50 Fun Facts About Sulla

What does Felix mean, the Latin name Sulla added to his own after winning Rome's civil war?

Lucky is how Sulla saw himself, trusting his good fortune more than his own achievements. He even named his twin children Faustus and Fausta, from the Latin for auspicious.

Which famous Roman went into hiding as a young man after refusing Sulla's order to divorce his wife?

Julius Caesar had married the daughter of one of Sulla's chief opponents and would not give her up. He was spared only after his relatives and allies among the Vestal Virgins interceded for him.

Which Greek festival is said to have shrunk to one footrace because Sulla summoned its athletes to Rome?

Olympic Games athletes were called to Italy to help celebrate Sulla's eastern victories. Only one sprint is said to have been run at the usual site that year.

Which composer was only sixteen when he wrote Lucio Silla, an Italian opera about Sulla?

Mozart composed it for Milan, where it opened on 26 December 1772. Its plot takes considerable liberties with history.

A rival said fighting Sulla meant facing a lion and which other animal, the more troublesome of the two?

A fox was the beast the enemy leader Carbo said troubled him more. He said it after Sulla's men had talked an enemy army of forty cohorts into changing sides without a fight.

Sulla wrote his own epitaph, boasting that he had always repaid in full which two groups of people?

Friends and enemies alike got what they were owed, the inscription claimed: nobody had outdone him in kindness or in harm. It was carved on his tomb in the Campus Martius.

Which Greek city did Sulla sack after its tyrant Aristion sided with the king of Pontus?

Athens held out for five months while its starving people were reduced to eating shoe leather. Sulla's troops finally broke in at midnight on 1 March 86 BC.

Which young general, who raised a private army for Sulla, did Sulla honour with the surname Magnus?

Pompey was in his twenties when Sulla gave him a name meaning the Great. Refused a triumph, he is said to have reminded Sulla that more people worship the rising sun than the setting one.

What did Sulla do with his unlimited power once he had finished rewriting Rome's laws?

Gave it all up is the short answer: he dismissed his bodyguards and walked the Forum unprotected, offering to account for his actions to any citizen. He then withdrew to a country villa.

Sulla shipped to Rome a library of manuscripts, long hidden in a cellar, by which Greek philosopher?

Aristotle's manuscripts had been hidden underground to keep them from royal book collectors, and were badly decayed. Scholars in Rome copied them, and a new edition of his works was built on those copies.

Which office, unused in Rome for more than a century, did Sulla revive and hold with no fixed time limit?

Dictator had been a short emergency post, last filled during the Second Punic War. Sulla's version let him make laws and remodel the state for as long as he chose.

Which Roman goddess did Sulla claim as his divine protector, taking a Greek title that named him her favourite?

Venus was his chosen patron: he used the Greek title Epaphroditos, favourite of Aphrodite, her Greek counterpart, in official letters and had it carved on his victory trophies in Greece.

Which oracle sanctuary in central Greece did Sulla strip of its treasures to pay for his war against Pontus?

Delphi had to send him the offerings of centuries. One royal gift, an enormous jar, was too heavy for any pack animal and had to be cut into pieces first.

Which future conqueror of Spartacus grew rich buying the confiscated estates of Sulla's victims at auction?

Crassus bought the seized property at discount prices and came to be called the richest man in Rome. Sulla encouraged such buyers, wanting to spread the blame among his supporters.

Which young orator made his name defending Sextus Roscius in a murder trial that exposed Sulla's freedman Chrysogonus?

Cicero was only 26 and had never taken a public case, but nobody else dared face a favourite of Sulla. He won an acquittal and, by his own account, instant fame as an advocate.

Which king of Pontus, said to be immune to poison, did Sulla defeat in Greece but leave on his throne?

Mithridates VI kept his kingdom under the peace agreed at Dardanus, giving up his conquests, a fleet of ships and a war fine. He went on to fight Rome in two more wars.

When the Senate's envoys asked why Sulla was marching legions on Rome, what did he say he had come to do?

