The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

by Mike Duncan

Though Sulla was a carefree hedonist, he never neglected his studies. He had great natural intelligence and received a good education. By the time he was a teenager he was fluent in Greek and highly literate in art, literature, and history. Despite the low fortunes of his family, Sulla still spent his youth expecting to embark on a public career. But when his father died, Sulla discovered just how far the family fortunes had fallen. Sulla’s father was bankrupt and left his son no inheritance. Sulla could not even afford to join the legions as a cavalry officer, the prerequisite to any political career. So rather than spending his twenties in the legions, Sulla continued his dissolute life in Rome, renting an inexpensive apartment and living his life in the pursuit of wine, women, and song.3