During the last century BC the Roman Republic was in turmoil, civil wars had wrecked the country, and out of these conflicts came a powerful dictator the general known as Sulla. Sulla took power through corruption and violence. His dictatorship was characterised by the constitutional reforms that he tried to implement in order to prevent future violence, and paradoxically to retain the traditional Roman power distribution. These reforms did not create an environment in which the Roman Republic was better off, the senate was weakened and corrupted and he failed to curtail the power that the major generals had gained through the Marian reforms. Furthermore he damaged the republic by setting a precedent for future leaders to follow when he marched on Rome with his own army, an example which would be followed by generals such as Caesar. Whilst there was a certain inevitability surrounding the fall of the Roman Republic, some scholars believe that through concerted efforts to reduce the power of the military Sulla could have saved the Republic. Sulla’s reforms, whilst they were able to be enforced by him, curbed the violence and made the Roman Republic a more civil society, however, once he was no longer around the Republic reverted back to violence and instability. This shows that these reforms lacked popular following and there was no longevity in them. Sulla’s dictatorship, though brief, made many changes to the Roman system that would not remain in place after his leadership ended. These reforms and the violent way in which they were enforced set a precedent for other generals to follow.
The leadership of Sulla lasted from 82 BC till 79 BC, under his leadership there was a very substantial reform programme which included reforms to the senate, the turbinate, the courts and the way Rome’s provinces where governed. Sulla intended his new republic to be governed by a more powerful senate. Sulla believed that the best way to bring back a stable state was to have a powerful senate. Due to civil strife and his proscriptions of the time, the senate numbers were depleted to 150 from the usual 300. In an attempt to give the senate more power, he introduced 450 more senators bringing the number to 600 senators, a number which he would maintain by raising the number of Quaestors. He wanted the senate to have both moral backing and legal backing, in other words a replacement of the Mos Marorum with the Lex. Sulla modified the Tribunate of the Plebs because he saw the influence they held as harmful to the power of the senate. A man who was a Tribune now could not go on to further office, their authority was drastically curtailed. Finally in the court system the Equites class was completely excluded from the jury system. Juries were restricted to senators alone, through this Sulla gave the senate more power. However, there were major problems with these reforms which would make them irrelevant and redundant in the near future.
Sulla tried to make the senate a more powerful and direct form of government, believing this would make the state more stable. Sulla implemented proscriptions in order to disband those who did not support him and threatened his power, these proscriptions were harmful to the stability of the state. Plutarch described the proscriptions, “no place remained undefiled but murder nether temple of God, nor hearth of hospitality, nor ancestral home. Husbands were slaughtered in the embraces of the wedded wives, sons in the arms of their mothers.” Because of these atrocious proscriptions the senate lost most of its leading members, making the senate weaker. The people who remained members of the senate ether did not want nor were able to exercise power over the state or the future major generals like Pompey, Crassus and Caesar. Sulla expanded the senate after his proscriptions; the Senate itself, which had been much thinned by the seditions and wars and he added members from the best of the knights, taking the vote of the tribes on each one. Due to his previous proscriptions the new senators that were being recruited, were weak willed and lacked conviction. This only succeeded in making the state weaker. The future would be one where power was held by small oligarchies rather than a large senate. This weakened the state immensely and is one of the ways that the Sullan reforms caused the acceleration of the collapse of the Roman Republic.
The system where Sulla and the senate were at the head, had become corrupt. There were many examples of jury scandals and this all worked to erode the senate’s power and respect. In a speech made in the defence of Sextus Roscius of Ameria, who was wrongly accused of murdering his father so that one of Sullas favourite freed slaves could get Sextus property, Ciccero points out the corruptions within the system to the judges and jurors presiding over the trial.
He,[Sulla] O judges, demands of you that, since he, without any right, has taken possession of the property of another, so abundant and so splendid, and as the life of Sextus Roscius appears to him to stand in the way of and to hinder his possession of that property, you will efface from his mind every suspicion, and remove all his fear... but if he be convicted and got rid of, he hopes he may be able to waste and squander in luxury what he has acquired by wickedness.
Ciccero talks about the wickedness of a system based on the principals of murder and violence. This is one way the Sullan system adversely affected the Roman Republic and did nothing to prolong the life of the republic. As good as Sulla’s intentions were to create a stable state; but because of the weak willed and self invested senators, corruption was a major part of the system. This corruption was particularly evident in the law courts as often they were rigged in order to create the best outcome for the senate members and Sulla. One of the main criticisms of the system was that there was no attempt to make reforms that would cut the power of military generals, instead he focused solely on making the senate stronger. As shown in Cary and Scullard’s ‘History of Rome’, Sulla missed an opportunity when he did not take away power from the generals. They say that his failure to safeguard the republic from future military uprisings was a cardinal sin. Around this time the link between generals and the soldiers were becoming stronger. For the republic to survive there would have to be major reforms to the military, they would have to reduce the power of the generals and change the loyalties of the soldiers from the generals to the state. These reforms would have changed the power structure in military instead. The generals continued to gain power in the same corrupt way that Sulla gained power.