Free it from tyrants was his bold reply. All but one of his senior officers had already abandoned him rather than lead an army against their own city.

Which town still shows in its walls the missile scars of Sulla's siege, and later housed his veterans?

Pompeii's wall near the Herculaneum Gate is pitted with the craters of thousands of catapult shots. The town surrendered, became a Roman colony and gave land to many of the general's old soldiers.

On the banks of the Euphrates, Sulla became the first Roman official to meet an envoy of which eastern empire?

Parthia's envoy Orobazus was put to death by his own king afterwards for letting Sulla take the seat of honour at their meeting.

The penniless young Sulla spent his days among which group of people, then held in low esteem in Rome?

Actors, comedians and dancers were his companions, and he is said to have written comic plays for the stage himself. He kept such company even when he ruled Rome.

Which Numidian king was betrayed by his own father-in-law and handed over to Sulla, ending a long war?

Jugurtha was seized by King Bocchus of Mauretania and delivered to the Romans. Sulla had the scene engraved on his signet ring, which annoyed his commander Marius, who took the credit for the victory.

What name was given to Sulla's lists, posted in the Forum, of enemies whom anyone could kill for a reward?

Proscriptions started with a list of about 80 names, and hundreds more followed. Victims lost their property to the state, and their sons and grandsons were barred from public office.

Which officials did Sulla bar from proposing laws or holding later office, turning the post into a dead end?

Tribunes of the plebs had started most of the political crises of his lifetime, so he cut the office down. Their powers were restored within ten years of his death, under two of his own former officers.

Which rare decoration, Rome's highest military honour, did Sulla's own soldiers award him outside Nola?

Grass Crown was the name for a wreath woven from plants growing on the battlefield, given by an army to the commander who had saved it. Sulla recorded the honour in his own memoirs.

At which entrance to Rome did Sulla win the last great battle of his civil war, fought on into the night?

Colline Gate was nearly a disaster for him: his own wing was driven back to the walls and found the way into the city shut. Forced to stand and fight, his men won during the night.

Sulla had thousands of prisoners from which Italian people killed within earshot of the Senate?

Samnites were Rome's traditional enemies in Italy. As the screams reached the senators, Sulla told them calmly to attend to his speech, since some criminals were merely being punished.

Which conflict between Rome and its rebellious Italian allies won Sulla the fame that made him consul?

Social War comes from socii, the Latin for allies. Sulla took over the southern front, captured the rebel capital at Bovianum and was then elected consul with ease.

Sulla served under Marius and Catulus against which migrating northern tribes that had destroyed Roman armies?

Cimbri and Teutons had beaten Roman legions several times before Marius took command. Sulla's job in the final campaign was supply, and he kept two armies fed before the victory at the Raudian Field.

Which officer, later a byword for luxury, did Sulla make guardian of his children and dedicate his memoirs to?

Lucullus is thought to be the one senior officer who stayed with Sulla when he first led his army against Rome. He later brought up Sulla's twins, Faustus and Fausta.

At what kind of public event did Sulla meet his last wife, Valeria, who plucked a thread from his cloak?

A gladiator show still seated men and women together. Valeria passed behind Sulla and pulled a thread from his cloak, saying she wanted a share of his success, and they were soon married.

A Greek joker likened Sulla's blotchy red-and-white face to which fruit, sprinkled with flour?

Mulberry dusted with meal was the image in a mocking verse about him. Ancient writers describe a fierce, piercing stare and a pale face covered with rough red blotches.

Sulla escaped poverty through two inheritances, one from his mistress Nicopolis and the other from which relative?

His stepmother was a wealthy woman who is said to have loved him as her own son. The two legacies reached him at about thirty and paid for his late start in politics.

To which ancient patrician clan, also the family of the Scipios, did the impoverished Sulla belong by birth?

Cornelii were among Rome's grandest families, though his own branch had not produced a consul for generations. The thousands of slaves he later freed all took the clan name too.

Sulla's ancestor Rufinus was thrown out of the Senate for owning more than ten pounds of what luxury?

