Sulla’s Dictatorship – Methods of Obtaining Power and Enforcing Reform
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.60053/GSU.IF.1.107.165-201Keywords:
dictator, legislation, reforms, Sulla, proscriptions, Lex ValeriaAbstract
Тhe reforms and extensive legislative activity of Lucius Cornelius Sulla at the end of the 80s BC were aimed at establishing a new republican order by changing the balance of power and restoring the leading role of the aristocracy and the Senate. In order to understand Sulla’s political strategy, it is necessary to illustrate the mechanisms that Sulla used not only to impose his power but also to legitimize it, focusing on its essential characteristics and public image. The analysis of these mechanisms provides arguments in favour of the concept that Sulla used traditional means in a new way in order to establish his power and ensure its stability. This turned out to be an absolute necessity in order to carry out, develop and complete the reorganization of the state that had already been foreseen at the time of his first consulate in 88 BC. Whether consciously or not, Sulla's model spawned a series of precedents that left a lasting mark on generations of Roman statesmen and provided templates for how state structures and offices could be directed to serve specific political ends. Sulla’s Republic did not continue its violent origins and genesis, but sought a stable legal basis to ensure its continued existence. Sulla himself clearly understood the need to unambiguously legitimize his rise to power, and hence all reforms and innovations in statecraft.
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