pontus. After routinely absorbing the 6,000 strong
29:30 · vanguard of a replacement army sent by his pro-Marian rival Cinna into his own army with
29:36 · barely a hint of effort, Sulla resumed his pursuit of Archelaus' army. The two forces encountered one
29:43 · another north of the iconic city of Chaeronea. It was a bad situation for the Romans.
29:49 · Finding the level ground unsuitable against such an overwhelming, cavalry-heavy force,
29:54 · Sulla declined battle when offered and weaved his way south, beating a Pontic force to occupy the
30:00 · strategic acropolis of Parapotamii. When Archelaus sent another contingent to take Chaeronea itself,
30:07 · Sullan forces again beat them to it, leading the unsuccessful force to take up a new,
30:12 · fortified position on Mount Thurium. Meanwhile, the colossal Pontic army set up temporary quarters
30:19 · in a valley where Mount Acontium in the northwest and Mount Hedylium in the northeast almost met.
30:25 · The River Cephisus flowed through this gorge, forming the left flank of Archelaus' army and the
30:31 · right flank of Sulla's 30,000. Never one to pass off an opportunity, when a group of Chaeronean
30:38 · citizens offered to hit the Pontic forces on Thurium from behind, Sulla accepted eagerly.
30:47 · ADD #5 The battle began with Sulla's apparent retreat, marching away from Mount Thurium alongside the Cephisus while leaving Gabinius to defend the
30:54 · city of Chaeronea and Murena on Mount Thurium. In response, Archelaus extended his line, detaching a
31:00 · flanking force to assault Murena's troops on Mount Thurium. Sulla performed an about-face and linked
31:06 · up with Gabinius' force at Chaeronea, extending his own line across the valley. Already by this
31:11 · point, Archelaus' flanking force was engaging the untenable position of Murena, who then launched his counterattack with the locals. Using their knowledge of the local terrain,
31:22 · the Chaeronean forces managed to surprise, surround and crush Archelaus' force on Thurium.
31:28 · Worse still, their flight onto the plain below was met by a pre-arranged cavalry attack from
31:34 · one of Sulla's sub commanders, resulting in even greater casualties and utter panic in the Pontic
31:40 · army. Seeing the Jugular exposed, Sulla sounded an advance to begin the battle in haste. Archelaus
31:47 · responded in kind, but found his vanguard force of 90 scythed chariots unable to charge properly due
31:54 · to the oversaturation of friendly soldiers in their path. Coolly observing the enemy
31:59 · chariots' sluggish approach, there was no panic in Sulla's solid ranks. Gabinius and his forces,
32:05 · stationed in the center, were able to withdraw in time behind stakes they had prepared in advance,
32:11 · killing the horses of the first few chariots and stymieing the remainder. At a command,
32:16 · javelineers threw their ranged weapons and put an end to Archelaus' misused shock weapon. As a
32:22 · mark of their victory and a taunt to the defeated, Sulla's legionaries clapped their hands, laughing
32:28 · and shouting as if entertained by the spectacle. They wanted more of the same, to the dismay of
32:34 · their opponents. With his flanks intelligently anchored by mountainous terrain on either side,
32:40 · Sulla closed in on the enemy army. ADD #6 His forces advanced from the entrenchments fortifying their position, which disrupted and
32:47 · stalled Archelaus' Phalanx. To the indignant fury of the free Romans, Archelaus had put a
32:53 · force of freed slaves in the first line. Knowing their only option was to fight or suffer worse at
32:58 · Roman hands, they put up determined resistance. The Romans, incensed by their foe, also fought
33:04 · furiously, knocking aside the pikes or grabbing and wrenching them out of their enemy's hands.
33:10 · The battle had come to a relative stalemate in the center, with Archelaus' main line struggling to advance against both the determined Romans and their disruptive fortifications,
33:19 · supported by antipersonnel artillery, while the Romans struggled to break up the Phalanxes pushing
33:24 · against their position. Now that Archelaus' locked phalanx was serving as the anvil onto
33:30 · which the Roman legions would, hopefully, be hammered and destroyed, the Pontic general began
33:35 · executing that hammer-blow. Using his superior numbers, Archelaus extended his right flank
33:42 · and attempted to envelop the Roman line on that side. Hortensius' reserve cohorts on that wing
33:48 · marched to outmaneuver the assault, but they were charged by Archelaus' personal cavalry contingent.
33:54 · Split away from the main army and forced to take refuge in the Thurium foothills, they gradually
34:00 · became encircled. Having positioned himself on the flank at Hedylium before the battle,
34:05 · Sulla quickly detached spare forces from whatever source he could and then personally went to
34:11 · the aid of his left wing, traversing the entire length of the battle line to do so. By that time,
34:17 · the crushing impetus of Archelaus' charge had been blunted. So, witnessing the dust storm which
34:23 · heralded Sulla's approach, the Mithridatic general slyly disengaged and slipped away,
34:29 · galloping towards the wing from which his adversary had just come. Now sensing trouble on
34:34 · both wings, Sulla and his reinforcements stopped, the commander briefly stumped about where to go.
34:41 · With considerable decisiveness given the gravity of the situation, Sulla detached four cohorts
34:46 · to stabilize the left flank against the assault of Archelaus' commander Taxiles while riding to take on Archelaus himself with the remaining one. In the meantime, the Pontic general had arrived
34:57 · and equalised the wing, although Roman forces continued to push relentlessly. But when the
35:03 · inexorable Sulla arrived and engaged with his overwhelming, morale-boosting presence and one
35:09 · fresh cohort of men, the superior quality Roman soldiers broke Archelaus' left without delay. His
35:17 · men lost their cohesion and fled in the direction of their camp near mount Acontium, or towards the
35:22 · River Cephisus. As this was happening, and perhaps because of it, the other Pontic wing near Mount
35:29 · Thurium collapsed before Sulla could send any aid, followed by the centre. On both flanks, thousands
35:36 · of 'barbarian' troops, as Plutarch calls them, were slain as they fled. The Pontic commander
35:42 · known as Taxiles was captured by the triumphant Roman army amid the chaos, but Archlaeus and only
35:48 · about 10,000 men comprising the battered remnant of his forces managed to escape to Chalcis.
35:54 · As a mark of his victory, Sulla erected two monuments in the era, the remains of one of which was discovered in the 1990s atop Mount Thurium. The battle may have been
36:05 · won for the Romans, but neither the state's war nor Sulla's political war were over yet.
