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IMPERIAL CHALLENGERS: BULLA FELIX AND MATERNUS
out. But such reportage amounted to more than simply the depiction of
the background to events. Dio’s principal aim was to show that the emperor,
the man responsible for peace and order, the avenger of Pertinax, the conqueror
of Pescennius Niger, the Parthians and Clodius Albinus, found it
hard to deal with so trivial a challenge as that of a robber band. In this
case, too, one suspects from the start that Bulla Felix, at least as far as he is
depicted by tradition, was no authentic historical figure, but the result of
literary elaboration.
2 Bulla Felix
As far as Bulla’s origins are concerned, all that we know for sure is that he
came from Italy. 10 His name has no direct epigraphic or literary parallels. 11
This in itself may be an indication that it was a pseudonym, with a coded
meaning.
The Latin name ‘Bulla’ was derived from the bulla, a bubble-shaped
amulet worn on the costumes of the emperor and members of the imperial
family as a visible sign of their status. 12 Any bandit calling himself Bulla
thus carried an element of imperial dress in his name, and in so doing made
a symbolic claim to imperial rank. This claim occurs more clearly in Bulla’s
connection with the sobriquet ‘Felix’. From the reign of Commodus, emperors
bore this epithet among their titles as an expression of accomplished
good fortune. 13 By adopting it, Bulla laid claim to an attribute that was
properly an imperial distinction. 14
But this is not all that may be said about the force of the name ‘Bulla
Felix’. It can hardly be accidental that Bulla Felix sounds like Sulla Felix, 15
for this sums up the Severan bandit chief in a nutshell. Self-confidence,
courage, ambition, resolution, guile, unscrupulousness and luck had all
allowed the Republican general and dictator, Sulla, to pursue and achieve
his political goals. 16 We shall see below how close Bulla came to the qualities
attributed to Sulla. Observant contemporaries might well have made the
connection, in particular senators such as Cassius Dio, forced into unpleasant
recollection of the name Sulla only a short while before the appearance of
Bulla. After the fall of Clodius Albinus, Septimius Severus had addressed the
Senate. Among the patres were many followers of the dead usurper, naturally
concerned for their own survival. Their worst fears appeared to be realised
when Severus vigorously proclaimed that now was the time to dispense
with the clemency of a Pompey or a Caesar, and that severity and cruelty,
the tried and tested principles of a Marius, a Sulla, an Augustus, were much
more effective. 17
Whoever gave the bandit the name Bulla Felix, its complex associations
betray a keen awareness of the psychological effects of programmatic designations.
The adoption of bulla, a piece of imperial insignia, the usurpation of
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