15. This Dictator Started Off as a Seducer – and Murderer – of Wealthy Older Women
Sulla belonged to an old patrician family, but it was centuries removed from its heyday by the time he was born. He grew up dissolute and debauched, consorting with actors – a despised profession in those days. However, Sulla was strikingly handsome, so as a young man, he earned his keep by seducing and preying upon wealthy older women. At least two of them died in suspicious circumstances after naming Sulla as sole heir in their wills.
He began his political career during the Numidian War (112 – 106 BC) as quaestor, or financial magistrate, for Rome’s then-greatest general, Gaius Marius. However, when Sulla captured the Numidian king by treachery and claimed credit for ending the war, he aroused Marius’ resentment. That was the start of bad blood between the two men. The consequences were dire: the shedding of rivers of actual blood, and kicking off a chain of events that eventually culminated in the collapse of the Roman Republic.