36:12 · News of the disaster the King Mithridates had suffered at Chaeronea came down on Asia Minor
36:17 · like a ton of bricks, and cities bound inexorably to Mithridates VI by blood, such as Ephesus,
36:24 · Pergamon and a slew of others were suddenly causing the King of Pontus problems. He dealt
36:29 · with such rumblings with merciless efficiency. For example, when the tetrarch leadership of
36:35 · Galatia seemed as though its loyalty was wavering, Mithridates invited them to a banquet and had them
36:41 · all massacred. Although the Pontic monarch was busy dealing with the unrest in Asia,
36:47 · a formidable skill at organization allowed him to send a general known as Dorylaeus at the head
36:52 · of another army into Greece3. Both Appian and Plutarch give us a total manpower of 80,000
36:59 · for this new invasion force. Given their previous, spurious estimate of 120,000 for Archelaus' army,
37:06 · however, it is probably more reasonable to say that Dorylaeus sailed into Chalcis with
37:11 · at most another 40,000. After his retreat from the pitched defeat on the plains near Chaeronea,
37:19 · Archelaus had reverted to war on a strategic scale. Using his vast superiority at sea,
37:26 · the general privateered his way up and down the Aegean and Adriatic seas, picking off Roman
37:31 · supply convoys, launching amphibious raids on enemy coastal bases and even attacking
37:36 · the transports of Marian Consul Lucius Valerius Flaccus as they attempted to cross from Italy.
37:43 · Sulla, meanwhile, was facing the prospect of a three-sided conflict at his expense.
37:48 · Replacement legions led by Flaccus, a subordinate of Cinna and representative of Sulla's worst rivals in Rome had landed in Greece and were approaching from the north,
37:59 · while Archelaus and his newly reinforced army sat happily in Chalcis. Sulla began marching
38:05 · north into Thessaly where he would deal with Cinna's bandit general, but halted at Melitea
38:11 · upon receiving word that the Pontics were on the march. With a reinforced army at their back,
38:17 · Dorylaeus and some of the other commanders, as of yet unaccustomed to the quality of the Roman legions, pressed for another pitched battle, arguing that the paltry Roman force had no hope of
38:28 · opposing theirs. Archelaus urged caution, but when Dorylaeus implied that the defeat at Chaeronea
38:35 · could only have been treachery to Mithridates, Archelaus quickly fell in line. The Pontic army's
38:41 · maneuvering back into Boeotia caught the attention of Sulla, who called off his march against Flaccus
38:46 · without hesitation in favour of doubling back on Archelaus. If the barbarians wanted another
38:53 · thrashing, they were welcome to have one. An initial skirmish near Tilphossium went
38:58 · in Sulla's favour, leading Dorylaeus to recant his aggression and argue in favour of Archelaus.
39:05 · However, when the cavalry-heavy Pontic army came to a brilliant plain near Orchomenus, it was
39:11 · Archelaus who, heartened by the favorable terrain, decided on a pitched battle. They encamped in a
39:17 · strong position and waited until Sulla approached and did the same. Another clash was inevitable.
39:24 · The Sullan army, victorious at Chaeronea the previous year, was arrayed in three lines of
39:30 · battle, each one interrupted by gaps which enemy charging units could be funneled through. Now,
39:36 · however, the proconsul acted with more subtlety. His forward ranks - the antesignati, began drawing
39:43 · up with a denser frontage than those behind, but with more space between them and the lines
39:49 · to their rear - the postsignati. Sulla had stakes driven into the ground in this extra space as a
39:56 · further obstacle. Cleverly utilising the average legionary's status as a half-engineer and builder,
40:02 · Sulla immediately set about nullifying Archelaus' cavalry advantage by digging ten foot wide trenches along each wing. If completed, these makeshift barricades would
40:13 · render vast areas of the plain virtually inaccessible to the deadly Pontic cavalry,
40:19 · thereby protecting the flank of Sulla's infantry-dependent army. Seeing the inherent
40:24 · advantage of open terrain disappearing right before his eyes at the hands of the Republican shovel, Archelaus hastily sent out his cavalry to attack the unprepared Romans in their thousands.
40:37 · They concentrated primarily on the trench-diggers working to fortify the Roman wings, but their
40:42 · rapid, mounted onrush panicked Sulla's half-formed soldiers to the brink of rout. All of a sudden
40:48 · morale was shaky, and the general almost lost control. True to form, Sulla rose to the occasion
40:55 · and displayed the prodigious charisma for which he became famous. As the beleaguered infantry-labour
41:01 · units in front began reaching a breaking point, especially on the left, their brilliant commander
41:06 · rode to aid them. Arriving on the scene, Sulla leapt from his horse and began pushing his way
41:12 · to the very forefront with Rome's vaunted aquila standard in hand. By that point, some of his men
41:18 · were attempting to flee towards the camp, and it was to them he bellowed forth "For me, Romans,
41:25 · an honourable death here. But for you, when men ask you where you betrayed your commander,
41:30 · remember to tell them - 'at Orchomenus!'" Sulla's personal presence and his words of accursed shame
41:37 · rallied the routing units to renewed bravery. Furthermore, two unengaged cohorts from the right
41:44 · flank came to reinforce their general, together with most of Sulla's officers who, fearing for
41:49 · their commander's safety, left their own units to join the fight. With fresh and steadied
41:55 · soldiers alike at his back, Sulla led a foot charge and managed to rout the Pontic cavalry.
42:01 · Perhaps as a reward for this speedy recovery or simply to get them fuelled for the rigours of
42:06 · further battle, Sulla used an intermission in the fighting to feed his legions breakfast. Grateful,
42:13 · the men keenly began preparing entrenchments for a second time that day, only to be charged once
42:18 · more by cavalry and archers. The Pontic force fought hard, but the Romans fought harder.
42:25 · Counter Attacking with gusto, the legionary cohorts closed with their enemy so quickly that
42:30 · the archers were unable to use their weapons effectively, while the Pontic cavalry simply
42:36 · could not match the Roman soldiery in a static fight. Archelaus' assault quickly stalled and
42:42 · was turned back with many losses, including that of his son Diogenes who, according to Plutarch,
42:48 · 'fought gallantly' and 'fell gloriously' 4. The first day ended without victory for either side.
42:56 · In the morning, Archelaus led his own army out into the space between camps with cavalry on the
43:01 · wings, scythed chariots in the vanguard and the Macedonian-style phalanx behind.
43:06 · Still further behind the locked spear formation were the surviving slave-soldiers from Chaeronea.
43:13 · Upon the Pontic general's order, his scythed chariots beelined straight for the first Roman
43:18 · line of antesignati. As though dealing with such contraptions was standard routine for the
43:24 · veterans by this point, Sulla's vanguard units deftly maneuvered aside, allowing the speeding
43:29 · vehicles to barrel straight into the field of stakes behind them. Archelaus' chariot charge
43:35 · was finished before it even got a chance to truly begin. Roman javelineers swarmed around the beset
43:42 · Pontics, putting an end to them quickly. Sulla's soldiers advanced rank upon rank, prepared to meet
43:48 · the forthcoming enemy. On the other side of the field, whilst marching his slower infantry onward
43:54 · in reply, Archelaus dispatched the cavalry to keep Roman attention distracted and their formation
44:00 · shaky, so that they would be easy prey for a phalanx marching in inexorable lock-step. The
44:06 · Roman general countered appropriately. Feeding his small quantity of cavalry through the established
44:12 · gaps, Sulla ordered his inferior quantity of horsemen to engage the galloping hordes of their
44:17 · enemy. They did so, suffering ferocious losses on both flanks, but succeeding in the objective of
44:24 · blocking Archelaus' charge before it hit the legions. As they were now static once more,
44:30 · the advancing legionaries were able to get a hold of and slaughter the Pontic cavalry,
44:35 · cutting through entire divisions as others fled in panic. Worse still, this disaster happened
44:41 · so quickly that the phalanx hadn't been able to properly organize, allowing the Romans free reign
44:47 · on the pike-bearers. Fortunately for them, however, Archelaus was chastened by previous
44:52 · events and ensured there remained a good line of retreat. When it became scathingly obvious
44:58 · that his infantry were in the process of being slaughtered, the Pontic commander withdrew his entire army back. Several thousand of his infantry were dead, but that was pittance when compared to
45:10 · double the amount of cavalry, perhaps reaching up to 10,000, although less is probably more likely.
