ABSTRACT
Of the seven patrician families who belonged to the Cornelian gens, that to which Sulla belonged, although it could boast of one colourful character, was the least distinguished. The earliest member of the family of whom we have a record is P. Cornelius Rufinus, who was dictator in 334, but he is a rather shadowy figure and is for us really little more than a name.1 The same cannot be said of his son, also called P. Cornelius Rufinus, who was undoubtedly the most celebrated – some would say, rather, notorious – member of the family before Sulla himself. As consul in 290 he played a prominent part in the war against the Samnites. At some time around 285, he, like his father, became dictator and in 277 was consul once more. Here again he gave a good account of himself by waging war against the allies of Pyrrhus, the king of Epirus, who had invaded southern Italy.2 In the next year, however, his career came to an abrupt and ignominious end. Such a character could not fail to make enemies among his jealous fellow nobles, who viewed any man’s excessive prominence with suspicion, and when Rufinus was found to possess more than 10 librae of plate, the maximum allowed by law at the time, they saw to it that he was expelled from the Senate. Ironically, this incident gained for him something he would probably not have won by his substantial military and political achievements: an undying, if somewhat dubious, fame. For centuries afterwards a motley crew of moralists and rhetoricians cited his case to illustrate the primitive simplicity of ancient Roman manners and the severity with which those who offended against them were punished.3 More immediately his disgrace seems to have led to the partial political eclipse of his family. It did not actually vanish from public life, but none of its members reached a position comparable with that of Rufinus, and by the time of Sulla it was regarded as being of little consequence.
