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Bulla Felix was a legendary Italian bandit leader active around 205–207 AD,Thomas Grünewald, Bandits in the Roman Empire: Myth and Reality (Routledge, 2004, originally published 1999 in German), p. 208. during the reign of the Roman emperor Septimius Severus. 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 Roman emperor himself.Brent D. Shaw, "Bandits in the Roman Empire," in Studies in Ancient Greek and Roman Society (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 366.
The story of Bulla Felix is told by the Greek historian and Roman senator Cassius Dio. 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."Frank McLynn, Marcus Aurelius: A Life (Da Capo Press, 2009), p. 482. Dio describes him as "never really seen when seen, never found when found, never caught when caught."Cassius Dio 77.10.2. The Latin name Bulla Felix means roughly "Lucky Charm", and he is likely to be a composite or historical fiction.Grünewald, Bandits in the Roman Empire: Myth and Reality, p. 111 (emphatically regarding Bulla Felix as a fiction); Christopher J. Fuhrmann, Policing the Roman Empire: Soldiers, Administration, and Public Order (Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 135; Shaw, "Bandits in the Roman Empire," p. 366.
Though engaging in highway robbery, Bulla Felix did not resort to killing, and instead took only part of his targets' wealth before he released them. He then redistributed the wealth amongst the most in need. When the party included artisans ( ), he detained them for a time in order to make use of their services. After benefiting from their skills, he gave them a generous gift and let them go.Cassius Dio 77.10.3; Grünewald, Bandits in the Roman Empire, pp. 113–114.
In another incident, he approached a centurion in command of the Roman force sent to capture him, pretended to be someone else, and offered to reveal the location of the bandits' hideout. The centurion went with him, and walked into an ambush. Bulla convened a mock tribunal, dressed himself as a presiding magistrate, and ordered that the centurion's head be partially shaved in the manner of slaves. He then released him, on the condition that he deliver a message to his "masters": "Feed your slaves, that they might not turn to brigandage".Cassius Dio 77.10.4–5. 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.Grünewald, Bandits in the Roman Empire, p. 116.
His band was constituted as an alternative state to Rome, like that of the rebel Viriatus and other "bandit states" idealized in Roman literature: "tightly run, based on the unconditional loyalty of their subjects to their leaders and characterised by absolute discipline".Grünewald, Bandits in the Roman Empire, p. 63. Saint Augustine would later argue that a bandit state (latrocinium), as exemplified by the community organized under Spartacus in the Third Servile War, could not be distinguished structurally from a legitimate regnum ("rule, kingdom"), and a rule could be deemed just if its benefits were shared communally.Augustine of Hippo, City of God 3.26, 4.4–5, 19.2; Oliver O'Donovan and Joan Lockwood O'Donovan, Bonds of Imperfection: Christian Politics, Past and Present (William B. Eerdmans, 2004), pp. 61–62. Bulla Felix presides over a community of 600 men—the same as the number of seats in the Imperial Senate—and like an emperor, he is a patron of the arts, since the term for the artisans he employed includes practitioners of the performing and Roman art as well as master craftsmen.Grünewald, Bandits in the Roman Empire, pp. 112–114.
The possible meanings of the name Bulla Felix contribute to the fictional or symbolic qualities of the bandit leader. Felix was a cognomen adopted by Roman generals and heads of state from at least the time of the Roman dictator Sulla, and had been used most recently by Severus's predecessor, Commodus. Felix advertised a leader as endowed with felicitas, good fortune that brings success not only for himself, but for those around him.Grünewald, Bandits in the Roman Empire, p. 111; Mireille Corbier, L'aerarium saturni et l'aerarium militare. Administration et prosopographie sénatoriale (Publications de l'École française de Rome, 1974), p. 425. On felicitas as a quality, see also H.S. Versnel, Triumphus: An Inquiry into the Origin, Development and Meaning of the Roman Triumph (Brill, 1970), pp. 343, 348, 361ff.; and J. Rufus Fears, "The Theology of Victory at Rome: Approaches and Problem," Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II.17.2 (1981), p. 746. "Bulla" recalls the bulbous amulet (bulla) worn by children and triumphing generals as a protective charm.Grünewald, Bandits in the Roman Empire, pp. 111–112.
Dio, a Roman senator, may have intended the name to be a further allusion to an intimidating speech recently made by Severus to the senate. 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. Bulla Felix is a model ruler and tactful advocate, uniting people to the cause and only taking a fair portion from the rich to distribute to the community, and distributing funds to creative members of society. He is cast as an avenger of those who suffered from the civil wars and heavy taxation. Dio encapsulates his perception of Severus by contrast with a deathbed anecdote in which the emperor is supposed to have told his sons to "enrich the soldiers, and scorn all other men".Cassius Dio 76.15.2; Grünewald, Bandits in the Roman Empire, pp. 114, 138.
Bulla was brought before the praetorian prefect Papinianus, who demanded to know why he was a bandit. "Well, why are you a prefect?" Bulla responded, implying that Papinianus himself was no more than a bandit.Thomas N. Habinek, The Politics of Latin Literature: Writing, Identity, and Empire in Ancient Rome (Princeton University Press, 1998), p. 69; Jill Harries, Law and Crime in the Roman World (Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 10. The encounter is a variation on a narrative theme found in other interrogations of a social renegade by an authority figure. Alexander the Great is supposed to have asked a captured pirate what drove him to harass the sea; the man replied, "The same thing that prompts you to harass the world. I do it with a little boat and am called a bandit; you do it with a big fleet, and are called emperor."Augustine, City of God 4.4, elaborating on a passage from Cicero, as cited by Habinek, The Politics of Latin Literature, p. 69. A similar story was told of the runaway slave Clemens, who was impersonating Agrippa Postumus and leading a band of rebels when he was captured and brought before Tiberius: the emperor asked how he had made himself into Agrippa, and the impostor is reported to have said, "The same way you become Caesar".Tacitus, Annales 2.40; Cassius Dio, 57.16.4; Habinek, The Politics of Latin Literature, p. 69.
A public announcement was made that Bulla Felix had been condemned to death in the arena by wild beasts (damnatio ad bestias). Without their charismaticFuhrmann, Policing the Roman Empire, p. 135. leader, his robber band simply broke up.Cassius Dio 77.10.7.
Bandits appear frequently in the fiction of late antiquity, such as Greek romance novels and the Metamorphoses of Apuleius. Latrones in literature are of two character types: common and despicable, or noble and just.Grünewald, Bandits in the Roman Empire, pp. 3, 7. The noble bandit, like Bulla Felix, typically can be captured only through treachery; ultimately, however, principled resistance is undone by corrupt authority.Grünewald, Bandits in the Roman Empire, p. 108. Dio writes about several glamorous or idealistic bandits, such as Corocotta, active in Roman Spain under Augustus, and a Claudius in Roman Judaea a few years before Bulla Felix.Grünewald, Bandits in the Roman Empire, p. 112. In Roman Palestine, Jewish bandits became symbols of peasant resistance.Richard A. Horsley, "Jesus and the Spiral of Violence: Popular Jewish Resistance in Roman Palestine" (Fortress Press, 1993), p. 37 (with comparison to Bulla Felix). The depiction of noble bandits by historians such as Dio was clearly influenced by fiction,Grünewald, Bandits in the Roman Empire, pp. 8–9. and the story of Bulla Felix seems designed to sway elite attitudes toward the grievances of the lower classes, as well as to express Dio's social criticisms on the theme of just and moral authority.Grünewald, Bandits in the Roman Empire, pp. 9, 117, 136.
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