45:17 · The defeated remainder of Archelaus' army yet again took refuge in the camp, which was subsequently besieged and taken in a dogged fight. It was another brilliant Roman victory,
45:28 · but marred by the Romans' unwillingness to take prisoners and subsequent brutal massacre. Sulla
45:35 · had triumphed over a Pontic field army for the second time in as many years, but Archelaus
45:41 · managed to escape again. That particular detail didn't matter much, even serving to
45:46 · help the triumphator's cause later. All the same, Rome's foreign specter in the form of Mithridates
45:53 · was appropriately culled, with the Pontic King now considering peace talks with Sulla.
45:59 · For Sulla, it was almost time to deal with the domestic issue, but the proconsul could not afford
46:05 · to turn on Cinna and his lackeys quite yet, he had diplomatic matters to conclude in Greece and a
46:12 · hostile Roman army, led by the general Flaccus, to deal with. To that end, he wintered in Thessaly,
46:18 · and prepared his legionaries to do battle with their kin and countrymen.
46:23 · #3 While Sulla had been campaigning against Mithridates, the political situation back home had been heating up. Aristocratic Romans
46:33 · opposed to Marius and Cinna had begun fleeing the capital in great numbers, arriving at Sulla's camp
46:38 · of war 'as to a harbour of refuge', so much that the proconsul and now de facto Optimates leader
46:45 · had a virtual senate of his own in the east. Each of these eminent figures came with terrible news
46:51 · from home, a tale of persecution and injustice at the hands of political enemies. Sulla's
46:58 · properties and those of his allies were being burned, their supporters and friends slain and
47:03 · the Republic reduced to base tyranny. Sulla vowed it would stop, and that all the guilty would pay.
47:10 · Meanwhile, before taking on the rogue and traitor Sulla, Flaccus' Cinnan army embarked on an
47:16 · ill-advised winter march through Thrace in hopes of gaining a few morale-raising victories against
47:22 · Pontus. Flaccus was a politically appointed general only, and so was relatively incompetent.
47:29 · Crucially, however, he utterly refused to take the counsel of his appointed military veteran - Gaius
47:35 · Flavius Fimbria, into account. By the time Flaccus' hapless army reached the Hellespont,
47:40 · he was viewed with incredible hostility by both his army and his second-in-command. When Fimbria
47:47 · threatened to depart back to Rome, Flaccus had him replaced before leaving on some business.
47:52 · Predictably, Fimbria seized command of the army and had Flaccus' head lopped off when he returned,
47:58 · before throwing it into the sea. So it was that Fimbria became the principal Roman
48:03 · opponent Sulla would have to face here on out. While Flaccus was occupied bungling his army
48:09 · and his life away, Sulla was conducting diplomacy with the twice-beaten general Archelaus at Delium.
48:16 · Mithridates, reflecting on the vast losses suffered by his armies in the field so far, had sent Archelaus to extend an olive branch, but he wasn't doing so purely to surrender.
48:27 · The king was all too aware of Sulla's political predicament, that the proconsul was essentially
48:32 · just a dangerous rogue with a powerful army, and he attempted to take advantage of that fact.
48:39 · In the name of an alliance and friendship with Sulla's father, Mithridates' commander offered
48:44 · his adversary what amounted to a blank cheque in money, ships and mercenaries, so long as the Roman commander took those assets and went home, leaving Asia to its fate. With his
48:56 · customary wit, Sulla chimed back that it was truly unfortunate that it had taken two destroyed armies
49:03 · and tens of thousands of dead soldiers before Mithridates had remembered they were 'friends'.
49:09 · The implication of treason against his own Republic appears to have angered Sulla a little,
49:14 · judging by his counter-offer. Advising the high Pontic general to look out for his own
49:19 · interests and implying that Mithridates' crimes needn't be that of all Pontus,
49:25 · Sulla requested that Archelaus turn on his king and take the throne for himself. Then he could
49:31 · make amends with Rome as an ally of the Republic. Archelaus was predictably aghast at the notion
49:37 · and made that known with a firm retort. Sulla then gave Archelaus a proper verbal thrashing
49:44 · in true Roman rhetorical style. If Archelaus, the slave who had fled like a frightened child after
49:50 · being roundly whipped in battle twice would never betray his master, how dare he assume that Sulla,
49:57 · a Roman and a vaunted proconsul would fall to such treacherous deeds? After this initial
50:03 · bit of obligatory chest-puffing showmanship, the proper negotiations began. Little evidence remains
50:10 · of the intricate details, but we know the eventual terms. Archelaus would hand over all his ships and
50:17 · get out of Greece, Mithridates was to vacate the unlawfully occupied areas of Asia Minor, prisoners
50:23 · and deserters would be returned and, to put the cherry on top of the cake, 2,000 talents would be
50:29 · paid as a war indemnity. Some hard negotiation followed during which Mithridates5 initially
50:36 · refused some of the terms, but was persuaded when Sulla threatened, essentially, to come over there
50:41 · and make him. During the entire process, Sulla took the subtle but incredibly intelligent step
50:47 · of keeping Archelaus close at hand, doting on the general and even caring for him when he became
50:53 · ill. This had the dual effect of generating unfavourable whispers of treason about Archelaus
50:59 · among the Pontic royal court, gradually weakening the link between Mithridates and his best general.
51:05 · On the other hand, he was still a powerful connection to the king which Sulla could use.
51:11 · After a reasonably tense personal meeting with Mithridates, Sulla concluded the Peace of Dardanus
51:16 · on the terms he had proposed. According to the incensed Roman soldiers, however, these
51:22 · gentle terms against such a dastardly enemy of the Republic as Mithridates could not be countenanced.
51:28 · Charismatic as always, Sulla turned the situation back on his angry men by arguing that fighting
51:34 · both the Roman legion led by his political opponent, Fimbria, while continuing to fight Pontics would have been an impossible task. Sulla was, of course, only looking out for his men. Now
51:46 · that Pontus had been well and truly humbled, Sulla bounded through Asia to deal with Fimbria. It was
51:53 · a simple task. After a few days of hard marching, the Sullan army caught up with their Roman enemy
51:59 · near the Lydian city of Thyateira. The grizzled Marian commander initially mocked his Roman rival,
52:06 · but upon seeing the hopelessness of the situation he escaped to Pergamon and committed suicide.
52:12 · For now, the war in Asia with Pontus and fellow Romans was over, and a relative lull descended.
