Sullans (Nova Roma)

Latest revision as of 16:57, 6 November 2022

The "Sullans", or "Sullani" in Latin, were a Nova Roman faction, the successors of an earlier faction called "Boni". This was a group of people, friends and supporters, centered around the figure of L. Cornelius Sulla Felix who brought these people together and who kept them motivated and involved. The faction was later also called Sullan-Caesarian Faction or Sulla-Caesar Faction, because of the increasing leading role of Cn. Iulius Caesar, and "Back Alley" Faction, because it operated on a mailing list forum called the "Back Alley" (abbreviated as "BA", hence sometimes members were called "BAers"). The Sullan Faction was never officially institutionalized and has never claimed a name for itself. The names used about them are the descriptive labels used in forum conversations by observers, critics and by the chroniclers of Nova Roman history.

Origins

When the former senator L. Sulla Felix, who spent the previous five years away from Nova Roma, in complete recluse, returned to Nova Roma at the very end of M. Moravio T. Iulio cos. ‡ MMDCCLXI a.u.c., he joined and amplified the voices of the discontent citizens, mostly former members of the faction he was part of, the Boni, who were angered by the developments of the struggle for the control over the priestly colleges, most specifically, by the Cincinnatus-trial. Sulla was determined to revert the changes made during his five year long absence, and he was also fueled by his own ambition to become once again one of the principes (leading citizens) of Nova Roma. He organized a powerful faction from the discontent citizens, usually referred to as the Sullans, because he was the motor and the fuel for these people, many of whom he called back from similar sabbaticals who left around the time he left Nova Roma. The strongest cohesive and motivating force in this faction was, first and foremost, the members' friendship with Sulla, and secondarily, the members friendship with each others. Sulla found substantial help and support in two extremely talented newer citizens, in Cn. Iulius Caesar and C. Equitius Cato who supported his quest for his perceived justice, and who shared a role in keeping this circle of friends, the faction, motivated and fueled with anger toward the Nova Roman government.

The reason why the Sullans was sometimes called the "Boni" is because in the first five years of Nova Roma there existed a formal faction known as the "Boni", an equally turbulent group which was involved in the First "Civil War" of Nova Roma, however, that faction was dissolved. Since L. Sulla was one of the leaders of that faction, and he and some other prominent members of the "Boni", were leading members of Back Alley or Sullan Faction, as well, this causes the occasional identification of the two groups. In reality, however, the Boni as a faction ceased to function around the year Fr. Apulo C. Laenate cos. ‡ MMDCCLVIII a.u.c.. There remained two organized factions in Nova Roma after that, the "Libra Alliance", and the "Moderati", which also faded in oblivion by L. Arminio Ti. Galerio cos. ‡ MMDCCLX a.u.c.. When Sulla returned and organized his faction mostly from of ex-Boni, there was no other organized faction in Nova Roma. The other side, the supporters of the then-senate majority organized their faction only as a reaction to Sulla's attacks, only as a move of defense. The supporters of the government majority were composed of the former members of the "Libra", led by K. Fabius Buteo Quintilianus and Cn. Equitius Marinus, and of the "Moderati", joined by the most active Roman religionists, led by M. Moravius Piscinus Horatianus, usually referred to as the Piscinus Faction. While the forum of the Sullans was the "Back Alley" mailing list, the forum of this other faction was the "Ad Futura Romana" mailing list, and they were either referred to as Quintilianus-Piscinus Faction or Piscinus-Quintilianus-Marinus faction, or sometimes as "Libra" (incorrectly, since that faction ceased to exist formally by that time, but it was done in parallel with calling Sulla's faction as Boni, where equally did not exist by then).

The Back Alley

The faction was formed and operated in an open mailing list, called the "Back Alley", hence its other name, the "Back Alley" Faction. It was a private mailing list forum owned and controlled by members of the former "Boni" faction, who, after the formal dissolution of that faction, continued to own the Back Alley forum, and to control and dominate the opinion, the topics and the general consensus on that mailing list. They remained insignificant in Nova Roma, until the return of Sulla from his self-imposed exile of five years, when he took the leadership of the Back Alley community with the power of a storm, and the core members of that forum became known as the Sullans, because they only became powerful and vocal under the influence, and by the encouragement and leadership of, Sulla. One of them was Cn. Iulius Caesar, who emerged as Sulla's strongest supporter, and in the subsequent years, he became the tactical and theoretical leader of the Sullan faction, even more important than Sulla himself. Sulla and Caesar were accompanied by a third leader, C. Equitius Cato, and these three were the leaders of the Sullans together.

