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Lucius Cornelius Sulla was a patrician Roman politician and general who lived from 138 to 78BC. Sulla was born into an impoverished branch of the Cornelii family, an ancient and famous lineage that had fallen out of political power. He lived as a poor man in Rome until inheriting a significant amount of money from the death of relatives, thus allowing Sulla to run for political office. His breakthrough came when he served as quaestor (a junior military/administrative position) for the famous general Gaius Marius in the Jugurthine War (111-105BC). Sulla actually ended the war himself by convincing several of Jugurtha's folowers to betray him to the Roman army. After the war ended, argument broke out as to who was responsible for the victory, Marius or Sulla, thus beginning a long feud between the two for political office and military command. When the Germanic Teutone tribes invaded Italy in 104-103BC, both Marius and Sulla won dramatic victories over these barbarians - on separate battlefields. Sulla and Marius spent the next decade competing to be considered the greatest man in Rome. Conflict was perhaps inevitable between the conservative, impeccably patrician Sulla and the radical Marius (who had no famous ancestors at all). Sulla held several offices in Rome and governed the province of Cilicia (in modern Turkey) during this period. Their feuding was interrupted by the Social War in 89BC, a rebellion of Rome's Italian allies. |
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These allies felt that they had been denied their fair share of the spoils of Rome's Mediterranean conquests and wanted to gain full Roman citizenship. Sulla proved to be the most successful general in this war and was voted consul (Rome's highest office) in 88BC. The Senate gave Sulla the commission to take an army to the east to face Mithridates, an Asian king who had used the Social War to invade Rome's provinces in modern Turkey and Greece. After Sulla left Rome, Marius' supporters rose up in the streets and gave the commission for the Eastern War to Marius through use of political violence. Sulla responded by marching on Rome with his army, the first Roman general ever to do so. He forced the Senate to accept all of his commands, declared Marius and his supporters as outlaws, and then left for Greece to deal with Mithridates.
As soon as Sulla was in Greece, Marius' forces reoccupied Rome and instituted a reign of terror, killing all of Sulla's supporters. New laws were passed exiling Sulla and declaring his laws invalid. Ironically, Marius died of natural causes shortly after retaking Rome (87BC). After a victorius campaign in the East, Sulla returned to Italy in 83BC with his army, and defeated the followers of Marius in a series of short battles. As soon as he was back in Rome, Sulla carried out an even more horrifying reign of political violence, killing all those who had connections to the faction of Marius. He had the Senate name him "Dictator for Life" and proceeded to rewrite the laws of the Roman Republic as he saw fit, trying to enact various reactionary measures that would curb the power of the people. Sulla's rule was suspiciously like something out of 1984, as anyone could be "proscribed" as a supporter of Marius, with their life and all of their property forfeit to the state. Sulla retired from politics in 79BC and died the next year in the country, surrounded by unsavory riffraff that he liked to associate with.
Sulla is the classic model for a power-hungry dictator; in fact, the modern usage of the word "dictator" comes from Sulla. He was known for being excessively generous to his friends and excessively cruel to his enemies. Although Sulla is an obscure historical figure today, he is one of the giants of Roman history.
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I am a graduate student at the University of Maryland College Park, pursuing a Ph.D. in British History. I received my B.A. in history from the same university in May of 2004, with both departmental and university-wide honors. I have a full teaching assistantship with the university, which means that in exchange for free tuition and a small salary, I teach undergraduate classes in history. Anyone who runs into me online is likely to hear me griping about my students from time to time. I've lived my entire life in the Baltimore area, though I've also traveled frequently with my family across the US and to several other countries. I'm a huge sports fan of local area teams, and I can be found somewhere in the student section at all of Maryland's home football and basketball games. While an undergraduate at Maryland, I played in the university's marching band and pep band, scoring free trips to such various places as the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade (2000), the Orange Bowl (2001), Peach Bowl (2002), Gator Bowl (2003), and New Orleans (2004, NCAA basketball at LSU). I even met the president in the White House in 2002. While I'm on the subject of music, I'll mention that I also played steel drums when I was in high school and still occasionally get the opportunity to jam on them. To the right is a diagram of a set of six-bass, the giant oil-drum-like instrument that I play. I've always loved video games; as I enjoy pointing out, they were born about the same time I was. Growing up as a child, I cut my teeth playing the old frustratingly-difficult, often poorly-documented games of the 8-bit NES era. As primitive as they were, the games from that period often put modern games to shame in pure fun factor, and many of my favorite games are some of my oldest. I didn't start playing PC games until after the advent of Windows 95, but I've spent significant amounts of time in both single and multiplayer online games since then. I'm not the strongest player in terms of pure skills, but I am very good at breaking down games and studying them through time and practice to become what others consider "good". This may be why I have been a successful game testing at various times. The online group I spend the most time playing with is called Realms Beyond, a community of like-minded individuals who care more about having fun and sharing gaming experiences than trying to "beat" games or find the "best" stuff. The community games at Realms Beyond span the gamut from Diablo to Civilization to massive multiplayer games like Guild Wars. You can follow the link above to visit the Realms Beyond website. I can be found posting in their forums on a fairly frequent basis. |
Testudo, the University of Maryland's mascot 
A set of six basses. |
The name is a bit difficult to explain; my political leanings are about as diametrically opposed to the historical Sulla as possible. I am a fan of Roman History, however, and I am essentially spending my life studying history, so SOME sort of historical name seemed suitable for an Intenet moniker. Throw in the fact that my father's side of my family comes from Italy, and the fact that the historical Sulla is a genuinely interesting and controversial figure, and it seemed like a decent choice. For the record, in Latin the name would be pronounced "Sool-la", but I have no problem with anyone anglicizing the name to "Suhl-la". I add the extra "L" to make "Sullla" both in order to distinguish myself from anyone else who might be using the name Sulla, and because on the Internet the name "Sulla" has frequently already been claimed. I will also use "lcsullla" (for Lucius Cornelius Sulla) if the name Sullla has been taken.