52:19 · Sulla didn't take this as an opportunity to relax, however, instead spending the winter of 85/84
52:26 · relentlessly gouging the wealthy Asian territories for as much as he could. When that was finished,
52:32 · the victorious general went back to Athens, a city which he had so recently treated with viciousness,
52:38 · and immersed himself in the culture. Although stricken by a bout of illness during his stay,
52:43 · Sulla found time to be inducted into the famous Eleusinian Mysterious and pilfer one of the city's
52:49 · great libraries. Taking a short rest across the straits, the general came across two fisherman
52:55 · from Halae - a city he had previously obliterated, who gave him a gift of high quality fish. When
53:02 · Sulla realised their origin, he is said to have exclaimed in shock "What?! Is any man
53:07 · of Halae still alive?" The fisherman feared for their safety, mistaking his surprise for anger,
53:13 · but Sulla smiled with lighthearted grace and said that the men were fine representatives of their
53:18 · city. Still, the general had a great number of Romans in his entourage who were itching to get
53:24 · home and get revenge on the supporters of Marius, who had torched their homes and killed their
53:30 · families, their eastern adventure couldn't last forever, and a reckoning was at hand.
53:36 · By autumn of 84BC, Sulla and his thoroughly leveled-up army of veteran killers were en route
53:42 · to Dyrrachium, one of the main embarkation points for transport across the Adriatic.
53:48 · Before the upcoming civil war, however, could even begin, Sulla discovered, rather anticlimactically,
53:54 · that the two primary Marian instigators - Cinna and Marius himself, were already dead.
54:00 · To set the stage for what came next, we must go back in time and outline events that took place
54:05 · in Italy between the time Sulla, disgraced and out-politicked in the aftermath of his consulship,
54:11 · left to war against Mithridates in 88BC, and when his triumphant forces finally returned
54:16 · five years later: a period sometimes known as the Cinnan Republic. Typically cutthroat Late-Roman
54:24 · legal maneuvering between Cinna and Sulla's allies started virtually the instant the latter departed,
54:29 · leading eventually to the exile of the former and the ignominious end of his consulship.
54:35 · Taking a page from Sulla's ruthless playbook, Cinna gathered popularis allies to his side,
54:40 · bribing and enticing the army besieging Nola into following him. Buoyed by the support of
54:46 · Marius and luminaries such as the famous Quintus Sertorius, Cinna too marched on Rome in late 87BC.
54:54 · Unlike Sulla's unprecedented but not overly brutal occupation of Rome not long before,
55:00 · the popularis seizure of Rome in 87 provoked a veritable bloodletting among the optimate faction.
55:07 · Among the scores of prominent Romans killed in the sorry episode were the wealthy Publius Licinius
55:13 · Crassus and his eldest son. Publius' second son, a certain Marcus Licinius Crassus, survived and
55:20 · escaped to the care of clients in Hispania, where he began raising a private army. Marius
55:26 · and Cinna took the consulships for themselves, rescinding Sulla's legislation, confiscating the proconsul's property and even endangering his family. By the skin of their teeth, Sulla's wife
55:37 · Metella and their children managed to get clear of hostile forces and escape to join him in Greece,
55:43 · together with a host of other displaced optimates. So it was that an ideological divide was inflamed
55:50 · by violence and became a blood feud that could only be repaid in one way. When Sulla did return,
55:57 · it would be as a merciless vindicator. In the aftermath of the purge of 87, an aging Gaius
56:04 · Marius, far beyond his martial prime, came to realize this terrible fact. Sooner or later,
56:11 · he would have to face Lucius Cornelius Sulla, a fearsome general at the very apex of his abilities, fresh from conquest. He was a setting sun, and Sulla the rising sun. Sheer
56:23 · dread at the prospect finally collapsed the old general's resolve. He fell into alcoholism and,
56:29 · only seventeen days into his prophesied seventh consulship, died in 86 BC. After this,
56:36 · Cinna firmly took the reins of the state and began raising forces, intent on meeting
56:41 · Sulla in Greece so that Italy might be spared the horrors of a true civil war. Therefore,
56:47 · in 84 BC, Cinna began ferrying legions across the Adriatic, but a storm scattered the second
56:54 · convoy and provoked mutiny among the men already in Illyria. Cinna addressed them and attempted to
57:00 · force discipline, a tactless decision which led to his shameful death. The new de facto popularis
57:07 · leader was Gnaeus Papirius Carbo, who recalled the troops and decided to fight it out in Italy.
57:14 · With the context of Cinna's Republic established, it is high time to detail the distribution of
57:20 · relevant forces who will fight this first proper Roman civil war. The Social War had technically
57:27 · been a fight of Romans against allies, while Sulla's first occupation of Rome was barely a
57:33 · conflict at all. But this upcoming clash between two diametrically opposed political factions was
57:39 · very, very different. Romans of senatorial rank would murder others of their kind in full-scale
57:46 · warfare for the first time. In spring of 83BC at Dyrrachium, the optimates' champion Sulla
57:53 · was ready to make his long promised return to Italy. With him were 30,000 legionaries
57:59 · of the very highest quality, men with years of experience fighting as a cohesive, deadly force
58:05 · in war. Their pockets were also chock full of loot plundered from the war with Mithridates,
58:11 · prompting peerless loyalty to their beloved commander and vastly increased discipline.
58:17 · They had no need to loot Italy, they were already rich after all. 10,000 additional,
58:23 · lower quality infantry reinforcements had been gathered from the Greek territories controlled by Rome, supplemented by a formidable strike-force of 6,000 cavalry.
58:34 · This killer army was the rock-solid core of the optimates cause, but was not its only
58:39 · fighting strength. Among Sulla's coalition of the Republic's 'best elements', as they might call
58:44 · themselves, were influential aristocrats such as Metellus Pius - son of the consul who Marius had
58:51 · humiliated and outshone decades earlier. Vengeful Crassus, who had lost his father and brother,
58:57 · was ready to march as well, armed with his family's wealth and a small army of around 3,000.
59:04 · The primary popularis leaders in 83BC were Carbo: Cinna's successor to the position of
59:10 · quasi-dictator of Rome, in addition to the two annual consuls; Scipio and Norbanus.
59:16 · Fighting a civil war in Italy gave a propaganda advantage to the populares because, as Appian tells us: 'the actions of Sulla, who was marching against his country,
59:26 · seemed to be that of an enemy, while that of the consuls, even if they were working for themselves,
59:32 · was ostensibly the cause of the republic.' Even though we know in hindsight that Sulla
59:38 · will decisively win this war, it is important to realize that it was far from an easy fight.
