The March on Rome of 88 BC was a coup d'état by the consul of the Roman Republic Lucius Cornelius Sulla, who seized power against his enemies Marius and Sulpicius, after they had ousted him from Rome. It was the first time in Roman history that a general ordered his army to march against the Republic.
In 88 BC, Sulla was elected consul and given the command of the war against the king of Pontus Mithridates, who had recently invaded the Roman province of Asia. The same year, Sulla and his colleague Quintus Pompeius Rufus opposed the attempt of the tribune of the plebs Publius Sulpicius to enrol the Italians who received the Roman citizenship at the end of the Social War (91–87 BC). To bypass the consuls' opposition, Sulpicius sought the support of the popular Gaius Marius, who had already been consul six times. Marius demanded for his help that Sulpicius pass a law transferring Sulla's command to him. Using armed gangs to intimidate the tribal assembly, Sulpicius removed Pompeius' consulship and forced Sulla to flee from Rome, after which he enrolled the Italians and gave the Mithridatic command to Marius.
Meanwhile, Sulla had returned to the legions he had assembled for the expedition against Mithridates. He convinced his soldiers to follow him in an operation against Marius and Sulpicius. Joined by Pompeius, Sulla marched against Rome and easily defeated the militia recruited by his enemies. Sulla immediately passed a law declaring Sulpicius, Marius, and ten other leaders as public enemies, thereby encouraging their murder. Only Sulpicius was caught; Marius and the others could escape to Africa and Spain. With Rome secured, Sulla started an overhaul of the Roman constitution according to his firm conservative beliefs. He passed several laws that weakened the powers of the tribunes of the plebs while enhancing those of the curule magistrates and the senate, whose membership was also doubled.
Sulla's settlement was nevertheless short-lived. First, his candidates lost the elections for 87 BC. Then, as soon as he left to fight Mithridates, his enemies coalesced around the consul for 87 BC Lucius Cornelius Cinna, who likewise marched on Rome against the other consul during the Bellum Octavianum. Cinna recalled the outlaws, including Marius, then cancelled all Sulla's laws and assumed Sulpicius' program. The inevitable confrontation between the two factions took place in 83 BC, when Sulla came back from the East, in a civil war, won by Sulla, who thereafter became dictator and re-enacted his previous laws.
Background
Sulla was an ambitious politician who had won fame by making several bold military moves, such as the capture of Jugurtha during the Jugurthine War and the battle of Vercellae of during the Cimbrian War. He was elected praetor in 97, then left as propraetor to Cappadocia to put Ariobarzanes on the throne of that kingdom. On his return, he was accused of corruption by Gaius Marcius Censorinus, perhaps acting on behalf of Gaius Marius, his former commander. Sulla then disappears from the sources for 5 years, perhaps because he thought he had no chance to become consul. He is found again in 90 as a legate during the Social War, against Rome's former Italian allies. This war was difficult for Rome, who needed up to fifteen legions in Italy to quell the revolt. Fighting on the southern theatre, Sulla was one of the two main generals who won the war, earning the devotion of his army. His ability was recognised by the Caecilii Metelli, one of the dominant families of the time, who sealed an alliance with his marriage to Caecilia Metella. This powerful backing, combined with his military fame, enabled his election to the consulship in December 89 for the following year (88). The other consul was also his friend Quintus Pompeius Rufus, who married his son with Sulla's daughter.
After entering office, Sulla was granted the command of the war against the king of Pontus Mithridates, who had taken advantage of the Social War to capture Roman possessions in the Greek East. An eastern command was coveted by every Roman politician, because of the enormous wealth it would bring them. This command looked so attractive that two ineligible candidates had even tried to force their way through in the elections: Gaius Julius Caesar Strabo and Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo.
