Sulla

Sulla received an extraordinary dictatorship in 82 BC with a mandate to make laws and reconstitute the republic. It lacked the ordinary short time limit, allowing him to reshape the Senate and reduce the tribunes' power amid violent proscriptions of his opponents. He eventually relinquished the office, but the institutional changes and coercive precedent outlasted his tenure. His resignation therefore cannot by itself be read as a restoration of the political order he had displaced.