The Back Alley forum allowed rude, harassing, intimidating and libelous ad hominem attacks, there was no restriction of style, tone and behavior. Anyone could join the Back Alley forum, and many joined from other factions, with other views: the usual result was that the core Back Alley members overwhelmed, aggressively with hurtful, insulting attacks, anyone who argued for a different opinion, and the opponent either suffered a "burn out" and fall off from public life in Nova Roma, or left Nova Roma altogether, never to return.

As the Sullans were the most active and the absolute majority in the Back Alley mailing forum, non-members of the faction always felt hopeless to argue or resist, yet usually all active politicians of Nova Roma took their chances in the forum, always to the detriment of their mental balance. As a result, the Sullans' activity generated a hopeless and helpless feeling in the leadership of Nova Roma, that things will never change, those who remain in Nova Roman leadership positions, will always have to live under constant attacks and insufferable endless arguments.

Notable members of the faction

The core members of the the faction, many of whom never considered themselves being in one faction, nonetheless, they promoted the growing influence of Sulla, were chiefly Caesar and Cato, with the support of M. Cornelius Gualterus Graecus, Q. Fabius Maximus, Q. Valerius Poplicola, Cornelia Aeternia, Diana Aventina, and some more moderate people like C. Vipsanius Agrippa, Rutilia Enodiaria, Dec. Iunius Palladius Invictus, Ti. Galerius Paulinus, P. Ullerius Stephanus Venator, Flavia Merula, L. Cornelius Cicero, Q. Servilius Priscus, Q. Caecilius Metellus, C. Tullius Valerianus Germanicus, Helena Galeria Aureliana, Pompeia Minucia Strabo and M. Octavius. Many of these listed were originally from different factions but in the Back Alley group they agreed to oppose and strongly criticize the senate majority of that time. More and more, the consensus of these people created a milieu in the Back Alley that the opinion leaders of the community are Sulla and Caesar.

The Second "Civil War"

As the Back Alley Faction of Sulla, Caesar and Cato grew, they started to dominate all topics and arguments in the Main List, the official central forum of Nova Roma, where posting anything now became a dangerous endeavor as one could expect a dozen of bullying reactions and character assassination campaigns. This era of the of constant bullying, bickering, drama, bitter insult hurling and personality wars in all international forums of Nova Roma which was orchestrated by Sulla, Caesar and Cato as an attack against the senate and the magistrates, in order that they abandon power and give up their positions in Nova Roma, and which incapacitated almost all functions of Nova Roma, is called the Second "Civil War" of Nova Roma within Nova Roma, which transpired between M. Curiatio M. Iulio cos. ‡ MMDCCLXII a.u.c. - P. Memmio K. Buteone (II) cos. ‡ MMDCCLXIII a.u.c..

As the ruling faction of Nova Roma (2011-2016)

After their emergence to power as senate majority, Cato retired from activity, and Caesar became the most important tactical leader of the Sullans, although the faction depended on the driving force of Sulla. During the years of their regime, the faction started to get labeled Sullan-Caesarian Faction (or Sulla-Caesar Faction) because of the increasingly prominent role of Caesar as the theoretical leader and legislator. Finally, when Caesar and Sulla proclaimed themselves dictator and magister equitum in an orchestrated coup d'état, it formally showed Caesar as the primary head of the faction.

Sulla and Caesar were the quasi-monarchic rulers of Nova Roma since they eliminated all other leading members during 2009-2010, rising to absolute power in 2011, and rendering Nova Roma dysfunctional for the next years to come. They didn't use their power in Nova Roma to make the organization thriving and successful, they didn't create projects or a welcoming atmosphere. Caesar and Sulla used their power only to play informal fiefs or emperors who boss around the community fora and lecture people about their power, as a result of which, they drove away most of the active contributing citizens and drove Nova Roma into a period of rapid decline.

