Università Roma Tre

This course will offer an interpretation of the crisis of the Roman Republic. Students will read some of the most important ancient sources concerning this period. They will be introduced to the figure of Marius and how he came into violent conflict with Lucius Cornelius Sulla, another “Roman warlord”, who after victories in the east actually marched on Rome in 82 BC and established himself 'dictator'.
A main point of the course will concern this peculiar Roman office designed to give a leading politician short terms powers in an emergency. Sulla held it for two years, in the course of which he had well over a thousand of his political opponents viciously put to death.

Plutarch Life of Sulla