Among his first conquests was the wealthy widow Nicopolis.
Her favours were notoriously accessible to virtually any young man who wanted them; it was said that she had resolved to give her body to all men but her heart to none. By all accounts, Sulla fell genuinely and deeply in love with her. At first she scoffed at his devotion, but ultimately his persistence and charm undid her resolve, and she found herself in love at the age of fifty with a youth less than half her age. "When she died of a fever she left everything to Sulla. His good fortune had begun.
Another legacy came from his stepmother, his father's second wife, who in her widowhood had inherited a considerable sum from her own family. She died leaving Sulla her only heir, thus establishing him with a moderate fortune.
Having conquered the mysteries of flesh and gold, Sulla decided to enter politics through military service. Marius had just been elected to the first of his seven consulships; Sulla got himself appointed quaestor and became the great populist's protege. In Africa to fight Jugurtha, Sulla engaged in marital derring-do, espionage, and the diplomacy of the perfectly timed double cross. The tortuously complicated details are all in his Memoirs, the first volumes of which are already circulating around Rome in purloined copies. The vanquished Jugurtha was brought to the city naked and chained and died shortly after in his dungeon cell, half-crazy from torture and humiliation. Marius had overseen the campaign, but it was Sulla, at the risk of his own life, who had persuaded the King of Numidia to betray his doomed son-in-law. Marius was afforded a triumphal parade, but many whispered that it was Sulla who deserved the credit.
Praise for Sulla rankled the old populist, and though Marius continued to use Sulla, elevating his rank with each campaign, soon the old man's jealousy drove Sulla to seek other patrons. Taking command of the troops of the consul Catulus, Sulla subdued the wild tribes of the Alps. When premature winter storms trapped the legions in the foothills without adequate food, Sulla did an expert job of rerouting and supplying fresh provisions — not only to his own troops, but also to those of Marius, who became livid with indignation. The long, withering rivalry between Sulla and Marius, which was ultimately to cause so much grief and chaos in Rome, began with such incidents of petty jealousy.
Sulla travelled east, where Fortune led him to further victories in Cappadocia. On diplomatic business he ventured as far as the
Euphrates, and became the first Roman official ever to hold friendly discourse with that kingdom that owns the rest of the world, the Parthians. His charm (or else his blind arrogance) must have worked a wicked spell upon the Parthian ambassador, who actually allowed himself to be seated on a lower dais than Sulla, as if he were a suppliant of a Roman overlord. Afterwards the King of Parthia put the ambassador to death — having lost face, the man subsequently lost his head, a joke Sulla never tired of repeating.
Every powerful man must have omens of greatness attached to his legend — stars fell from the firmament at the birth of Alexander, Hercules strangled a snake in his cradle, eagles battled overhead when Romulus and Remus were torn from their mother's womb. It was while entertaining the Parthian retinue that Sulla's career begins to take on the patina of legend. Truth or fiction, only Sulla now knows for certain, but the story goes that a Chaldean savant attached to the Parthian retinue performed a study of Sulla's face, plumbing his character by using principles of science unknown in the West. Probably he was searching for weaknesses he could report to his Parthian masters, but instead the wise man drew back in astonishment. Sulla, never guilty of false modesty, recounts the old Chaldean's reaction word for word in his Memoirs: 'Can a man be so great and not be the greatest of all men on earth? It astounds me — not his greatness, but the feet that even now he abstains from taking his place as first in all things above his fellow men!'
When Sulla returned to Rome, Marius was not happy to see him.
The bone of contention snapped when a statue arrived from the friendly King of Numidia, commemorating the end of the African war and Jugurtha's downfall. Beneath the outstretched wings of Victory the gilded figures depicted the King handing over the chained Jugurtha to the King's great friend, Sulla. Marius was nowhere depicted. Marius nearly went out of his mind in a jealous rage at the idea of Sulla stealing his glory, and threatened to destroy the statue with his own hands unless the Senate passed legislation to remove it from the Capitol. The rhetoric on either side escalated until the breach between the two men was irreparable. Violence would surely have followed, but at that moment all private feuds were abruptly postponed by the eruption of the Social War between Rome and her Italian allies.
The scale of the Social War was unprecedented on Italian soil, as was the suffering and disruption it caused. But finally compromises were reached, intransigent rebels were mercilessly punished, and Rome endured, but not all Roman politicians fared equally well. Marius, well over sixty, his military powers faded and his health erratic, accomplished practically nothing in the war. Sulla, in the prime of his manhood and riding the crest of good fortune, was everywhere at once, making his reputation as hero, saviour, destroyer, currying the favour of the legions and amassing political prestige.
When it was over, Sulla had his first consulship at the respectable age of fifty. Rome, like a patient in violent throes, having just survived one great spasm, was about to undergo another.
Marius's populist movement reached its peak. His right-hand man was the radical tribune and demagogue Sulpicius, the elected representative of the masses, whose every move mocked the power and prestige of the noble establishment. Under Sulpicius, Roman citizenships were sold at auction to ex-slaves and aliens in the Forum, an act of impiety that drove the old nobility to apoplexy. More insidiously, Sulpicius gathered a private army of three thousand swordsmen from the equestrian class, ambitious and ruthless young men ready for anything. From these he culled an elite bodyguard of six hundred who milled constantly about the Forum. Sulpicius called them his Anti-Senate.
Abroad, Mithridates was ravaging Rome's eastern possessions, including Greece. The Senate voted to send Sulla to reclaim them, a duty which his previous service had earned and which should have fallen to him by right as consul. The command would be extraordinarily lucrative; there is nothing like a successful Eastern campaign to raise immense revenues through tributes, taxes, and outright looting. It would also give its commanding general immense power; in the old days Roman armies were loyal to the Senate, but now they follow the man who leads them. Sulpicius's Anti-Senate decided that the command should go to Marius. Chaos erupted in the Forum. The Senate was pressured into transferring the command from Sulla to Marius, and Sulla barely escaped being murdered in the streets.
Sulla fled Rome to take his appeal directly to the army. When the common soldiers heard what had happened, they pledged themselves to Sulla and stoned their staff officers (appointed by
Marius) to death. Marius's followers reacted in Rome by attacking members of the Sullan party and looting their property. In a panic, people changed from one side to the other, fleeing from Rome to Sulla's camp or from the camp to Rome. The Senate capitulated to whatever Marius and Sulpicius demanded. Sulla marched on the capital.
The unthinkable came to pass. Rome was invaded by Romans.
On the night before, Sulla dreamed. Behind him stood Bellona, whose cult had been brought to Rome from the East, whose ancient temples Sulla himself had visited in Cappadocia. She placed thunderbolts in his hands. She named his enemies one by one, and as she named them they appeared through a mist like tiny figures seen from a hilltop. The goddess told Sulla to strike them He cast the thunderbolts. His enemies were blasted asunder. He awoke, his Memoirs tell us, feeling invigorated and supremely confident.