During the years of their informal "monarchy" between 2011-2015, Caesar and Sulla committed various violations against Nova Roman law, Roman tradition and against the interests and cause of Nova Roma. They violated the principles of Roman religion by removing the legitimate pontifex maximus by a senate decree (such a removal could have been legally done only by the Collegium Pontificum) and appointing Sulla-Caesar Faction members as pontifices even though some of them weren't even practitioners of the religion. They oppressed the Latin Society, the Sodalitas Latinitatis of Nova Roma by intervention into their elections. They added an illegal clause to all of their decrees so that they can be reverted only by 4/5 majority of the voting of all citizens, which made their laws almost impossible to be repealed. They manipulated the results of elections by illegal manipulation of the voting blocks (tribes and centuries). Many irregularities were discovered in the assignment of citizens to the various centuries, for example, Caesar's wife and some other faction members were accorded greater voting power than warranted.  On the other hand, while they paid great attention to the enactment of oppressive laws and decrees and to play political faction-war games against the active contributors of Nova Roma, Sulla and Caesar greatly neglected the real, valuable missions and duties of Nova Roma. Applications for citizenship were neglected, some pending for more than three years. All cultural activities and programs were made by voluntary citizens, and were never supported or never initiated by the Caesarian-Sullan leadership. Caesar or Sulla have never organized or helped the organization of any event, program or cultural activity of Nova Roma as our mission would have required. Two censuses, mandated by the laws of Nova Roma, were missed due to the negligence of Caesar's and Sulla's leadership. They focused only on their insult campaigns against members who dared to criticize them and on their hurtful "power games" for titles and domination. It was as clear as the Sun to all observers: their only goal is the conversion of the entirety of Nova Roma into their type of "role play game" as emperors, and to abandon our serious cultural and educational mission.

As the most respected leading citizens of Nova Roma were speaking up against the agenda of the Sulla-Caesar clique, it was increasingly widespread knowledge within the organization that Sulla and Caesar had been scheming for the absolute control of Nova Roma, and that for them power within Nova Roma was an end in itself, a game to bully all active citizens out of the organization and to play a "conquer all power and rule as an emperor" type of game. More and more supporters of Sulla and Caesar ceased to support them as it turned out that they didn't act in the best interest of Nova Roma, because it became apparent in numerous cases that they didn't hesitate to cause damage to Nova Roma if it could strengthen their own position. As a result of their bullying tactics which they employed to keep Nova Roma firmly under their domination in the last years, over a hundred of citizens left Nova Roma in protest or were expelled from Nova Roma because of Sulla and Caesar: Nova Roma lost its Academy, they drove away our Latinists, they dissolved the Magna Mater Project, the practice of yearly international Nova Roma conventus was terminated. We lost a large section of the Roman religion community and most of the priesthood, we also lost most of our allied reenactor groups and Nova Roma lost most of the provincial communities. As both their public statements and actions indicate, Sulla and Caesar deliberately turned off all these people in order to secure that there is no opposition to their paramount leadership, and that they can keep complete and permanent control over Nova Roma.

They were almost completely successful, but as of November 2015, there were still remnants of liberty and independent civic activism: they wanted to get rid of these, too, in order to establish Nova Roma as Sulla's and Caesar's household "empire", free from academic or educational aspects, changing the profile of Nova Roma from a real life Roman revivalist organization to an political Role Playing Game where they can be the co-emperors with all citizens as their subjects.

Coup d'état of Caesar and Sulla (16 November, 2015)

In November 2015, Caesar and Sulla wanted to enact a senate decree that would have discriminated all Nova Roman citizens who hold membership in other Roman organizations. The Tribunes of the Plebs, in defense of these brotherly Roman organizations, had interposed a veto against these unconstitutional senatorial decrees. Caesar and Sulla then claimed that this is an "imminent emergency" which "threatens the existence" of Nova Roma. Upon this pretext of emergency, Caesar and Sulla imposed their illegal dictatorship, and started the cleansing and purge of the active citizens of Nova Roma in order to make way for their version of Nova Roma. Almost all the active citizens were united with outrage against this coup d'état. 300 citizens joined together in threatening the perpetrators of this illegal coup with legal action, as a result of which the illegal dictator resigned in March 2016, but, unfortunately, they kept their positions in the Board of Directors and continued to control the corporation of Nova Roma.

As a result of these harsh actions, the Sullan-Caesarian Faction split, and most of its members joined the Liberatores saving Nova Roma, and the remaining few members, about 16 in number, most of them senators, were labeled from that point on as the Coup Faction, or Sulla-Caesar Coup Faction.

As Coup Faction

As a reaction to the coup, the citizen community of Nova Roma organized itself out of the corporation of Nova Roma and continued to exist in form of a free res publica, the legitimate continuation of Nova Roma, with the blessing of the founders themselves. The consequences of this was that the Coup Faction could rule nothing but an empty, formal shell of a corporation, with about 16 members in it who were loyal to the Coup Faction.

As the real self of Nova Roma functioned now outside of the influence of Caesar and Sulla, and as the faction members became more and more desperate and disillusioned, the faction sank into apathy. The citizens of Nova Roma hired attorneys in order to recover the corporation, and when the officer court notices were sent to perpetrators of the coup, they renounced all hope to win this fight, and first Caesar, then a year later Sulla, too, renounced their citizenship and the Coup Faction ceased to function, with the exception of some sporadic attempt of non-compliance.