59:44 · Scholars estimate the Cinnan manpower potential as being at least around 100,000, even though this
59:50 · potential had yet to be exploited. To begin doing so, both Scipio and Norbanus were in Campania
59:57 · rallying the consular armies to face Sulla. Eager to get the show on the road and likely
1:00:03 · pressured by many of his aristocratic supporters to do just that, Sulla and his army of conquest
1:00:08 · crossed from Dyrrachium in two contingents, one of which landed at Tarentum while the other,
1:00:14 · including among it himself, sought harbour at Brundisium. Likely a bit nervous at what
1:00:19 · he was about to do, Sulla got a bit of relief when the Brundisians didn't resist his landing,
1:00:25 · instead welcoming the general. In gratitude, residents of this faithful coastal city were
1:00:31 · granted exemption from the harbour tax. More than a gesture of simple thankfulness however,
1:00:37 · this boon was almost certainly part of a wider propaganda campaign designed to show Italy that
1:00:43 · if towns and cities supported the Sullan cause, they would be richly rewarded. Whatever the case,
1:00:49 · 40,000 invading Roman troops were now on home soil. The two divisions linked up shortly after
1:00:56 · their arrival and began an inexorable march towards Campania, where the enemy armies were
1:01:01 · massing. Not only did Marcus Licinius Crassus join sulla en route, but another total wildcard
1:01:09 · made his machiavellian opening move in a political and military career that would eventually have him
1:01:15 · become Rome's most powerful man. Erupting from vast family estates in Picenium, a rising star
1:01:21 · in his early twenties named Gnaeus Pompey raised a 'small band' of troops, as Cassius Dio called
1:01:28 · them, from his swathe of clients as well as his father's diehard veterans, and declared for Sulla.
1:01:35 · This opportunistic proclamation came after the young man had initially marched with Cinna during
1:01:40 · his doomed venture. After soundly beating Marian forces under Carbo who subsequently arrived to
1:01:46 · stop him, Pompey arrived at Sulla's camp, where he was treated with incredible respect and declared
1:01:52 · imperator. With these illustrious new friends and many, many more flocking to his banner,
1:01:59 · Sulla advanced along the Via Appia until the army reached Caudium. Detouring, he then swept by
1:02:05 · Saticula and Calatia with a first true strategic objective firmly in sight - Capua. On his way,
1:02:12 · Sulla was able to forbid and enforce a complete ban on looting the Italian countryside. His cause
1:02:19 · was to be that of a heroic Roman liberator who meted out harsh justice to the guilty,
1:02:25 · but retained mercy for the innocent. Moreover, clemency might induce desertion from the enemy's
1:02:31 · cause, which was of course the prime motivator. Meanwhile, Norbanus and Scipio managed to get
1:02:37 · their greenhorn armies together and march to war themselves, directed by Carbo. Unsure which
1:02:44 · line of march Sulla would opt for, the consuls divided their formidable forces, with Norbanus
1:02:50 · taking a slightly larger force to block the Volturnus crossing on the crossroad between the Via Appia and Latina. Scipio took up a position further north, near the city of Taenum Sidicinum.
1:03:01 · The war was about to begin in earnest. When Sulla grasped that he was facing two
1:03:07 · divided armies rather than a single overwhelming one, the optimate proconsul beelined down the
1:03:13 · road to Capua and straight at Norbanus, whose dedication to the Marian cause was more fervent
1:03:19 · than that of his consular colleague. His army, whose command structure included Marius' son,
1:03:25 · was also the more dangerous of the two, being larger and subject to greater discipline.
1:03:30 · The two armies caught sight of one another when Sulla neared Norbanus' position on the Volturnus.
1:03:36 · His spirits made optimistic by the support of so many prominent men of the Republic, Sulla
1:03:42 · sent emissaries in an attempt to bring the bristly consul over to the optimate side and to avoid the
1:03:48 · slaughter of Romans. The proconsul's olive branch was snapped when Norbanus harmed the envoys and a
1:03:54 · great battle became inevitable. On the rolling foothills of Mount Tifata, 40,000 Sullan troops
1:04:01 · met roughly 60,000 Marians and crushed them with contemptuous ease, supposedly not even having to
1:04:08 · properly get in formation to do so. According to Plutarch, the veterans' enthusiasm and zeal
1:04:14 · for the melee was so great that they simply swept Norbanus' newly raised army away in a great rush,
1:04:21 · killing somewhere between six and seven thousand men whilst, apparently, only losing 70.
1:04:27 · Sulla himself commented later that it was this moment that made him believe victory was probable.
1:04:34 · Until Tifata, Sulla had been secretly nervous that the soldiers might desert him and return
1:04:39 · to their homes as was customary for legionaries all throughout the republic. Victory against the
1:04:45 · bellicose consul only fired up the soldiers even further, making them all the more confident in
1:04:51 · final victory and solidly aligned to their great redheaded general. Although Norbanus managed to
1:04:57 · retreat behind the walls of Capua with most of his battered army, Sulla judged him not to be an
1:05:03 · immediate threat and turned north. It was Scipio's turn. Thundering up the Via Latina toward Taenum,
1:05:11 · Sulla's army met the second consular army near its base but didn't immediately go on the attack.
1:05:18 · Optimistic about the prospects of diplomacy with a more moderate leader, the proconsul
1:05:23 · put out feelers and managed to arrange talks with Scipio. Although the back and forth term-talking
1:05:29 · was initially cordial enough, Scipio felt it only right and proper to inform his defeated
1:05:35 · co-consul what he was doing, and to seek his counsel. So he dispatched the most prominent
1:05:41 · Marian in the army except for himself to act as go-between. Unfortunately for Scipio, that
1:05:47 · man was another Roman legend - Quintus Sertorius, future guerilla-king of Hispania. Despising Sulla,
1:05:55 · Sertorius went on the consul's mission, but intentionally provoked a fight by capturing
1:06:00 · Suessa on the way, a town which had sided with the optimates. Stunned, Scipio returned Sulla's
1:06:06 · hostages and the armies prepared for battle. It was at this moment the proconsul sprang a trap
1:06:13 · which would become one of his most famous. Aware that the Scipione legions were far
1:06:18 · from secure in loyalty anyway and furthermore blamed the consuls for breaking the armistice,
1:06:24 · Sulla had his own veteran soldiers strategically fraternise with the enemy army during the entire
1:06:30 · duration of his parley with Scipio. What exactly the proconsul's troops said or did isn't known,
1:06:37 · but we can imagine them bringing extra rations to the Marian camp along with a portion of their eastern treasure, sharing both and, by doing so, championing their general's cause. This
1:06:48 · kind of interaction must have taken place around a thousand campfires and in a hundred grand tents.
1:06:54 · Rank and file soldiers were gradually convinced by argument, flattery and thinly veiled bribery.
1:07:01 · In the upper echelons, Sullan officers might've shared drinks with their adversarial counterparts
1:07:07 · and were turned by promises of position and power. By the time Sulla drew up his army and advanced
1:07:13 · on Scipio's tent, the latter's authority rested on a foundation of sand. The consul had no idea.