Silver plate beyond that weight was thought a scandalous luxury for a senator of his day. After the disgrace, the family did not hold the consulship again until Sulla himself.

Which consul ruled Rome while Sulla was fighting in the East, until his own mutinous troops killed him?

Cinna had Sulla declared a public enemy while he was abroad. His soldiers mutinied and killed him at Ancona as he tried to ship them across the Adriatic to meet Sulla's veterans.

In which western land did the general Sertorius, joined by many who had fled Sulla, defy Rome for years?

Spain sheltered the last serious resistance to Sulla's settlement. Sertorius ruled there independently for most of a decade, until one of his own lieutenants murdered him.

Where did Marius escape to when Sulla outlawed him, before returning to seize Rome the following year?

Africa was where the old general found safety among his former veterans. He was back in Italy by the end of 87 BC, took the city by siege and began a massacre of his opponents.

Sulla doubled the Senate to about six hundred, recruiting from which wealthy class below the senators?

Equites, often called knights, were rich men outside the ruling nobility. The enlarged Senate gave Sulla enough members to man the permanent jury courts he was setting up.

In which war goddess's temple did Sulla address the Senate while prisoners were being killed within hearing?

Bellona's temple stood on the Campus Martius. At the same meeting Sulla put his first death lists to the senators, who refused to approve them, so he published them on his own authority.

Near which Boeotian town, where Philip of Macedon had once beaten the Greeks, did Sulla rout a huge Pontic army?

Chaeronea was fought in the summer of 86 BC, with Sulla heavily outnumbered by ancient accounts. His own report claimed, not very credibly, that he lost only about a dozen men.

Which Pontic weapon did Sulla's legionaries repel and then jeer, clapping and shouting for more?

Scythed chariots need a long run to build up speed, and Sulla closed the gap so fast that they rolled in feebly. His men clapped, laughed and shouted for more, as crowds did at the circus.

From which height in Rome did Sulla have a slave thrown, after first freeing him for betraying a fugitive?

Tarpeian Rock, a cliff on the Capitoline Hill, was Rome's traditional place of execution for traitors. Sulla first gave the informer his freedom and then had him hurled to his death.

Which state benefit for Rome's poor did Sulla abolish, only for a consul to restore it in the year he died?

The grain dole went along with the state subsidies that had held down food prices in the city. The consul Lepidus restored it without opposition in 78 BC.

At which Adriatic port did Sulla land his veterans in Italy to begin the civil war, taking it without a fight?

Brundisium, the modern Brindisi, let his five veteran legions ashore without resistance. The bloodless landing persuaded more senators to come over to his side.

In which hill town near Rome was the younger Marius besieged for months before taking his own life?

Praeneste, the modern Palestrina, held out until every relief army had been destroyed. When it fell, Sulla had thousands of the town's men put to death.

Sulla's first eastern mission restored King Ariobarzanes to the throne of which kingdom in Asia Minor?

Cappadocia's king had been driven out by the ruler of Pontus, who wanted the throne for his own son. Sulla put him back with only a few Roman troops, and his soldiers hailed him imperator.

Which Irish star played Sulla in a 2002 television miniseries, one of his final screen roles?

Richard Harris died in October 2002, the year the series was made. By then a new generation knew him as the first Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films.

Which Australian novelist made Sulla a central character in the early books of her Masters of Rome series?

Colleen McCullough is best known for The Thorn Birds. Her Sulla is charming, ruthless and brave, and his wish to escape the shadow of Marius helps push the story toward civil war.

Which Greek biographer paired Sulla with the Spartan admiral Lysander in his Parallel Lives?

Plutarch wrote nearly two centuries after Sulla's death and drew on the general's own memoirs, now lost. He judged that both men had been the founders of their own greatness.

Which German-born composer wrote Silla, an Italian opera about Sulla that may have been staged only once?

Handel did not let the music go to waste: he recycled it in his later opera Amadigi di Gaula. The single known performance may have taken place in June 1713.