The Sullan reforms were less effective because of the way that he took power. He used an army to march on the city of Rome taking control and declaring himself dictator. With no limit to his power, he set a dangerous precedent for future ambitious politicians in the Roman Republic. For Sulla, the way he gained power could not be erased from the Roman population’s mind, his ambitious pursuit for personal and political gain set the precedent for future power brokers. The roman people knew him not as a law giver but as a tyrant, as Plutarch describes “This made it clear at once to even the dullest-witted man in Rome that, so far from having escaped from tyranny, they had only exchanged one tyrant for another.” Appian said “Thus Sulla became king, or tyrant, de facto, not elected, but holding power by force and violence.” As early as 78 BC men such as Lepidus where describing Sulla as a tyrant, saying that Sulla was “feeling disgust and shame at his tyranny.” Sulla’s negative example outweighed the positives that were a result of his dictatorship, the precedent set by Sulla was disastrous for the Roman Republic with Generals like Caesar and Pompey using the same tactics as Sulla in order to gain power and control. This precedent had a negative impact on the Roman Republic, which out weighted any positives that his reforms may have produced. Sulla’s reforms were so unpopular that it was almost immediately dismantled by other politicians. Before Sulla had passed away there were calls from politicians like Lepidus to have the reforms over turned. Throughout the rest of the decade, between 79BC to 70BC, systematic changes were made. In the year 70 BC the consulship of Pompey and Crassus set about destroying what was left of Sullan reforms. This shows how unpopular the reforms made by Sulla were at the time, and how many of the positives of his regime were almost immediately forgotten.
The question then arises was the fall of the Roman Republic was inevitable. According to Cary and Scullard the fall was not unavoidable. They believed that the republic at the time of Sulla could have been saved with a whole hearted attempt to salvage it by resolute constitutional experiments. Sulla was hindered by the inherit roman conservativeness. Like many practical men of his time he was lacking in imagination. He took no wide or far seeing view of the republic’s future. He limited himself to reforms that seemed familiar and safe rather than the reforms that, in hindsight, would have been necessary. Therefore Sulla did not postpone the inevitable, without drastic reforms to the military recruitment, structure, and payment, the power of the generals of the roman army would continue to rise. Sulla did not make the drastic reforms considered necessary to save the Roman Republic from its downfall, and thus only postponed for short time of his rule. There is great debate over whether the Roman Republic was better off with or without the reforms made by Sulla. Before his reforms there were civil wars and wide spread violence, there were multiple Consulships with people like Marius and Sulla himself taking extraordinary commands. During his reign peace was restored to Rome, however, once he died violence and disorder returned to the Roman Republic almost immediately. “Thus there was a cessation of factions for a short time while Sulla lived, and a compensation for the evils which he had wrought, but after his death similar troubles broke out and continued until Gaius Caesar.” After the reforms Pompey was given propeatorian imperium or the power to not disband his army, even though he was not an elected official, this is another sign that Sullan system did not work. The reforms made did not change the situation for the better or the worse, the system was already falling. While it could have been saved by extreme actions, this reform programme did not go far enough and therefore did not save the republic. The republic was still fixable, but even with the reforms, but soon after Sulla’s death it slipped back into old habits and therefore did not alter the situation. Sulla’s reforms neither harmed nor helped the Roman Republic only restoring them to stability for a brief period of time.
Sulla’s reforms, while made with the best intentions, but did not prevent the fall of the Roman Republic. Rather than making the Republic stronger these reforms created a situation where the Republic continued in its demise. Sulla had an opportunity to create substantial reform that would have changed the outcome of the Republic, due to his conservative nature, he did not create reforms that would curtail the power of the military and therefore save the republic. Instead his reforms had the adverse effect of weakening and corrupting the senate, and creating a precedent of taking power by force that would be used by future generals. The ultimate undoing of his reforms occurred because of the violent way in which his reforms were enforced, they were disliked and therefore not continued after he left power.

Bibliography
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[ 1 ]. Mary T. Boatwrite, Daniel J. Gargola, Richard J.A. Talbert, The Romans: From Village to Empire, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) 194
[ 2 ]. Ibid 195
[ 3 ]. Ibid 200
[ 4 ]. Harriot I. Flower, Roman Republics, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010)
[ 5 ]. Plutarch, Sulla, Trans. Rex Warner (London: Penguin Classics, 2005) chapter 31
[ 6 ]. Jurgen Von Ungern-Sternberg, ‘The Crisis of the Republic,’ in The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic, Ed Harriot I Flower, Cambridge University Press, (2004) viewed on the 5/10/2012 viewed at cco.cambridge.org.virtual.anu.edu
[ 7 ]. Appian, Civil Wars, Trans. Horace White, (Leobe Classical Library, 1913) Book 1, Chapter 100
[ 8 ]. M. Cary, H.H Scullard, A History of Rome Third Edition’ (London: Macmillan Press LTD, 1975) 237
[ 9 ]. M. Cary, H.H Scullard, A History of Rome Third Edition’
[ 10 ]. M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, trans. Yonge, (London: George Bell & Sons. 1903) Chapter 2:6
[ 11 ]. Cary, Scullard, A History of Rome Third Edition’ 238
[ 12 ]. Ibid 237
[ 13 ]. Ungern-S ternberg, ‘The Crisis of the Republic,’ 100
[ 14 ]. Plutarch, Sulla, Chapter 30
[ 15 ]. Appian, Civil Wars, 98
[ 16 ]. Sallust, Histories, trans. A.J woodman (London: Penguin Classics, 2007) book 55:7
[ 17 ]. Flower, Roman Republics, 137
[ 18 ]. Sallust, Histories, trans. A.J woodman (London: Penguin Classics, 2007) book 55
[ 19 ]. M. Cary, H.H Scullard, A History of Rome Third Edition’ 238
[ 20 ]. Ibid 237
[ 21 ]. Appian, Civil Wars, Book 1 Chapter 3
[ 22 ]. Cary, Scullard, A History of Rome Third Edition’ 240