Who was the best Roman general?

[moonburn]

sulla never lost a batle in his lifetime and he had cesars life on his hand and spared him stating that in cesar there´s 1000 marius with all the populism and lack of scrupulous that comes with such bottom feeders

furthermore sulla was able to get the respect of such amazing generals as lucullos one of the best on his own pompey (altough we all know he wasn´t that great) and even marius

furthermore to attest to his caracther he had the balls to march on rome itself (1st one ever) and the decency to step out once he decided his work was done and was freely walking the streets of rome next to the brothers and sons of those he had proscrited or had killed in revenge for cinna´s actions and he explained all of his actions and nobady dared to killed him in the midle of the street even tough he was a nobiles and had just passed laws putting the plebeians in their place

had his laws not been revoked in the 10 years after he steped out and people such as cratus pompey cesar milan clodius and the such could have never taken control of rome since they all used the plebeian tribune veto to further their politics and amass enough power until one of them had the power and all of them used the mob wich is nothing if not pure populism wich was the thing sulla was trying to fight off in rome

one of the greatest losses of classicism is the loss of sulla´s memoirs altough i tend to believe they where all destroyed by gaius cesar and octavian since the mind of such a brilliant man could have inspired the romans to adapt to becoming an empire without the need for an emperor

[Gaius Sempronius Gracchus]

sulla never lost a batle in his lifetime and he had cesars life on his hand and spared him stating that in cesar there´s 1000 marius with all the populism and lack of scrupulous that comes with such bottom feeders

furthermore sulla was able to get the respect of such amazing generals as lucullos one of the best on his own pompey (altough we all know he wasn´t that great) and even marius

furthermore to attest to his caracther he had the balls to march on rome itself (1st one ever) and the decency to step out once he decided his work was done and was freely walking the streets of rome next to the brothers and sons of those he had proscrited or had killed in revenge for cinna´s actions and he explained all of his actions and nobady dared to killed him in the midle of the street even tough he was a nobiles and had just passed laws putting the plebeians in their place

had his laws not been revoked in the 10 years after he steped out and people such as cratus pompey cesar milan clodius and the such could have never taken control of rome since they all used the plebeian tribune veto to further their politics and amass enough power until one of them had the power and all of them used the mob wich is nothing if not pure populism wich was the thing sulla was trying to fight off in rome

one of the greatest losses of classicism is the loss of sulla´s memoirs altough i tend to believe they where all destroyed by gaius cesar and octavian since the mind of such a brilliant man could have inspired the romans to adapt to becoming an empire without the need for an emperor

Hmmm...I've seen this sort of sentiment before. I must admit that I am puzzled by it - especially in an age where so many of us value our democratic rights. Perhaps they are not as valued as I imagine them.

Sulla's background is a little....., murky, shall we say. One of Caesar's descendants was reported to have questioned Sulla's rise to prominence, and by implication the honesty of his position. We know only of some 'lover' and a step-mother who allegedly left him large sums of money - rather an odd proposition for a culture bound by the notion of pater familias, don't you think?

I don't understand why Sulla's reputation is any less factional than his enemies. Why is it that one might describe Sulla's march on Rome in terms of 'having balls', while he that follows (Caesar) is (by implication) seen as a usurper?

There is much vagueness, an opaqueness, regarding the goings on of this era. Sulla, Pompey, Marius, Caesar.... all are over-stepping the line in terms of the Republic's constitution. Given the nature of those institutions (oligarchical power-sharing and fulfilling familial ambition) it was inevitable that the power of those institutions would be challenged.

I have to say, though, that I find sentiments such as "putting the plebeians in their place" rather worrying when expounded as a good thing. Perhaps, though, this is due to Plebians (like the notional 'barbarians') being always projected as smelly, unthinking, drunken mobs.

[fomalhaut]

yeah i think the concept of 'best general' should extend to the ends of them campaigning in the first place. Sulla was basically a bad guy in my opinion, his tactical abilities were all to the end of perpetuating the rule of the patricians and the oppression of the plebeians.

There are great tacticians who supported great evils but i would consider them better generals just because their intentions weren't really evil, Rommel and 'Stonewall' Jackson are two great examples.

[CashMunny]

This isn't a contest of who was the nicest general, it's a contest of who was the best general. The job of a general is to send thousands of men to their deaths, oftentimes when those men have little or nothing to gain by winning, and to make them actually want to fight anyways. It's not a job for a nice guy. Sulla strikes me as a corrupt power-hungry oligarch, but to others he is seen as a defender of Roman virtue. We could debate whether he was a moral crusader or a misguided buffoon all day, but we can't dispute that he was a great leader of men. Likewise, we can spend all day discussing Caesar's evil evil ways, or his noble and virtuous life, but we can't call him a slouch when it comes to commanding armies. It almost seems like to be a successful general, you need to a bit of a prick. Patton, Rommel, Caesar, Napoleon, Ghengis Khan, and Tamerlane were all pretty bad dudes, but their job was to send their people to kill the other guy's people in the most efficient manner, so what the heck do you expect?

[Gaius Sempronius Gracchus]

This isn't a contest of who was the nicest general, it's a contest of who was the best general. The job of a general is to send thousands of men to their deaths, oftentimes when those men have little or nothing to gain by winning, and to make them actually want to fight anyways. It's not a job for a nice guy. Sulla strikes me as a corrupt power-hungry oligarch, but to others he is seen as a defender of Roman virtue. We could debate whether he was a moral crusader or a misguided buffoon all day, but we can't dispute that he was a great leader of men. Likewise, we can spend all day discussing Caesar's evil evil ways, or his noble and virtuous life, but we can't call him a slouch when it comes to commanding armies. It almost seems like to be a successful general, you need to a bit of a prick. Patton, Rommel, Caesar, Napoleon, Ghengis Khan, and Tamerlane were all pretty bad dudes, but their job was to send their people to kill the other guy's people in the most efficient manner, so what the heck do you expect?

Which is a fine defence as long as one is defining the argument in terms of their Generalship, but when one adds such as

had his laws not been revoked in the 10 years after he steped out and people such as cratus pompey cesar milan clodius and the such could have never taken control of rome since they all used the plebeian tribune veto to further their politics and amass enough power until one of them had the power and all of them used the mob wich is nothing if not pure populism wich was the thing sulla was trying to fight off in rome

..then one is taking the discussion beyond that remit. We don't actually know very much about what Cinna's actions were during this period. The outline of the history of this period are almost entirely based upon Sulla's own memoirs and so it follows that they will show him in a more favourable light than perhaps he merits.

If it is Generalship that is being discussed then discuss that, if one wishes to extol the virtues of the man, or his politics (and especially where one tries to diminish the aspect of personal ambition) then expect that to come into question.

As for whether or not his Generalship can be questioned, I believe that it can. As above, the outline of the history of this period is taken from Sulla's own memoirs. Many of the victories attested to his leadership can be questioned - starting, of course, with Jugurtha. I shall root out some more campaigns where his command has been put into question when I return from work.

[CashMunny]

We actually get a lot more information about Sulla from Plutarch, and we really don't have too much reason to doubt Plutarch's word as far as Sulla's concerned. He didn't have much of a motive to trump up Sulla's greatness a century after Sulla's time. In fact if anything Plutarch might have had a motive to make Sulla sound as bad as possible. Plutarch lived during the Julian and Flavian dynastic eras for the most part, they certainly wouldn't be paying Plutarch extra to make Caesar's enemy seem like a good guy since the Julians were Augustus' adopted children and grandchildren and the Flavians had Caesar to thank for becoming prominent at all.