Sulla, Lucius Cornelius, also called Felix ('Lucky') 138-78BC
Roman politician and dictator

His bitter feud with Marius began in Africa in 107BC during the Jugurthine War, when he induced the Mauretanian King Bocchus to surrender Jugurtha. In 88 he chose to lead his army against the state rather than surrender to Marius his command of the war against Mithridates. He defeated Mithridates VI, and on returning to Rome (83) civil war broke out again when he used his forces to defeat the Marians and secure his own (illegal) position. Appointed dictator in 82, he set about reforming the state, and enacted a number of measures to boost the authority of the Senate and reform the criminal courts. The cold-blooded ruthlessness of his dictatorship and the proscriptions were long remembered by later generations of Romans. He retired in 79.