1:07:21 · In a pre-arranged signal, twenty cohorts of Sulla's veterans saluted Scipio's encamped
1:07:27 · warriors in a greeting, a greeting which was returned by a greeting of their own. Then,
1:07:32 · to the consul's utter disbelief, his entire army streamed out of the camp and flocked to join Sulla
1:07:38 · as if their minds had been enchanted. Thoroughly outmaneuvered, Scipio simply sat bemused in
1:07:45 · his tent until the Sullans came to get him. The consul was captured and dismissed by his enemy,
1:07:51 · unharmed. Still, a large part of Italy still supported the Marian cause against the invaders,
1:07:57 · and so Sulla was forced to keep his tact front and centre. With Scipio appropriately dealt with,
1:08:04 · Sulla turned about and once again sent entreaties to Norbanus, probably aiming to repeat his
1:08:10 · sorcerer's trick. They failed once again and the proconsul continued his unstoppable advance on
1:08:16 · Capua. Unwilling to stand against Sulla there, the surviving consul abandoned the city and made
1:08:23 · his way to the Marian stronghold at Praeneste. A lull in the fighting followed during which both
1:08:28 · factions took a breath, drew back and prepared for the second round. Up until this point,
1:08:35 · Sulla had made an attempt at negotiating every time he had the chance. Rejected,
1:08:40 · it was this moment which saw the war descend into a bloodbath, justified by said rejections.
1:08:46 · #4 By the end of the year 83 BC, Sulla and his legions had won many Italian cities to their cause as they continued their march to
1:08:56 · Capua. However, his Marian enemies were still strong, and a tense military standoff ensued,
1:09:02 · with both sides attempting to raise additional forces for the coming campaigns. A bitter winter
1:09:08 · also froze the respective armies in place, locking any movement down until the thaw of 82. When the
1:09:15 · year turned, 'elections' took place in Rome and new consuls were elected. Somewhat predictably
1:09:22 · given the circumstances, Carbo and Marius the Younger were appointed to the position. Just as
1:09:28 · Caesar's hallowed name would serve as a potent weapon for Octavian decades later, elevating
1:09:33 · Gaius Marius' son to the consulship engendered a renewed burst of support from the Marian
1:09:39 · heartlands in Etruria and Umbria. There, the old general's name was still encased in gold, and his
1:09:46 · veterans consequently turned out in great numbers to support their revered commander's heir.
1:09:52 · It is important to point out that the main armies marching around Italy, despite their immense size,
1:09:57 · were not the be all and end all of the war. Regions and their cities may have predominantly leaned one way or the other, but all throughout the Roman heartland, bitter factional
1:10:08 · strife raged between pro and anti-Sulla factions. A Sullan proponent in the Umbrian city of Ameria,
1:10:15 · for example, briefly managed to incite the people into supporting the invading general,
1:10:20 · but was cut down by unknown Marian assassins not long after. When the campaigning season of 82BC
1:10:27 · began, Sulla sent Metellus and Pompey with an army north to confront Carbo at Ariminum,
1:10:33 · and make a play for Cisalpine Gaul. ADD #7 At the River Aesis the Populares and Optimates met once more for battle, with five cohorts defecting
1:10:43 · over to the Optimates. The fight was fierce but rapid, as the main line of the Optimates were
1:10:48 · able to push the Populares back, allowing Pompey to then finish them off with a cavalry assault.
1:10:53 · At the same time, the proconsul continued his personal advance on Rome and encountered a larger
1:10:59 · army under Marius the Younger at Sacriporto. Sulla had been attempting to reach Dolabella,
1:11:04 · whom he hoped would defect to his side, but Marius the Younger had hemmed his forces in by blockading
1:11:09 · the roads into Latium with a force of 40,000 men. Sulla, however, was eager to break through the
1:11:15 · defense, having experienced a vision of Marius the Elder warning his son that he would suffer a great military disaster on that day. However, his soldiers were exhausted and a rain earlier
1:11:26 · in the day had waterlogged their equipment and the battlefield, prompting his Tribunes to advise him
1:11:31 · to pitch camp instead and rest for the night. Sulla relented, and while his soldiers began
1:11:36 · digging defensive earthenworks Marius the Younger assaulted his position. However when Sulla's men
1:11:42 · fought back five cohorts and two cavalry alae defected to Sulla, prompting a collapse of Marius'
1:11:48 · forces and causing a rout. It is said that between 15,000 and 25,000 soldiers of the Populares were
1:11:55 · killed in a slaughter, breaking Marius' forces completely. The defeated Marian commander and
1:12:04 · his shattered army ran for shelter to Praeneste, but Sulla pursued them so closely and fiercely
1:12:10 · that the Praenestians were forced to shut the gates before Marius himself could enter. In a
1:12:16 · hair-raising moment, the beleaguered general was hauled over the wall by a rope while his men were
1:12:22 · captured or massacred against the fortifications. In a grim foretaste of what was to come, Sulla had
1:12:29 · all the Samnites among them executed as rebels. Devoured by paranoia and fury at being humbled
1:12:36 · in such an embarrassing way, Marius the Younger sent grim orders to Rome that anyone suspected
1:12:42 · of loyalty to Sulla was to be killed. To that end, four prominent figures who had previously
1:12:48 · supported reconciliation with Sulla, including the Pontifex Maximus Mucius Scaevola were slain
1:12:54 · as they tried to escape, further intensifying the bloody ideological nature of the war.
1:13:01 · ADD #8 Leaving a small force to keep Marius at bay in Praeneste, Sulla split his main army into two distinct divisions and pushed
1:13:08 · north on Carbo. Sulla's group, traversing the Via Cassia toward Clusium, defeated an
1:13:14 · enemy cavalry force on the River Clanis. The second group, moving along the Via Clodia, continued on without incident and defeated enemy forces near Saturnia. The details of the battles
1:13:24 · of the River Clanis and Saturnia are fascinating as they tell us about Carbo's strategy, stringing
1:13:29 · out small forces along the route to bog Sulla down with skirmishes as a delaying tactic. Meanwhile,
1:13:35 · Carbo himself was amassing an impressive force for battle, large enough that he could split off eight legions to march South down the Via Flaminia to break the siege of Praeneste under
1:13:44 · his legate C. Marcius Censorinus. The proconsul himself then came to blows with the consul's
1:13:50 · main army near Clusium itself, but the grueling, day-long battle had no clear winner. Elsewhere,
1:13:56 · the war was also going well for the Sullan cause: Metellus was able to craftily sail around the
1:14:02 · Marian strong point at Ariminum to advance on Cisalpine Gaul by Ravenna and optimate forces
1:14:08 · were sweeping their way across Sardinia. Pompey was marching against Carbo's blockading force
1:14:13 · under C. Carrinas at Sens Gallicus, and engaged them in battle. Losing three thousand of his men,
1:14:19 · Carrinas was forced to retreat to the city of Spoletium and requested reinforcements.
