Lucius Cornelius Sulla was born in 138 BC in the impoverished and politically unaffected patrician family of Cornelius. Their political excommunication begins when Publius Cornelius Rufius is excluded from the Roman Senate because he possessed more copper engravings and vessels than the legal limit. Young Sula was given the opportunity to participate in the Roman political scene after the death of his stepmother and an older mistress who both left him a fortune. His military career began in 108 BC when he became quaestor under Gaius Marius. He achieved his first great success, and thus his fame, by resolving Jugurtha's war. He subsequently had a string of successes in conflict with the Cimbri and Teutons, and in Asia where his political career was also advancing. He was considered one of the most important links of the Social War that affected Rome in the period from 91 to 88 BC. This also secured him the position of consul for 88 BC. In the same year, Rome faced a new threat posed by King Mithridates VI. of Pon, who led the uprising in Asia Minor. Sula received authority over the army from the Senate in that war, but was soon left without it due to the conspiracy of Gaius Marius and the popular tribune of Publius Sulpicius Rufus. This marked the beginning of Sulla's first civil war. After achieving victory in it, Sulla heads east to go to war against Mithridates. That first war with Mithridates began in 89 BC and ended with peace in Dardanus in 85 BC and Sulla's victory. On his return to Rome, Sulla faced a new opposition from the populace party and re-entered the civil war, known as Sulla's second civil war. With the victory in this war, Sulla 81 BC becomes, for the first time in the history of Rome, a dictator for an indefinite period of time. He carried out reforms that restored power to the Senate, the optimates and the aristocracy, and limited that of the populace and the people's tribunes. His dictatorship lasted until 80 BC when he first became consul and then retired to Campania where he died in 79 BC from unknown diseases.