Sulla Felix (Fortunate), as he now styles himself, who as dictator has total control of the city of Rome and its affairs, institutes a program of executing those whom he perceives to be enemies of the state.

This is akin to (and in response to) those killings which Marius and Cinna had implemented while they were in control of the Republic during Sulla's absence.

Proscribing or outlawing every one of those whom he perceives to have acted against the best interests of the Republic while he was in the east, Sulla orders some fifteen hundred nobles (i.e., senators and equites) executed, although it is estimated that as many as nine thousand people are killed.

The purge goes on for several months.

Helping or sheltering a person who has beens proscribed is also punishable by death.

The State confiscates the wealth of the outlawed and then auctions it off, making Sulla and his supporters vastly rich.

The sons and grandsons of the proscribed are banned from future political office, a restriction that is not to be removed for over thirty years.

Having observed the violent results of radical popularis reforms (in particular those under Marius and Cinna), Sulla is naturally conservative; his conservatism is more reactionary when dealing with the Tribunate and legislative bodies, while more visionary when reforming the court system and membership of the Senate.

As such, he seeks to strengthen the aristocracy, and thus the Senate.

Sulla retains his earlier reforms, which require senatorial approval before any bill can be submitted to the Plebeian Council (the principal popular assembly), and which had also restored the older, more aristocratic ("Servian") organization to the Century Assembly (assembly of soldiers).

Himself a Patrician and thus ineligible for election to the office of Plebeian Tribune, Sulla thoroughly dislikes the office, having grown up during the turmoil of the Gracchi era.

As Sulla views the Tribunate, the office is especially dangerous, which is in part due to its radical past: his intention is to not only deprive the Tribunate of power, but also of prestige.

The reforms of the Gracchi Tribunes are one such example of its radical past, but by no means the only examples; Sulla himself had been officially deprived of his eastern command through the underhand activities of a tribune.

Over the previous three hundred years, the tribunes have been the officers most responsible for the loss of power by the aristocracy.

Since the Tribunate is the principal means through which the democracy of Rome has always asserted itself against the aristocracy, it is of paramount importance to Sulla that he cripple the office.

Through his reforms to the Plebeian Council, tribunes lose the power to initiate legislation.

Sulla then prohibits ex-tribunes from ever holding any other office, so ambitious individuals would no longer seek election to the Tribunate, since such an election would end their political career.

Finally, Sulla revokes the power of the tribunes to veto acts of the Senate, although he leaves intact the tribunes' power to protect individual Roman citizens.

Sulla now increases the number of magistrates who are elected in any given year, and requires that all newly elected quaestors be given automatic membership in the Senate.

These two reforms are enacted primarily to allow Sulla to increase the size of the Senate from three hundred to six hundred senators.

This also removes the need for the censor to draw up a list of senators, since there are always more than enough former magistrates to fill the senate.

To further solidify the prestige and authority of the Senate, Sulla transfers the control of the courts from the equites, who have held control since the Gracchi reforms, to the senators.

This, along with the increase in the number of courts, further adds to the power already held by the senators.

He also codifies, and thus establishes definitively, the cursus honorum, which requires an individual to reach a certain age and level of experience before running for any particular office.

Sulla also wants to reduce the risk that a future general might attempt to seize power, as he himself had done.

To reduce this risk, he reaffirms the requirement that any individual wait for ten years before being reelected to any office.

Sulla then establishes a system where all consuls and praetors serve in Rome during their year in office, and then command a provincial army as a governor for the year after they leave office.

Finally, in a demonstration of his absolute power, he expands the "Pomerium", the sacred boundary of Rome, untouched since the time of the kings.

Many of Sulla's reforms look to the past (often re-passing former laws), but he also regulates for the future, particularly in his redefinition of maiestas (treason) laws and his reformation of the Senate.

Near the end of 81 BCE, Sulla, true to his traditionalist sentiments, resigns his dictatorship, disbands his legions and reestablishes normal consular government.

He also stands for (with Metellus Pius) and is elected consul for the following year, 80 BCE.

He dismisses his lictors and walks unguarded in the Forum, offering to give account of his actions to any citizen.

(In a manner that the historian Suetonius thought arrogant, Julius Caesar will later mock Sulla for resigning the Dictatorship.)