Bulla Felix

Bulla Felix was a legendary Italian bandit leader active around 205–207 AD, during the reign of the Roman emperor Septimius Severus. He gathered a band of 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.

The story of Bulla Felix is told by the Greek historian and Roman senator Cassius Dio, and 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." Dio describes him as "never really seen when seen, never found when found, never caught when caught." The Latin name Bulla Felix means roughly "Lucky Charm," and he is likely to be a composite or historical fiction.

According to Dio, Bulla Felix operated an extensive intelligence network tracking travel and transport into the port at Brundisium and out of Rome. He gathered information on the size of the party making a trip, and what they were carrying. His band of 600 brigands included runaway slaves who had been mistreated, and a significant number of imperial freedmen, former slaves of the emperor's household who would have been skilled or educated, and who had been cheated of their compensation. 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). 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.

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