Sulla's March on Rome (88 BC): An Army Turns on the City

Sulla’s March on Rome in 88 BC was the first time a Roman general led a Roman army against the city itself. The consul Lucius Cornelius Sulla, stripped of his command against King Mithridates VI by a vote of the people, persuaded his legions at Nola to follow him to Rome, where he defeated his opponents in the streets and had Gaius Marius declared a public enemy. The act broke the Republic’s deepest taboo and opened an era of civil wars.

Background: a coveted command

In 88 BC Rome was still finishing the Social War with its Italian allies when news came of disaster in the East. Mithridates VI of Pontus had overrun the province of Asia and ordered the massacre of Romans and Italians there, starting the Mithridatic Wars.

The command against Mithridates promised glory and enormous wealth. The Senate gave it to Sulla, one of the two consuls of 88 BC, a patrician who had distinguished himself in the Jugurthine and Social Wars. His colleague was Quintus Pompeius Rufus, whose son married Sulla’s daughter.

Gaius Marius, now about 69, also wanted the command. The old rivalry between the two men went back to Sulla’s capture of Jugurtha in 105 BC, which he had advertised as his own achievement.

Sulpicius and the new citizens

The tribune Publius Sulpicius Rufus proposed laws to distribute the newly enfranchised Italians across all 35 voting tribes, rather than confining them to a few where their votes counted less. He also proposed recalling exiles and expelling senators with large debts.

The consuls tried to block the laws by declaring a suspension of public business. Sulpicius’s supporters, including an armed bodyguard, rioted; the son of Pompeius Rufus was killed, and Sulla, by Plutarch’s account, took refuge in Marius’s house before agreeing to lift the suspension.

Sulpicius’s laws were passed. He then added another: the command against Mithridates was transferred from Sulla to Marius, a private citizen, by vote of the assembly.

The march

Sulla went to Nola in Campania, where his army of six legions, around 35,000 men, was besieging one of the last rebel towns of the Social War. He told the soldiers of the insult, and they understood that Marius might lead a different army east, robbing them of the expected plunder.

When military tribunes arrived from Marius to take over the army, the soldiers stoned them to death. Sulla then led the legions towards Rome. Almost all his officers refused to follow; ancient writers say only one quaestor stayed with him, often thought to be Lucius Licinius Lucullus. His colleague Pompeius Rufus joined him.

Envoys from the Senate met him on the road. According to Appian, Sulla replied that he was coming to free Rome from tyrants. His troops entered through the gates on the Esquiline Hill, where people threw tiles and stones from the rooftops. Sulla ordered houses to be set on fire to break the resistance, and Marius and Sulpicius, unable to raise enough armed supporters, fled.

Sulla in control

Sulla had the Senate declare Marius, his son, Sulpicius and around nine others public enemies, hostes, who could be killed on sight. Sulpicius was betrayed by a slave and killed. Marius escaped after dramatic adventures, including hiding in the marshes near Minturnae, and eventually reached Africa.

Sulla cancelled the Sulpician laws. According to Appian he also passed measures to strengthen the Senate, such as requiring that bills be approved by the Senate before going to the assembly, though historians debate their exact content.

He then allowed the consular elections for 87 BC to go ahead. One of the winners, Lucius Cornelius Cinna, was hostile to him; Sulla made him swear an oath to uphold his settlement before leaving for Greece early in 87 BC. Pompeius Rufus, sent to take over the army of Pompeius Strabo, was murdered by the soldiers.

Marius at Minturnae

The story of Marius’s escape, told at length by Plutarch, became one of the most famous episodes in Roman history. Hunted by horsemen, the old general hid in a marsh near Minturnae on the coast of Latium, was found covered in mud and handed to the town’s magistrates.

They decided to put him to death and sent a slave, said to be a Gaul or a Cimbrian, to kill him in his cell. According to Plutarch, Marius glared at the man from the darkness and asked whether he dared to kill Gaius Marius; the executioner dropped his sword and fled. Moved by the scene, the townspeople put Marius on a ship.

He reached Africa, where the Roman governor ordered him to leave. Plutarch tells how Marius answered the governor’s messenger by telling him to report that he had seen Marius sitting among the ruins of Carthage. The anecdote was a favourite subject for later painters, as was the scene at Minturnae.

Why was the march so shocking?

Roman law and religion drew a sharp line between the city and the world outside. The sacred boundary of Rome, the pomerium, marked a zone where a magistrate’s military power, imperium, was not supposed to be exercised, and armed soldiers were normally forbidden to enter it except during a triumph.

By marching in with his legions, Sulla treated his fellow citizens as enemies. Contemporaries understood the significance: the refusal of nearly all his officers shows how far he had broken with accepted behaviour. Yet his soldiers’ willingness to follow him revealed that their loyalty now lay with their commander and the rewards he promised.

Consequences

Sulla’s settlement collapsed almost at once. In 87 BC Cinna revived the Sulpician programme, was driven out of Rome and, like Sulla, turned to the army. Marius returned from Africa, and together they captured Rome. Marius’s followers killed many of their opponents, and he took his seventh consulship in 86 BC, dying a few weeks later.

Sulla, meanwhile, fought Mithridates in Greece and Asia. In 83 BC he landed in Italy with his veterans, won a civil war and in November 82 BC defeated the Samnites and Marians at the Colline Gate outside Rome. The result was Sulla’s Dictatorship, with its proscriptions and reforms.

Key people

Lucius Cornelius Sulla (c. 138-78 BC) came from an impoverished patrician family. He was a skilled general, cultured and ruthless, and later called himself Felix, “the fortunate”.

Publius Sulpicius Rufus was a gifted orator and friend of Marcus Livius Drusus. He began as a moderate but became an ally of Marius during his tribunate.

Gaius Marius had been the leading man in Rome a decade earlier, after victories over the Cimbri. His desire for one more great command led to his outlawing and, ultimately, his bloody return.

Timeline

• 88 BC, early: Sulla and Pompeius Rufus become consuls; Sulla is given the command against Mithridates.
• 88 BC: Sulpicius’s laws pass amid riots; the command is transferred to Marius.
• 88 BC: At Nola, Sulla’s legions kill Marius’s envoys and follow him to Rome.
• 88 BC: Sulla takes Rome; Marius, Sulpicius and others are declared public enemies.
• 87 BC, early: Sulla leaves for Greece; Cinna becomes consul.
• 87 BC: Cinna and Marius capture Rome.
• 86 BC, 13 January: Marius dies in his seventh consulship.
• 82 BC, 1 November: Sulla wins the Battle of the Colline Gate.

Why it matters

Sulla’s march showed that legions loyal to their general could override the Senate, the magistrates and the popular assemblies. Once broken, the taboo was never restored. Every later conflict among Rome’s great men, from Sulla’s second march to Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon and the wars of Octavian and Antony, followed the path he had opened.