Sulla faced another challenge from Publius Sulpicius, a tribune of the plebs the same year as him. Sulpicius wanted to pass a law in favour of the Italians who had received the citizenship in 90 thanks to the lex Julia, but had not yet been registered in the Roman tribes. His bill distributed the Italians, as well as freedmen, evenly among the Roman tribes, a move which would have considerably altered the Roman electorate. A powerful orator and ambitious politician, Sulpicius was initially a friend of the consul Pompeius Rufus and had decisively prevented Caesar Strabo from running against Sulla, maybe to attract the latter's goodwill so he would not challenge his Italian bill. Sulpicius was however wrong; both consuls opposed his bill distributing the new Italian citizens in the old Roman tribes (Sulla and the conservatives would have rather gathered the Italians into a few tribes, so that old citizens would have kept a majority of the tribes). Not willing to give up his plan, Sulpicius then turned to Marius for support. Like the other main politicians of the period, the old general, six times consul and very influential among the equites and Italian gentry, wanted the command against Mithridates, and also to settle some old grudges against Sulla. In exchange for supporting the Italian bill, Marius requested Sulpicius to pass a law transferring the Eastern command from Sulla to him. This alliance probably took place in April–May 88.
Sulpicius assembled a large bodyguard of 600 equites and a private army of 3,000 men, probably to avoid the same fate as previous revolutionary tribunes—such as the Gracchi and Saturninus—and to intimidate voters. The consuls Sulla and Rufus ordered a suspension of business (justitium) to prevent Sulpicius' Italian bill from being voted. In return, Sulpicius provoked a riot with his gangs that killed Pompeius' son and forced Sulla to seek shelter into the house of Marius, who apparently negotiated his survival on the condition that he cancelled the justitium, which would let the Italian bill pass. Marius also allowed Sulla to leave Rome in order to finish the siege of Nola in Campania, one of the last pockets of resistance of the Social War. Sulpicius then passed the bills enrolling the Italians and giving Marius the Eastern command; the latter having been kept secret so far. He also deposed the second consul, Pompeius Rufus, although a minority of scholars reject this part. These bills broke many constitutional practices; the most outstanding one was the transfer of the eastern command from a consul to a privatus (Marius), a citizen that did not hold any magistracy—an unprecedented occurrence.
March on Rome
Sulla learnt he lost the Eastern command at Nola. He had to react against Sulpicius and Marius if he wanted to save his career. Because of the Social War, he was in the unusual position to have a massive experienced army at his disposal not far from Rome. Sulla was already popular among his soldiers, since he had received from them the grass crown during the Social War the previous year. Ernst Badian even speaks of Sulla's legions as his "private client army". Apparently, Sulla did not present his intentions to his soldiers; he skilfully let them take the decision to march on Rome by themselves. He told his troops that if Marius was appointed, he would recruit a new army to fight Mithridates, which means that the soldiers in Sulla's army would too lose their share of the Eastern booty. Since his soldiers were mostly landless and in need of cash, this argument secured their support for a coup. Sulla likely presented his march as a legitimate police operation of the consuls against a tribune of the plebs who usurped his rights. The decision to march on Rome became unavoidable when the soldiers stoned to death the military tribunes that Marius had sent to take over his army, as well as the legate Marcus Gratidius, a relative of Marius. This event showed that the soldiers only recognised Sulla as their leader and did not hesitate to use violence against his enemies. However, Sulla's plan was firmly opposed by all the officers of his staff but one, identified by modern scholars as Lucullus, who was at the time quaestor, and Sulla's closest political ally for the remaining of his life. Sulla notably dedicated his memoirs to him. The other consul Pompeius Rufus also joined Sulla a bit later; he too had been deprived of his position by Sulpicius. In his Memoirs, Sulla mentioned a significant number of portents that intervened in his decision to attack Rome, such as a haruspex named Postumius who predicted his victory and a dream Sulla had in which the goddess Bellona appeared to him striking his enemies. This dream later became a central element of Sulla's propaganda. In 44 BC, one of his descendants, Lucius Aemilius Buca, minted a denarius that has been interpreted by some numismatists as a depiction of Sulla's dream.
