“America needs a Sulla.”
Rome, 82 BC. The Roman Republic was more than four centuries old, rich beyond imagination, militarily dominant — and tearing itself apart from within.
Political mobs fought in the streets. Rival factions weaponized the courts and government against each other.
Generals commanded armies personally loyal to them. Rome had conquered much of the Mediterranean, yet could barely govern itself.
Then Lucius Cornelius Sulla came home.
Sulla had spent years crushing Rome’s enemies abroad. When he returned to Italy, his veteran legions swept through the opposition. He took Rome, revived the ancient office of dictator, and was given extraordinary authority to rewrite the laws and “settle the constitution.”
And Sulla did not govern gently.
He posted proscription lists in the Roman Forum naming enemies of the new order. Their property could be confiscated. Rewards were offered for killing them. Senators, wealthy equestrians, political rivals, and sometimes men targeted simply for their fortunes were hunted down. Ancient estimates vary wildly, but the purge killed or exiled large numbers of Rome’s elite.
Then Sulla rebuilt the machinery of the Republic.
He expanded the Senate from roughly 300 to 600, increased the number of magistrates needed to govern Rome’s growing territories, established stricter rules for climbing the political ladder, reorganized permanent courts dealing with corruption, treason, murder, fraud and provincial extortion, and restricted governors from remaining in provinces long enough to build personal power bases.
His goal was explicit: restore authority, discipline and stability to the Roman constitutional system.
And then came the part that made Sulla extraordinary.
After conquering Rome, destroying his enemies and rewriting its political system, he surrendered the dictatorship.
He walked away.
Sulla believed he had restored the Republic, and rather than crown himself king, he returned power to Rome’s institutions and retired.
Whether Sulla was Rome’s savior or its warning has been argued for two thousand years. But nobody could argue that he lacked the will to act.
And every ambitious Roman who followed understood what Sulla had demonstrated.
Pompey.
Julius Caesar.
Augustus.
Sulla extended the life of the Roman Empire for several hundred more years after restoring trust in Roman government.