Bulla Felix

He gathered a band of over 600 men, among them runaway slaves and imperial freedmen, and eluded capture for more than two years despite pursuit by a force of Roman soldiers under the command of the emperor himself.

Dio's story has several similarities to later legends of "good" bandits: Bulla "combined the attributes of Zorro and the Scarlet Pimpernel (he could never be caught) with a Robin Hood-like concern for social justice.

[7] These imperial freedmen may have been ousted from privileged positions as a result of the civil wars following the death of Commodus, from which Septimius Severus had emerged to reign as emperor (193–211).

[8] Elsewhere, Dio indicates that a band of brigands with this kind of organizational capacity might also include men cashiered from the Praetorian Guard, the followers of usurpers, and those who had lost their property through confiscation during the civil wars.

In Dio's view, the Severan reform of the Praetorian Guard that made it no longer a privilege of Italian youth left them at loose ends to become brigands and gladiators.

[12] The incident may be fictional, but contemporary concern for the feeding and clothing of slaves is expressed by the jurist Ulpian, who served as assessor to the praetorian prefect who eventually brought Bulla Felix to trial.

Just after he had defeated the usurper Clodius Albinus, who had supporters of senatorial rank, Severus announced that he was disinclined toward the clemency of Pompeius Magnus or Julius Caesar, and would instead favor a policy of severity, like Augustus, Gaius Marius, and Sulla.

The similarity of Sulla Felix to Bulla Felix—whether the name was adopted by an actual man, or was Dio's choice for a fictional composite—helps cast the bandit as a satiric mirror image of the emperor.

A military tribune was given command of a substantial force of cavalry and ordered by the outraged emperor to bring Bulla Felix back alive or to face punishment in extremis himself.

The tribune learned that Bulla was having an affair with a married woman, and had the wronged husband put pressure on his wife, promising immunity from prosecution in exchange for information.

[27] The Imperial bureaucracy kept records on crime, and while none of these local archives has survived except for one from Egypt,[28] brigandage had occurred throughout Roman history, and became acute among the social disturbances that characterized the Crisis of the Third Century.

[32] Dio writes about several glamorous or idealistic bandits, such as Corocotta, active in Roman Spain under Augustus, and a Claudius in Judaea a few years before Bulla Felix.