Institute of Advanced Studies

Sulla and the nature of the classical dictator

Lucius Cornelius Sulla (138-78 BC) was not the first dictator at Rome, but he was the first dictator in the modern sense of the word.

He came to power in the aftermath of a civil war, sealing his victory with bloody reprisals against the defeated faction, and cementing his political position with the revival of the dictatorship, an emergency office generally used to appoint a supreme military commander for a maximum of six months to face a foreign threat, notably during Hannibal's invasion of Italy.

But Sulla's brief was to reform the internal workings of the Roman political system, and his dictatorship was granted for 'as long as he saw fit', leading one ancient writer to remark that the Romans then realized for the first time that the institution of the dictatorship was a tyranny.

Caesar followed Sulla's lead in having himself appointed dictator. But whereas Sulla unexpectedly laid down his powers after little more than the standard six months and died peacefully at his country villa, Caesar was assassinated soon after making himself dictator for life in 44 BC. Many came to associate the dictatorship with tyranny, hence Augustus, the first emperor, called himself the 'first citizen' in the state after his own civil war victory in 31 BC.

But some, even after the experience of Sulla and Caesar, yearned for a strongman dictator as a solution to the civil strife which scarred Roman political life in the 1st century BC. Scholars generally regard the dictatorship as an instrument of conservative reaction, but there are indications that the Roman populace also looked to the creation of a dictator as a solution to short-term political crises. The Roman dictatorship could be both reactionary and populist, and thus it serves as a useful model for the dictatorships of the 20th century.

Biographical Note: Alexander Thein studied Classics at Keble College, Oxford, and specialized in the history of the Late Roman Republic for his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania, writing a dissertation on Sulla's dictatorship and public image. During this time, he spent two years at the Free University of Berlin. Afterwards he spent a year of postdoctoral research as a Rome Scholar at the British School at Rome. This was followed by a semester teaching at Johns Hopkins University. Since the beginning of 2004, he has been a permanent member of staff in the School of Classics at University College Dublin, where he lectures on Roman history, art, and archaeology. He has published on Sulla's dictatorship, and also on the topography of the city of Rome and its environs.

The lecture series was hosted and sponsored by the Institute of Advanced Studies and the History Discipline at UWA and forms part of the Dictators lecture series.