Sulla and the Theatre

THE SECRET SPRINGS of the mind are often revealed by the way a man quotes. When they brought to Sulla the head of his last enemy, he knew that it was a moment of some importance. In his boyhood, when the first seditious blood was shed, Scipio Aemilianus had been heard to say in Greek, So perish any other who doth such deeds. That was fifty years back; it was twenty years since Sulla had taken the measure of Marius, and now he was looking at the head of Marius' son and would-be successor. What he said to this young opponent was, First learn to row before you try to steer. He marked the moment, as Scipio had done, by choosing Greek words, old words, words of a poet. But whereas Scipio's thoughts had turned to epic, Sulla's turned to the theatre, and what is more, the Aristophanic theatre, and it was on this note of sardonic humour that he left the head exhibited in mid-forum before the rostra, where new fashion on both sides had begun to hang up the heads of political criminals. He spoke like this because the theatre was always present as an undercurrent in his mind, though mercifully not always in such a grim context. Two of the watchwords in recent historiography of this period are background and process. Mere personality is falling into disfavour even with biographers.' We are indeed heavily indebted to these new methods, but there is still perhaps a time to judge men as individuals, and Sulla's interest in theatrical matters was of a highly individual kind. The tradition about it, though slight and neglected as frippery in many modern books, deserves some attention and some confidence. What we learn ultimately from Sulla himself is not self-glorificatory; what comes from his friends is not adulatory; what comes from his enemies is thrown in by the way as their mind was on other things.2 Unlike the emperors he had no aura of majesty for wits and peddlers of dirt to enjoy themselves transmogrifying. I would therefore like to sketch the picture in outline, taking account of the sort of man he was and the sides of his character for which the theatrical world had peculiar appeal. When Sulla was forming his tastes and ambitions, there were two older senators whose demeanour, though unlike his own, he had particular

Aesthetics · Art · Context (archaeology · Historiography · Humanities · Literature · Period (music · Political science · Politics · Successor cardinal · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classics · History · Law

• Political history, 146–95 b.c.

  Open Access•Andrew Lintott•The Cambridge Ancient History•1994

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• Religion

  Open Access•Mary Beard•The Cambridge Ancient History•1994

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• The development of Roman private law

  Open Access•John Crook, J A Crook•The Cambridge Ancient History•1994

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• Egypt, 146–31 b.c.

  Open Access•Dorothy J Thompson•The Cambridge Ancient History•1994

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• Economy and society, 133–43 b.c.

  Open Access•Claude Nicolet•The Cambridge Ancient History•1994

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• The Roman empire and its problems in the late second century

  Open Access•Andrew Lintott•The Cambridge Ancient History•1994

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• The Senate and the populares , 69–60 b.c.

  Open Access•T P Wiseman•The Cambridge Ancient History•1994

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• The aftermath of the Ides

  Open Access•Elizabeth Rawson•The Cambridge Ancient History•1994

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• Lucullus, Pompey and the East

  Open Access•A N Sherwin-White•The Cambridge Ancient History•1994

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• The city of Rome and the plebs urbana in the late Republic

  Open Access•Nicholas Purcell•The Cambridge Ancient History•1994

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• The fall of the Roman Republic

  Open Access•John Crook, J A Crook et al.•The Cambridge Ancient History•1994

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• The rise of Pompey

  Open Access•Robin Seager•The Cambridge Ancient History•1994

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• Caesar, Pompey and Rome, 59–50 b.c.

  Open Access•T P Wiseman•The Cambridge Ancient History•1994

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• The crisis of the Republic

  Open Access•Andrew Lintott•The Cambridge Ancient History•1994

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• The intellectual developments of the Ciceronian age

  Open Access•Miriam Griffin•The Cambridge Ancient History•1994

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• The administration of the empire

  Open Access•John Richardson, John S Richardson•The Cambridge Ancient History•1994

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• Sulla

  Open Access•Robin Seager•The Cambridge Ancient History•1994

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• Rome and Italy

  Open Access•Emilio Gabba•The Cambridge Ancient History•1994

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• The Cambridge Ancient History

  Open Access•John B Bury, Alan K Bowman et al.•Cambridge Ancient History•1994

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• The Apparitores

  Open Access•Nicholas Purcell•Papers of the British School at…•1983

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• Atellana Actors and Playwrights in the Epigraphic Evidence

  Open Access•Víctor González Galera•The Classical Quarterly•2023

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• Personaggi della Pompei sillana

  Open Access•Fausto Zevi•Papers of the British School at…•1995

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