1:14:24 · Carbo's relief force, however, was quickly located and ambushed by Sulla, who slew two thousand of
1:14:30 · them and routed the remainder. Having lost control of both the Via Cassia and Via Flaminia,
1:14:35 · Carbo was forced to make a bolder move, sending Censorinus and his legions on a rapid march to
1:14:40 · outflank Sulla and relieve Praeneste. Again, Sulla was able to locate the relief force and
1:14:46 · intercept it, ambushing them at a pass and then surrounding them on a nearby hilltop. Censorinus
1:14:52 · was quickly blamed by his men for leading them into disaster, and most of the army deserted, leaving him with a mere seven cohorts in the end. Having lost massive part of his forces, Carbo and
1:15:03 · Norbanus retreated North to deal with Metellus. At the Battle of Faventia, Carbo attempted a
1:15:09 · rapid march to attempt to reach and defeat Metellus before nightfall, arriving an hour before sundown. In their attempt to surprise Metellus they had made their plans hastily
1:15:18 · and stumbled into thick vineyards, allowing Metellus to respond with greater care. Between
1:15:24 · nine and ten thousand of Carbo's forces were slain, with another six thousand deserting, and only a thousand making it back to Ariminium intact. Upon hearing of this news, a Legion of
1:15:34 · Lucanians defected to Metellus, further bolstering his forces, while their commander Albinovanus had
1:15:40 · managed to arrange a nasty assassination of all of Carbo and Norbanus' commanders in a feast,
1:15:45 · leaving the populares leaderless and completely on the back foot. Norbanus chose this moment to flee
1:15:52 · Italy and commit suicide, while Carbo desperately attempted once again to break the siege of Praeneste, only for his forces to be defeated once more at the Battle of Fidentia by Marcus Lucullus,
1:16:02 · brother of the more famous general of that name. At Fidentia Lucullus had found himself severely
1:16:08 · outnumbered, with eighteen cohorts facing nearly fifty loyal to Carbo and the Populares under
1:16:14 · Quinctius. Worse still, his men were short on arms and ammunition. However a breeze blew flowers down
1:16:20 · from the mountains which attached themselves to the men, forming the appearance of wreathes and garlands on the helmets and shields of his men. Taking this as an omen and with morale soaring,
1:16:30 · Lucullus and his men attacked, breaking Quinctius' army and slaying ten to eighteen thousand of
1:16:36 · them. Retreating back to Clusium, Carbo and his remaining army of 30,000 men once more engaged
1:16:42 · Pompey near the city, but allegedly two thirds of his army was slaughtered in the battle. However,
1:16:47 · due to one of Sulla's previous sanctions, the proconsul himself was to be denied a decisive victory directly against Carbo. Possibly triggered by the proconsul's wanton
1:16:57 · slaughter of Samnite prisoners after thrashing Marius before Praeneste, a fresh, allied force of
1:17:03 · up to 70,000 Samnites and Lucanians burst from Samnium and went straight for the small force
1:17:09 · Sulla had ordered to keep the young Marius in check. Disengaging from his campaign in Etruria,
1:17:14 · Sulla doubled back with blistering alacrity and managed to install his own army in a pass between
1:17:20 · the interlopers and Praeneste. The Italians attempted to break in while Marius tried to break
1:17:26 · out. Both failed. But now the coalition army, which was under the command of a Samnite known
1:17:31 · as Pontius Telesinus alongside M. Lamponius and Gutta, all survivors of the last Social War, was
1:17:37 · in big trouble. It had Sulla in front, apparently unbreakable within his natural fortress, while
1:17:43 · dashing Pompey was swiftly following up behind, ready to crush the recalcitrant Italians from both
1:17:49 · sides. What Telesinus needed was a distraction to pull Sulla out from his position and the Samnite
1:17:56 · leader had a very shiny one very close by. Abruptly breaking camp during the dark hours
1:18:01 · of October 31st of 82BC, Telesinus' great army closed in on Rome itself, a city which was almost
1:18:09 · utterly undefended due to the ongoing conflict. After joining with some remnant Marian forces,
1:18:15 · this terrifying force arrived and encamped one mile outside the Eternal City's Colline Gate. A
1:18:22 · historian, senator and soldier of the era known as Velleius Paterculus states that this was the most
1:18:28 · critical situation Rome had faced since Hannibal had camped just miles from the city after Cannae.
1:18:34 · He puts a speech in Telesinus' mouth in which he proclaims: "The last day is at hand for the
1:18:40 · Romans. These wolves that made such ravages on Italian liberty will never vanish until we
1:18:45 · have cut down the forest that harbours them!" For the first time ever, a coalition of Rome's
1:18:51 · Italian neighbors were in a position to take the city, but Sulla, suddenly understanding
1:18:57 · the threat, was hurrying in order to stop them. Unwilling to chance assaulting the massive capital
1:19:03 · while a dangerous enemy army was on his heels, no matter how tempting it was, Telesinus restrained
1:19:09 · his forces and prepared to meet Sulla for the great final battle. It was so final because Carbo,
1:19:16 · defeated in the north by the other optimate generals, had withdrawn to Sicily. This was it.
1:19:22 · A small force of young citizens sallied out of the city against Telesinus, but were repelled.
1:19:28 · Sending forward a squadron of several hundred cavalry to harry the attackers and make their
1:19:33 · onward movement sluggish, Sulla, rushing down the Via Praenestina, managed to get beyond the
1:19:38 · Samnite-led coalition army and encamped next to the Temple of Venus, just outside the Colline Gate
1:19:44 · at noon. If the enemy wanted to breach Rome, they would have to get past his veterans.
1:19:50 · Several of the proconsul's officers, noting the tiredness of the men and the lateness of the hour,
1:19:56 · advised their general to not to attack. However, eager for battle and confident of victory, Sulla
1:20:03 · brought his standards to bear, arrayed his troops and attacked regardless, initiating the battle in
1:20:08 · late afternoon. The right flank, led by Crassus, won victory with the ease to which the Sullans had
1:20:14 · become accustomed, driving their opposition all the way to Antemnae with massive losses. However,
1:20:20 · beset by fierce Samnite warriors and exhausted from the march, Sulla's own left flank collapsed
1:20:26 · under the pressure and his men routed towards the gate, despite their commander's swashbuckling
1:20:32 · efforts at rallying them. However, Roman veterans manning the walls dropped the portcullis in fear
1:20:38 · that the enemy might follow in after, blocking the line of retreat. Faced with resistance or death,
1:20:44 · Sulla's troops turned, fought and, in the early evening, managed to turn the tide. As the great
1:20:50 · battle began winding down near the Colline Gate, messengers came to Sulla from Crassus,
1:20:55 · who had been separated from his leader at the start of the battle. Informed of the deaths of Telsius and Albinus and the resulting triumph, the proconsul realised with some confusion that
1:21:05 · he had won the battle, and with it, the war. The brutality and deadliness of this battle
1:21:10 · was so great that 50,000 men apparently died within earshot of Rome that day. 8,000 Samnite
1:21:17 · prisoners were also summarily executed. After his decisive triumph was confirmed,
1:21:23 · Sulla went to attend Crassus at Antemnae, where a 3,000 strong segment of the besieged garrison,
1:21:29 · swollen by refugees from the clash at the Colline Gate, proceeded to beg the victorious proconsul
1:21:35 · for mercy. In his typically vulpine manner, Sulla stated that he would grant them mercy,
1:21:41 · but only if they 'would do some mischief' to his other enemies inside beforehand. They did so,
1:21:48 · desperately slaughtering thousands of their own allies and allowing the proconsul inside. It was
1:21:54 · a terrible mistake. They didn't realise the time for mercy or humanity was over.
1:21:59 · Disarmed and at the mercy of their conqueror, the remaining Samnite and Lucanian prisoners,
1:22:05 · about 6,000 in number, were marched into Rome and herded into the Villa Publica.
