Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix (c. 138 BCE – 78 BCE), known commonly as Sulla, is a Roman general and statesman.
He has the rare distinction of holding the office of consul twice, as well as that of dictator.
He is one of the canonical great men of Roman history, included in the biographical collections of leading generals and politicians, originating in the biographical compendium of famous Romans, published by Marcus Terentius Varro.
In Plutarch's Sulla, in the famous series Parallel Lives, Sulla is paired with the Spartan general and strategist Lysander.
Sulla's dictatorship comes during a high point in the struggle between optimates and populares, the former seeking to maintain the power of the oligarchy in the form of the Senate while the latter resort in many cases to naked populism, culminating in Caesar's dictatorship.
Sulla is a highly original, gifted and skillful general, never losing a battle; he remains the only man in history to have attacked and occupied both Athens and Rome.
His rival, Gnaeus Papirius Carbo, described Sulla as having the cunning of a fox and the courage of a lion - but that it was the former attribute that was by far the most dangerous.
This mixture was later referred to by Machiavelli in his description of the ideal characteristics of a ruler.
Sulla uses his armies to march on Rome twice, and after the second he revives the office of dictator, which had not been used since the Second Punic War over a century before.
He uses his powers to enact a series of reforms to the Roman constitution, meant to restore the balance of power between the Senate and the tribunes; he then stuns the Roman World (and posterity) by resigning the dictatorship, restoring normal constitutional government, and after his second Consulship, retiring to private life.
