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The Top Benevolent and Malevolent Dictators From History

Khalid Elhassan November 30, 2020 32 min

Augustus - Ancient Rome — 'The Emperor Augustus Rebukes Cornelius Cinna for His Treachery', by Etienne Jean Delecluze, 1814 - Augustus pardoned Cinna and gave him a government job. Van Go Yourself

16. This Roman Dictator Was Definitely Not Benevolent

During its first few centuries, the Roman Republic was fortunate that no dictator went rogue and seriously abused the extraordinary powers handed to him. That good fortune ran out with the dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla (138 – 79 BC), a general who led the Optimates – Rome’s conservative and aristocratic-leaning political faction.

Sulla did something that no Roman dictator or general before him had done: he led his legions in a march on Rome. Sulla seized power by force, and fought and won a civil war against the Populares – Rome’s progressive-leaning political faction. He then had himself appointed dictator, and massacred his political opponents by the thousands. Sulla also enacted constitutional reforms that were intended – but ultimately failed – to strengthen the Roman Republic in its final decades.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.