1:22:11 · As this was happening, Sulla summoned the senate to the nearby Temple of Bellona and began orating to the august body of his deeds in the Mithridatic War and in the catastrophic civil
1:22:21 · war he had just won. The moment Sulla did begin to speak, however, a strange noise became audible.
1:22:29 · It might not have been overly distinguishable at first amid the hustle and bustle of the capital,
1:22:34 · but as the sounds multiplied, it was clear to every senator what the noise was: terrified,
1:22:40 · agonised shrieking. Noticing the senatorial disquiet, Sulla simply said in calm and composed
1:22:47 · language that the senators ought to keep their attention firmly on him and not worry about what
1:22:53 · was going on outside. It was, he said, only a matter of criminals being punished on his
1:22:59 · orders. If the cause of the noise wasn't clear enough, Sulla had penned the 6,000 prisoners from
1:23:06 · Antemnae into a public building and just massacred them in earshot of the senate as a warning. After
1:23:12 · this he went and addressed the people also. His message was stark: the guiltless needn't fear,
1:23:19 · but anybody who had been his enemy since Scipio's broken truce was essentially finished.
1:23:25 · Barely straining his muscles, Sulla marched on Praeneste and induced Marius the Younger to
1:23:30 · commit suicide before executing a great number of his troops. One account, probably more accurate,
1:23:37 · details how Sulla, now de facto dictator of Rome, split the townspeople into three groups: Roman,
1:23:44 · Samnite and Praenestine. The latter categories were executed to the last man, while the Romans
1:23:51 · were treated to a verbal thrashing. They deserved to die horribly for the crimes they had committed,
1:23:57 · Sulla said, but nevertheless spared them. Throughout the Italian Peninsula, Sulla's
1:24:02 · supporters engaged in an overly vigorous mass slaying of their defeated enemies, leading one senator to plead with Sulla, would he please confirm who he wanted saved and who he
1:24:14 · wanted dead? He did just that. The next morning, the dictator posted a list of 80 public enemies
1:24:21 · who could be killed with impunity, including Carbo, Norbanus, Scipio and Sertorius. The
1:24:27 · morning after that, 220 additional names appeared. On the third day, about the same amount more.
1:24:35 · These were the famous proscription lists. Many Marian renegades were hunted down and
1:24:41 · their heads brought to Sulla, but innocents also suffered under the predation of the dictator's
1:24:46 · agents. A certain Quintus Aurelius, a quiet but rich man whose role in the political struggle
1:24:53 · consisted of simply counseling with others, entered the forum one day to find his own name
1:24:59 · on the list. Understanding the reason immediately, Aurelius exclaimed "Woe is me, my Alban farm has
1:25:06 · informed against me!" It is important to realise that these avarice-driven excesses were not
1:25:12 · Sulla's intention, although his brutal policy did enable them. However brutal his actual motivations
1:25:18 · may have been towards political enemies, they at least seem to have been driven by a greater good.
1:25:24 · When he discovered that Crassus had executed a man in Bruttium purely to acquire the man's estate,
1:25:30 · Sulla cast the future triumvir out and forbade him from embarking on public business again.
1:25:37 · In a legislative capacity, Sulla redoubled his attack on the troublesome position of tribune,
1:25:43 · which he believed to be the toxic component in the Roman system. To remedy the situation, he both
1:25:49 · deprived the tribunes of any power to introduce new laws to the people, and also prevented any
1:25:55 · man who had occupied the tribunician rank from seeking any other magistracy. By doing this,
1:26:01 · he discouraged the perennially ambitious Roman political class from seeking the position in the
1:26:06 · first place. Along with his political massacring of the people's representative, Sulla also set
1:26:12 · about attempting to prevent any future attempt to do what he had so recently done as proconsul - led
1:26:18 · a loyal army from the provinces into Italy and seized the Republic for himself. To do this, he
1:26:24 · made the maiestas, or 'treason' laws more strict. Treasonous actions on the part of governors were
1:26:31 · now exactly defined. It was treasonous should a governor refuse to return from his province
1:26:37 · within 30 days of his successor's arrival, led an army out of their province or warred without
1:26:43 · the senate's permission. On the home front Sulla initiated the lex Cornelia annalis,
1:26:49 · solidifying the traditional structure of the cursus honorum. A politician was required to
1:26:54 · be thirty-six to be elected aedile, thirty-nine for the praetorship and forty-two to serve as
1:27:00 · a consul. Another old law was brought back into full force which stated that when a man had held
1:27:06 · a specific office, he could not hold that office again until a decade had passed.
1:27:12 · These were just some of the many measures Sulla took as the wayward Republic's guiding steward,
1:27:17 · its most notorious dictator. He acutely tweaked, duly modified and dutifully restored institutions
1:27:25 · wherever he took issue, but it would be wrong to call these changes 'reforms'. They were designed
1:27:30 · not to bring on a new age, as many reforms are, but to bring back a brilliant system which,
1:27:37 · Sulla believed, had degenerated and been taken down the wrong path. Once the dictator believed
1:27:43 · all that could be done was done in his service of maintaining Rome in its traditional form,
1:27:48 · he did as most Roman dictators did. In contrast to the eponymous power-mad tyrants of our modern age,
1:27:56 · Sulla relinquished his great power voluntarily and became a private citizen once more. Then,
1:28:02 · in an act which Cinncinatus would've been proud of, he took himself from the capital and retired to a luxurious villa near Puteoli. There, Sulla Felix indulged in the noble pursuit
1:28:14 · of hunting, and spent a great deal of time fishing in solitude. Indoors, he hosted many of the old
1:28:20 · theatre comrades with whom he had associated in the days before his prominence, lounging on
1:28:26 · couches, talking, swapping jokes and drinking fine wines day after day. As he lived out the
1:28:32 · final years of his life in this most 'degenerate' of ways, the former ruler of Rome also penned his
1:28:38 · memoirs, of which unfortunately only fragments survive today. Gradually, given his repeated,
1:28:45 · intense bouts of drinking and cohorting, Sulla's health began to decline. Although technically
1:28:51 · retired, he was still able to exercise power. In a final burst of energy, he ended a period
1:28:57 · of discord between new colonists of Puteoli and some of the older inhabitants. A small time later,
1:29:04 · Sulla discovered that a magistrate known as Granius was withholding money destined for the
1:29:09 · treasury. After having this corrupt man brought into his presence, Sulla shouted that he be
1:29:15 · strangled, but suffered a haemorrhage in his anger and died the following morning, in 78BC. However
1:29:23 · pivotal this man was for the history of the Roman Republic and its future, it is perhaps one of the
1:29:29 · things he didn't do that was truly to have the longest lasting impact. During the dictatorship of
1:29:35 · Sulla, a number of noble supporters intercede on behalf of a young man whom the ruler wanted dead
1:29:41 · for refusing his wishes. Eventually relenting, Sulla is said to have remarked: "Very well then,
1:29:47 · you win! Take him! But never forget that the man whom you want me to spare will one day prove the
1:29:54 · ruin of the party which you and I have so long defended. There are many Marius's in this fellow."
1:30:00 · The 'fellow' of whom Sulla spoke, whose life he so reluctantly spared, was one Gaius Julius Caesar.
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