The march began in August, soon after the murder of Gratidius and the tribunes, with the two consuls at the head of the six legions that had been encamped in Campania, so at least 36,000 veterans. Sulla's move on the city was overwhelmingly rejected at Rome. Under the control of Marius and Sulpicius, the senate dispatched an embassy, which counted the praetors Marcus Junius Brutus (a known supporter of Marius) and a Servilius, to ask why Sulla was marching against his fatherland, to which he replied that was going to free Rome from the tyrants, a rhetoric used by the assassins of the Gracchi. Thereafter his soldiers mistreated the embassy by breaking the praetors' fasces and tearing their togae, the symbols of their authority. Marius and Sulpicius had never expected Sulla to use his legions to attack them in Rome. As a result, Rome had no troops to defend itself against Sulla's army. Marius tried to gain some time to organise the defence by sending two other embassies, in front of whom Sulla faked a halt of his march. While he was pretending to build a camp, he had dispatched two of his military tribunes, Lucius Minucius Basilus and Gaius Mummius, with the cavalry and some light troops to seize the Esquiline Gate, on the eastern wall of Rome. As soon as the senatorial legation left, he resumed his march.
Sulla's plan to capture Rome was to send Pompeius Rufus with one legion through the Colline Gate, the most northern gate. Two legions were ordered to take the Caelimontana gate in the south-east and the Pons Sublicius in the south-west. One legion was left in reserve while Sulla himself with two legions entered through the Esquiline Gate, where he met with his legates Basilus and Mummius. As Marius knew that he could not win the fight against Sulla's overwhelming forces, his plan was to force Sulla's legions into a difficult street fight, so that his soldiers would have second thoughts about the sacrilege they were committing. The defenders climbed on the roofs and threw tiles on Sulla's soldiers on ground level. Sulla set the houses on fire to clear the roofs, then ordered the reserve legion to go through the Viminalis gate (between the Colline and Esquiline gates) to take Suburra, the large neighbourhood in the centre of Rome. Seeing that Sulla's legions were moving behind their back, Marius and Sulpicius retreated to the Oppian Hill and the Temple of Tellus, where they promised the local slaves freedom if they fought for them. As no slave followed them, Marius, Sulpicius, and the other leaders opposed to Sulla had no choice but to flee during the night.
Sulla ensured that his legions remained under control by executing a few soldiers who had looted some houses, then spread his troops over the city for the night to maintain order. Both consuls stayed awake throughout the night to keep an eye on their soldiers. Sulla wanted to send the message to the population that he had come to free the city, not to conquer it.
The twelve hostes
The next day, the consuls called the senate to have Marius and Sulpicius outlawed in order to justify the march. Quintus Mucius Scaevola, consul in 117 and a distinguished jurist, was the only senator to speak against Sulla; he was a friend of Marius and his granddaughter Licinia was married to Marius' son. As nobody else dared to oppose Sulla, the senate approved a list of twelve people who were declared hostes, "foreign enemies", another constitutional precedent. It means that they could be killed without consequences and their properties seized. The senatus consultum was followed by a law condemning the hostes. The word hostis meant public enemy in Sulla's time, but its original meaning in Old Latin was foreigner. Therefore, Sulla employed this word to associate Marius and his followers with foreign enemies, in order to justify his use of Roman legions against Rome, as they were normally only employed against foreign armies. The official reasons given by Sulla for condemning the hostes was the troubles caused by gangs of Sulpicius, his violence against the consuls, and Marius' and Sulpicius' promise of manumission to the slaves during the fight against Sulla.
Immediately after the senatorial vote, Sulla sent his cavalry and bounty hunters to pursue the twelve hostes. The most complete list of these twelve hostes is found in the book on the civil wars written by Appian, a Greek historian of the 2nd century AD, who gives nine names, while Cicero tells the name of another.